Whatever Happened to Growing Up and Moving Out?

At the reception following Max's bar mitzvah, the 13-year-old's father raised the toast, "Today you become an adult … yeah, right." Everyone laughed, including Max, but clinical psychologists Joseph and Claudia Allen found the contrast between the traditional ceremony and the modern reality very pointed. Their book, Escaping the Endless Adolescence: How We Can Help Our Teenagers Grow Up Before They Grow Old, looks at why teenagers seem to be backing away from adulthood so often that the...