The Social Clock: Defying the Deadlines

Have you ever found yourself mapping out your life? Perhaps, you’re even creating a mental checklist with boxes like married by thirty or kids by thirty-five? Or, if you’re at an earlier stage in life, boxes like get your first kiss by sixteen or move out by twenty might be bugging you right now. Regardless of what form they take; these thoughts are all products of the Social Clock.

But What is the Social Clock?

The Social Clock (Neugarten, 1976) is a culturally imposed timeline of milestones to be reached by a certain age. Think of things like getting a degree, starting a family, buying a house, retiring, etc. The list could go on forever, but when we think of these things, there’s often an age we attach to them. Of course, people can do these things at any age, but, collectively, we decide what the “normal” age is to accomplish these goals. 

So, why do we listen to The Social Clock? Doesn’t it seem a little silly that we plan our lives around an arbitrary timeline that’s been laid out for us by someone else? It’s simple. We have a mantra in our genetics that chants “Adapt to survive. Adapt to survive. Adapt to survive.” We can’t help it. 

In modern times, however, such mantra has been translated to “Fit in to survive.” It’s natural when we find ourselves surrounded by a certain culture, whether it is by choice or circumstance, we feel that nagging desire to fit in. So, in order to do so, we mirror the behavior of those around us. For instance, we haul ourselves through many caffeine-fueled all-nighters and get our degree at twenty-two; we get married to our high school sweethearts at twenty-four; 3) we scrape together enough money for that down payment and buy a house at thirty. 

The thing is, when we accomplish these goals by the times we hope to, we feel relief—relief that we aren’t the odd one out. We didn’t end up the sad old spinster. We traded our customer service jobs for big-girl (or big-boy) jobs. We made it out of our parents’ basements. We sighed with bliss at the reassurance of normalcy. But what happens when we don’t accomplish a goal on time? What happens if we are the odd one out?

When Things Don't Go as Planned

Here lies the dark side of The Social Clock. Sometimes its tick can be impossible to ignore. We feel pressured by the timeline. We feel anxious about accomplishing these goals. We feel shame for not having reached them in time. We hang ourselves with the standards we set too high. We are left wondering—when we fail to meet a deadline, when we don’t find our soulmate by thirty, when we drop out of college, when we still work at our dead-end job, what happens to us?

The answer is surprisingly uncomplicated: NOTHING. Nothing happens. The world doesn’t end. You don’t curl up and die. You move on. You stand up, dust yourself off, and keep walking on the path you choose. You will reach your goals when you are ready to reach them. The message here is not to give up and stop working toward your goals. It’s to cut yourself some slack when things don’t go exactly as planned. In the meantime, pencil in another box on your checklist—be kinder to yourself. 

Reference

Neugarten, Bernice L, et al. “Age Norms, Age Constraints, and Adult Socialization.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 70, no. 6, 1965, pp. 710–717. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2774397, https://doi.org/10.2307/2774397.

Alana Petrilla is a student at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, currently pursuing a degree in Psychology. She is also a freelance writer whose skills range from creative to academic writing. View her portfolio here: https://msha.ke/hollow_heart/.