There may be a time in the future when kids never leave the nest at all.

They’ll marry at around age 50, taking their AARP-eligible spouse with them into the basement.

They’ll have their first real job in their 60s, after several decades of figuring out who they are.

And in their 70s, well — they’ll still be dependent on good ol’ Ma and Pa, who in all likelihood will still be around.

Here in this land of opportunity, the opportunity is to stay dependent forever — and  be a modern-day Peter Pan who ages physically but remains a dependent child mentally, psychologically, socially, and intellectually.

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Case in point: Many kids today are putting off getting their driver’s licenses, preferring instead to book an Uber, call a taxi, or ask their parents or friends if they can “grab a ride.”

A study out this year from the University of Michigan found that the percentage of those ages 16 to 44 with driver’s licenses has decreased significantly over the past several decades. It’s been particularly pronounced within the youngest part of that group. The percentages of people ages 20 to 24 who had licenses “in 1983, 2008, 2011 and 2014 were 91.8 percent, 82 percent, 79.7 percent, and 76.7 percent, respectively.”

Today the number of teen drivers is at an all-time low, the Federal Highway Administration has reported. It says the U.S. now has the fewest number of 16-year-old drivers than at any other time since the 1960s.

Of the 8.5 million people — aged 19 and younger — who had a driver’s license in 2014, just over one million were aged 16 and younger.

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[lz_infobox]”Communications technology, which provides young people with new social networking and recreational possibilities, has become a substitute for some car trips,” said the authors of a recent report, Transportation and the New Generation.[/lz_infobox]

Driving this change from the days when getting a license was a big milestone in life has been a fresh crop of parental pushovers. The title of a 2002 book by clinical psychologist Anthony Wolfe — “Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall” — offers evidence of adult wimpiness, said Naomi Schafer Riley in the New York Post.

“The fact that [teens] are hormonal and obnoxious is nothing new. But parents’ reaction is. When confronted with the question in the title, a surprising number of them will say, ‘Sure.’ Whether it’s because we want to shelter them from the harsh realities of walking someplace or riding their bikes, or whether it’s because we’re just pushovers, we have become our kids’ chauffeurs.”

In some cases, to be sure, it’s a question of time and of logistics.

“I couldn’t get my license when I was legally able to because my sports schedule was so intense,” one high school junior who lives outside Boston told LifeZette. “Now they make you do more driving hours and more classroom time in order to get your license, so it was all frustrating. I felt like an idiot for not having my license,” the young man added. “And my mom was driving me anywhere I need to go, because she knew I was doing all I can.”

He paused, grinning widely. “I have my license now, though!”

But time constraints and schedules don’t tell the whole story.

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A young woman in Westchester County, New York, north of Manhattan, refused to get her license during high school and instead chose to walk everywhere or be picked up by friends. “She had no interest at all in getting behind the wheel,” said her mother. “And I was not about to make it easy for her. She needed to take the initiative — but didn’t.”

The young woman finally got her license a few years after graduating from college.

Research bears out the time factor as an impediment to obtaining a license. In an earlier study by the same University of Michigan researchers, they asked adults ages 18 to 39 without driver’s licenses why they didn’t have them. The top three reasons were: “Too busy or not enough time to get a driver’s license” (37 percent); “owning and maintaining a vehicle is too expensive” (32 percent); and “able to get transportation from others” (31 percent).

A young adult must be ready to drive, mentally and emotionally, too.

“I didn’t get my license until I was 19,” a mortgage professional from Boston, Massachusetts, told LifeZette. “Two of my very best friends were killed in a high-speed collision when we were 16, and it was a dark period where I was just not ready to drive. I waited until I felt like I could get behind the wheel with a positive attitude and keep me and everyone else on the road safe.”

“My parents,” he added, “were totally supportive. They thought it was in everyone’s best interests not to push the issue, in this instance.”

Then again, maybe today’s parents need to engage in a little more pushing — as in, right out of the house and into the driver’s seat. It could be good for a person.