An ethnological look at the issue of prolonged adolescence

In our environment there exists a special kind of intergenerational connectedness within the family in the form of a strong commitment of the parents to support their children in the course of their entire life (financial assistance, paying for education, providing for housing/shared housing, attending to and care of offspring). The Socialist system had recognized this role of the family and the social care was directed towards the family (allocation of flats according to the number of members of the household, cheap holidays for employee families provided by trade unions etc) In the turbulent times of the post-socialist period, social care and safety from the previous Socialist system vanished. The family became the most important and only source of support for young people. This led to so-called extended childhood or delayed growing up, which is expanding so as to involve increasingly more generations and age groups, including even persons from 16 to 35 years of age.