衡量成年的新方法(英汉双语版).docVIP

New Ways To Gauge What Grown-Up Means 衡量成年的新方法 Twenty-seven-year-old Trish Gallagher is very clear about the milestones that made her think, Finally, Im an adult. One was paying for her first solo vacation in 2010 to visit a college friend in San Francisco. Another was buying her first dog, a husky-hound puppy, at a shelter and raising him to age 4?, says the Fairbanks, Alaska, cartographer. The third: Getting kicked off [her] parents insurance into the shark-infested waters of managing her own medical bills. 27岁的特里什?加拉格尔(Trish Gallaghe)是阿拉斯加费尔班克斯(Fairbanks)的一名制图师，她非常明确是什么让她认为“我终于是一个成年人了”。她说，一个标志是2010年她第一次独自在假期去拜访旧金山的一个大学好友，并自己支付旅行费用。另一个标志是在一家宠物收容所买下她的第一只狗──一只小哈士奇猎犬，并将它养大，现在已有四岁半了。第三个标志是：“与父母的医保计划脱钩”，自己应对自己的医疗费用。 Nowhere on her radar screen are such traditional rites of passage as buying a house or getting married─or even purchasing her own cellphone plan. For her generation, Ms. Gallagher says, the milestones are very individualistic. 买房子或结婚这样的传统成人仪式是不在她考虑范围之内的──甚至也不包括自己购买手机套餐。加拉格尔说，对于她这代人来说，“这种标志是非常个人化的”。 As the oldest members of the Millennial generation enter their early 30s, psychologists and market researchers are identifying the new and distinctive ways this group, the largest demographic cohort in U.S. history, defines adulthood. Many remain closer to their parents than past generations, still vacationing together, shopping together and even wearing the same clothing brands. But Millennials, usually defined as born between 1981 and the early 2000s, are less likely than ever to follow past generations stair-step path to marriage, a house and kids. 千禧世代中最年长的一批人如今已经30岁出头，心理学家和市场研究人员发现，这一美国历史上人口最多的群体定义成年有他们独特的新方法。比起过去年代的人，他们中许多人与父母保持着更亲近的关系，他们仍然与父母一起度假、购物、甚至穿同样的服装品牌。但千禧世代──通常被定义为在1981年至2000年代初出生的人──沿袭以前年代的人结婚、买房、生孩子的阶梯式人生道路的可能性更低。 Instead, topping their list of adult milestones are more amorphous goals such as accepting responsibility for yourself and making your own decisions about, say, what car to buy or whether to take a job in a different city, says Jeffrey