‘I Don't Want to Commit Myself Yet’: Young People's Life Concepts

Abstract

In modem times, the human biography has become a project and the status of adolescents and young adults has changed. Young people do not automatically grow up within a framework which makes their biography a ‘normal’ adult biography, but instead, youth and adulthood acquire new varieties of significance for the subjects. Both the structure and the content of status passages in the life-course are affected by these changes. Status passages have changed structurally, they show a tendency towards synchronicity instead of linearity and have become reversible. Adolescents and young adults develop life concepts and attempt to direct the content and complexity of their lives: at the same time, they are forced to adapt to the constantly changing demands of their environment (especially the labour market). They have to take advantage of training and labour market opportunities, but must also combine these choices with decisions about personal matters so as to develop well-organized life concepts. ‘I don't want to commit myself yet’ is a strategy of action which expresses the problems young people have in coping with this task. In this article empirical biographical material from a youth project in the Netherlands is used to demonstrate the manner in which young people realize their life paths and project them into an open future. In doing so, a distinction is made between ‘trendsetters’ whose life concepts involve ‘choice biographies’ and those who are oriented towards a ‘normal biography’, especially concerning areas of life such as training and ideas about the future balance between ‘working and living’.