Redefining adulthood
The norms Gen Z teens and adults say they'll continue to reject: marriage, 9-to-5 jobs, and political correctness.
Young adults are drinking less and having less sex. Getting married later in life, if at all. Rejecting workplace culture. And breaking from establishment party politics. Gen Z is known to buck the status quo.
Understanding this, I asked Gen Zers to tell us the norms they predict their generation will push back against even more this year.
Here’s what I heard: Traditional life milestones and default timelines toward adulthood are a relic of the past.
“I think that a lot of Gen Zers reject the idea of having to have a ‘regular’ office job,” one 18-year-old shared.
Another teen predicted that “moving out of your parents’ house at 18/immediately after high school” will be less commonplace.
These replies come from The Up and Up’s 2026 prediction listening sessions and Reality Check. Our respondents ranged from a wide array of backgrounds, but the norms they expect their generation to reject fall into a few clear categories:
Traditional life milestones and a ‘default’ timeline
Higher education
Workplace culture
Social etiquette and empathy
Political or cultural orthodoxy
We heard from nearly 50 young people ages 16-26. That’s a big age range and includes some of the oldest and youngest members of this generation — those in Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 respectively, who grew up in entirely different cultural contexts: pre and post-Trump, pre and post-Covid, pre and post-TikTok or ChatGPT. But despite their many differences, their lives have been similarly shaped by domestic crises and hyper-partisanship, economic instability, geopolitical conflict, the rise of social media, AI, a growing gender gap, and a global pandemic.
As more of Gen Z ages into college, the workforce, consumer base, and electorate, it’s necessary to understand how, and why, their worldview differs from past generations of students, employees, and leaders — and where they seek to differentiate themselves as they continue to chart their own paths and form their own identities.
And what I’ve realized is that the places young Americans see themselves and their peers rejecting tradition today reveal what could be some of the most lasting impacts of growing up in the 2010s and 2020s.
🔑 What You’ll Unlock: Highlights from this edition
The norms Gen Z expects their friends to reject even more this year
Why they feel that way
And what that means for the future of adulthood