Your post reminded me of this 2007 David Brooks article.
The decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood is a sensible response to modern conditions.
www.nytimes.com
So maybe the conversation (for those interested in this topic) can continue here.
I'm not a subscriber so would you mind copying the article? I'm curious what Brooks means by "wandering." Like literally travelling and drifting around? Just avoiding commitments? Depending on how you look at it a decade is a while.
There are multiple factors as to why younger adults are gaining independence later than previous generations. Economic conditions are the biggest one. I think it was another Brooks article you posted about the loss of good paying jobs for men out of high-school over the last decades. They say 1/2 of millenials live at home? I seriously doubt it's by choice.
Since the 80's there's been an attitude among middle to upper-class parents that it was better to hold off having children until after college- which results in later marriages and smaller families. Clearly some women in the 20th century felt they were pressured to start a family still in their teens and wanted more opportunity for their daughters although I would say it can be difficult to qualify happiness. There must be consequences to purposefully breaking up what were established patterns based on human nature (like falling in love when you're young).
Overall I think parents today are more "soft" than ever before, better friends with their children and more likely to accommodate these late-bloomers. Again there's positive and negative to all of it. Not that I was around but from what I've gathered is it was after WW2 that the true dramatic societal shifts occurred making today's trends possible. There was a heavy divide between people that grew up without electricity mostly on farms and those who came to be known as baby-boomers.
At this rate future families will all be sitting around doing bong rips together like an in-home EDM festival, happily collecting their UBI.