Dr. Laura discourages callers from marrying young, usually by citing statistics on divorce rates, and then talking about how young people in their late teens and early 20s still need to grow up and find out who they are, before they can be ready for marriage. What might this mean? Marriage should not be an escape for people, especially women, who don't know what to do with their lives. Nor should it be a way of finding some sort of emotional security that is lacking due to poor relationships in the past, including a bad relationship with their father. Is Dr. Laura encouraging a sort of individualism with her advice? Or is she just acting the part of a value-neutral psychologist or counselor, and not giving moral advice or vocational guidance? Young people do need to sort out their desires, which may be conflicting--they need to prioritize, harmonize and reconcile their desires into some sort of coherent life-plan. Dr. Laura will encourage those who think they want to get married to put children first and plan accordingly, but she doesn't give much more guidance beyond that. What is missing is an emphasis on community and social obligations. Rather, it is advice geared to those living in America as it is currently and want to maintain the American way of life. Hence, those who are secure in their vocation and identity only need to worry about finding the right spouse--their youthfulness is not a problem, since they have already attained some measure of maturity.

Recently, I have heard her say that [most] people will not be ready for marriage until they are 28 or 29. Perhaps that is an accurate observation of American young adults. But does her encouragement of young people to discover who they are lend itself to an extreme, and undermine her opposition to [radical] feminism? Might not the American individualism and radical feminism share some common assumptions about how life should be lived? Dr. Laura does think that what really matters in life is loving and giving to others, but does one really need 8, 9, 10 years in order to know one's self in this way? Gaining emotional and character stability so that one can love others well shouldn't require that much time. But she does seem to think that people should try out different activities and see what their interests are. To an extent this is necessary for fleshing out one's vocation, but too often experimentation covers up indecision and a lack of resolve. It can potentially reinforce a failure to recognize one's limitations. (Though of these too Dr. Laura tries to make callers aware.)

If instead one concentrates on fleshing out one's vocation, anxieties about what kind of job one should get and so on should be lessened, since it will be shown to be of secondary importance for most people. After all, given the current political economy, most work will not be that fulfilling. The acquisition of the sort of interests and hobbies and leisurely activities, as well as domestic skills, that people need to be prepared for married life should begin when one is still an adolescent. One needs a certain kind of independence from one's parents in order to become a mature adult, but this needs to be balanced against one's obligations to others. Otherwise, I can see how Dr. Laura's advice could be [mis-?]construed to give support to adultlescence, in the name of fostering 'independence' and 'identity-seeking'.