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Callum: Hello and [bad word] to 6 Minute English, I'm Callum Robertson and with me
today is Kate. Hello Kate.
Kate: Hello Callum.
Callum: Now today a subject which I am far too old to know anything about and that's a
quarter-life crisis. Are you familiar with this term Kate?
Kate: Yes, I think I have heard it. Though there is a much [bad word] expression
'a mid-life crisis'
Callum: Yes, I'm more familiar with that expression too! But quarter-life crises was a
new one for me, I only heard it for the first time this weekend just gone. Today
we'll be learning a bit more about this expression. But first, as always, a
question. There was a recent survey which asked people in Britain when they
thought middle-age began. What did the survey say? Does middle-age begin
at…
a: 35 years old?
b: 40 years old?
c: 45 years old ?
Kate?
Kate: Well I think people tend to think they're staying younger much longer these
days. So I'm going to go for c: 45 years old.
Callum: We'll find out if you're right later on.
What is a quarter-life crisis? Well this [bad word] from a more established phrase, which we were talking about before, a mid-life crisis. So first, let's look
at that phrase. Kate, what can you tell us about the meaning of that phrase – a
mid-life crisis?
Kate: Well, a mid-life crisis describes the emotions of someone who is in their 40s or
50s and who realises that they are more than half way through their life. In other words they are beginning to realise that they are getting old and are closer to death than to birth. For some this causes them to [bad word] depressed or to look for ways to recapture their youth, to be young again. So you might see a middle-aged man buying a leather jacket and a motorbike, or leaving his wife for a much younger woman. These are some examples of what people have
described as symptoms of a mid-life crisis. But essentially is a worry and fear
of getting old.
Callum: From your examples there it seems that it's only something that affects men. Is
that right?
Kate: No, I think women are affected by it too. I think everyone worries about getting
old and [bad word] middle-aged and never going to be young again.
Callum: So if that's a mid-life crisis, what's a quarter-life crisis? Damian Barr has
written a book about the subject and in an interview with the BBC he explains
what it is.
Damian Barr
It's that kind of, you know, people asking who they are, where they're going that are doing it in their twenties rather than their forties. lot of people being really depressed, very anxious and very kind of status conscious in a way that their parents certainly were not.
Callum: Kate, what was he saying there?
Kate: He was saying that it was something that happened in people's 20s rather than
40s. Young people being worried about who they are and what they were doing.
Callum: He also mentioned that people were 'status conscious in a way that there
parents weren't'. What does he mean by that, being 'status conscious'?
Kate: I think he was saying that young people feel a pressure that their parents didn't - a pressure to have the latest gadgets or most fashionable clothes, for example. These things seem to be more important now than in the past. Young people are more 'status conscious'. These material things are seen to give status.
Callum: Let's listen again
Damian Barr
It's that kind of, people asking who they are, where they're going that are doing it in their
twenties rather than their forties. lot of people being really depressed, very anxious and very kind of status conscious in a way that their parents certainly were not.
...