So you think millennials and gen Z are entitled, limp wristed, pronoun toting, victimhood mentality having soy bois?
Well you’re right… but who do you think raised them?
So maybe before you go shitting on the youngest 2 generations, take a good long look in the mirror at the vastly superior generations that allowed the Xim/Xers to win the culture war.
I’m looking squarely at you, Boomers and Gen X. Take some responsibility for being the only generation to have it better than both their parents and children, and for creating to social media matrix/hellscape your kids are addicted to, respectively.
Sincerely,
A millennial that’s trying to clean up your fucking mess.
I don’t buy the generation thing. Plenty of millenials and what ever are decent, solid, and well raised. They’ll go on to do manly shit and shape the world in their own image and everything else every other generation has done. Of course there are the freaks and fruitcakes that every generation has- the soft handed, soft headed pussies and whatnot that people point to and decry failure. I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to them. They haven’t done anything to earn it other than make noise on the internet and dye their hair a stupid color.
I’d rather spend time on guys like the one kid at work. At a company I helped build. He shows up every day and puts in honest effort. He pays attention and wants to learn. He says thank you for showing him all of the cumulative tricks of the trades that you learn in 30 some years of doing shit.
One guy, when I jumped back in to the crew- he was a winey, weak, lazy dumbass- thought I would be someone to commiserate with. So he’s telling me about how this is bullshit, and why don’t we do X the way he thinks. I looked at him and said “You could only hope to be successful enough to eventually build something that an employee of yours thinks sucks, because you definitely don’t have the balls to do it.”. And thats about as much as he ever got. He was gone soon enough. Off to go suck out loud somewhere else.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is let people fail.
I believe in personal responsibility. That goes for all parties. It really chaps me when people say “I am this way because…”. Once you are an adult, you can change your ways and learn from mistakes of your own and those of others. I appreciate the people that say “I can” or “I will” rather than give reasons of why they can’t do something.
For example…
I don’t think they had it better nor do I think kids/young adults should make excuses for being addicted to anything.
The whole soft thing is overblown anyways. Imagine a westward expansion settler measuring the “toughness” of literally anyone after the Industrial Revolution. I don’t care who you are, Lewis and Clark would’ve found you to be an absolute pussy.
Millenials would likely fail miserably in that environment. So would genX most likely, and a handful of generations before them. Hell, most people back then failed. Very high infant death rates and early life expectancies. Maybe the issue is that we’ve erected guardrails to protect against natural selection and the people who should die off don’t, and continue to be a voice and influence.
And the settler would likely adapt to running water, electricity and most other basic needs being casually available as well.
We romanticize “toughness” of prior generations without considering they didn’t have a choice, and were always trying to live their “best lives” too.
There are still athletes out there, outdoors people, mma and bjj have replaced karate et cetera. I don’t think viral internet personas are truly indicative of the larger picture.
Anyways, here is an interesting read on the matter:
I agree with personal responsibility as well, but I’m sure we both agree on my counterpoint here: the way a parent raises a child has a significant impact in the outcome of the child. Millennials didn’t implement participation trophies - their parents did.
My parents let me have instagram, facebook, myspace, etc at 15 years old with no restrictions. The only reason I didn’t have them sooner is because they weren’t really prevalent until then.
It’s like letting your teenagers smoke crack in your house, then putting the impotus on them for being addicted to it as an adult.
I don’t excuse personal responsibility, but I also recognize not being set up for success - which neither of these generations has been set up for.
I mean when you take it to an extreme, I’ll give you that. Certainly, the way you are raised can ‘shape you’ but when the going gets tough the tough will prevail. Those that look for excuses never will.
I don’t think it’s the parents but more so the society as a whole and the technology revolution. Social media constantly portrays inaccurate happiness. For example, several of our couple friends are on the verge of divorce but if you look at their social media, they project a picture-perfect life. Its expectations being higher than reality due to media and social media portrayals. The article @Njord posted is pretty spot on too if you give it a read.
Are you prepared to do the things we did to make a life? Such as:
Got married early, 2 incomes
Serve in the Military? VA Mortgage, GI Bill and Life Coaching
Move for a job? Maybe in a place you prefer not to be for 2 to 4 years?
Not fly for a trip until we were married 15 years. Every trip was a road trip.
Vacation? Didn’t take one of those for 10 to 12, every trip to visit family.
Maybe it is the life choices you are making that create the too tough environment. There are numerous ways to have a better life than your parents, but maybe not in the neighborhood you want at 30 at a 6 figure income. Or a 4 BR house with a pool at 28.
My observation has been that when you say that your generation values life/work balance so they won’t move, work on vacations, not answer the phone after work and pick careers that are fun, something is going to give. There are no so nice things that come with that salary and responsibility.
Every generation has their share of entitled, limp wristed, pronoun toting, victimhood mentality having soy bois. The idea that millennials and gen Z are somehow worse has always cracked me up.
Who do they think fought the two longest wars in US history, boomers? Lol.
My late teens early 20s were: 9/11 → Marine Corps. → entering the civilian work force during the worst recession in US history. This is the story (minus the service) for most millennials born in the late 80s.
I’m just glad we got into the housing market in the teens and aren’t trying to buy a house now. Everything is expensive as fuck. I doubt I’ll ever see a dime of social security or the thousands I’ve spent in FICA taxes because I’d never be unemployed for more than 5 minutes.
I send my kids to private school because public education is now a complete dumpster fire. How many years of lost growth has my 401(k) had at this point? I don’t even know.
I don’t think the idealogy of toughing it out is lost, there are just different battles today. It’s gotten “cozier” for people, a little bit “too easy” the previous generations would say. These things then present new problems, and how problems scale in seriousness is directly relative to the situation that you’ve always known. A family living in famine isn’t going to moan that the toast is a little burnt, but the young chef who messes up the biggest dinner of their career is going to be distraught.
I get why older generations think younger generations are too soft, but the generation before the older generation thought the same thing and this has always been the way. The things that make us feel weak or strong will always change, invalidating these things because they seem ridiculous based on the World we or anyone else grew up in is simply not the right way to think about it.
was enlisted.
got married at 21. Already have a child, considering a second one.
have 2 houses.
have moved across country and maxed out 2 credit cards to support a 6 figure salary without a degree.
am now working full time and in college full time.
Congrats. It gets better, you have kids you will have debt. At least at first. The time with young kids the worst. If you can pick up some education, it would help later when your body isn’t as resilient.
You are well ahead of your peers. Don’t try to master everything at once, hopefully it is a long life. You are taking the right steps.
It’s more than that though. I do agree that younger generations are putting more into time away from work - as they should.
There is clear data though that shows that cost of living (mostly driven by housing) has gone up significantly more and at a higher rate than wage increases. Relatively speaking, there is now less buying power at a given time adjusted salary.
So, things aren’t just messed up because of “lack of work ethic” which is a catch phrase that for some reason in the US functions as absolution to the created problems.
It’s well known at this point that the happiest most fulfilled people live and work in countries that have shorter work weeks and better life balance where ones status isn’t solely driven off how many zeros a bank account has (look at the statistics on Denmark for example). Maybe busting ass harder for less buying power is now much less appealing since it doesn’t produce the same outcome as it did in the 2 generations immediately post WWII.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is let people fail.
