are millennials really more entitled/spoiled than other generations before them? Or did they get a horrific hand to play with (recession, more global competition than parents, cost of living going up before they grew up faster and larger than previous gens, lack of manufacturing jobs out there, etc)?
Either way, who is to blame?
What are we blaming Millennials or their parents for, again?
Where did the spoiled/entitled meme about millennials start anyway.
AFAICT, right about the time of the Occupy movement. How dare those spoiled brats venture to suggest that wealthy elites are to blame for anything! :mad:
I think Boomers and Gen Xers have a stereotyped view of Millennial’s upbringing: that they were all raised by helicopter parents, in sterile schools where everyone gets a trophy, self-esteem is valued above everything else, and everyone is a special snowflake with special needs. The Millenials were doomed (as far as coolness goes) the moment Barney the Dinosaur hit the air.
I think it is indisputable that there is a grain of truth behind the stereotype. Technology and media fear-mongering has certainly enabled and promoted over-protective parenting, although it has always existed. More emphasis has been placed on children’s self-esteems than in yesteryear–just look at all the anti-bullying efforts in schools. It certainly seems that the expansive definition of “special needs” in the educational setting is a fairly recent thing. I know no one talked about banning peanuts from the school cafeteria when I was a kid.
But I think it remains to be seen whether Millennials are spoiled and entitled. I certainly don’t see any evidence of it. More sensitive to -isms or perceptions of -isms than their predecessors, yes. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
No.
No.
For what?
Old people …
The usual. Mopery, lawn standing, listening to noise, wearing contemporary fashions.
I think I’ll blame you personally. It’s as good a choice as any.
“Millennials” is a broad brushstroke. It seems that officially it applies to current 12 year olds up through current 34 year olds, and of course of all ethnic and socoeconomic groups. Even limiting it to a ten year span is a varied group.
Generally though it seems that Whites of a narrower age range of Middle class or higher upbringing is the subgroup which claims to speak for and to represent the larger group, for both positive and negative aspects. White and non-White Millennials are however not in lockstep with each other on all issues, for example they differ in their view of the role of government, and they follow media differently. Personally I would not characterize that spokesperson sub-group as entitled or spoiled as much as more commonly resentful and cynical … and not without cause. Many of them will have less stable economic adulthoods than did their parents even with higher educational levels. The debt burden of getting the education was only a ticket to enter the game, a game that many will not be solid winners in. Their parents will live long enough, and spent enough providing their education as best they could, that there will little intergenerational wealth to them either, and that generation above them keeps working, occupying the higher level jobs they want … or retiring and sucking off the twin teats of Social Security and Medicare. It is a tough hand.
Well I’m a millennial and it seems in a lot of ways we are entitled in the “I want it and I want it now” sense. My wife and I live in a 5 bedroom house that is twice the size of any house I grew up in and her parents never even owned a house they lived in apartments or rented. If she can’t afford something she charges it, if something is on sale she has to buy it now even if she doesn’t have the money, don’t get me wrong she is smart and a hard worker but she has never had the sense of frugality of my parents. She wants a bigger house even though this one is huge and we don’t really have the money to go bigger. I try to tell her to focus on what we have not what we don’t but she always wants bigger and better, I know a lot of other millennial like this.
It still seems to me there are a lot of successful millennial out there, the ones that have a drive and ambition seem like they generally get ahead. I know many friends whose parents were millionaires, they’re parents would have put them through school anywhere, done anything for them to be a doctor or lawyer, whatever they wanted and they just vegetate, bombed out of school and wait tables and the parents pay all their living expenses and they still expect them to in their 30’s.
Others had wealthy parents and their siblings were bums like that while they took advantage and pursued higher education with the resources they did have and made something of themselves. Other friends came from nothing but got the scholarships and loans and had a plan and saw it through.
There is something to be said about jobs out there though, my Dad was an electrical worker and on his salary with my Mom not working they afforded a house and cars and kids. I’m working towards a job in the medical field but if I wanted the same job my Dad had at this day in age I’d have to go to a training school 120 miles away for 6 months, spend like 10k for tuition for and even then I probably wouldn’t get the job he had cause now they use subcontractors that don’t get paid as well, don’t get the pension, or the benefits, but its the same job he and my grandfather were just able to walk into out of high school with no experience or training.
Labeling a group may provide a convenient shortcut to describe a prevalent attitude that is found within a group, but it has always been ridiculous to claim that “the group” shares all those values or can be held accountable for any great or miserable events.
For example, Baby Boomers are held responsible by one poster on this board for having created a particular culture that they, in fact, inherited rather than created.
A popular theme among a number of people has been that the U.S. lost the Vietnam War because Boomers were too frightened or not sufficiently patriotic to fight it, yet half the names on the Vietnam Memorial are those of Boomers and polls taken during the war showed that support for the war ran slightly over 50% among Boomers throughout that period.
Similar nonsense has been leveled at what we now call “the Greatest Generation” and “Gen-X.” When I was 25, I was told by my 30-something boss that he despaired that “today’s kids” just did not have the same work ethic as we had. Today I work with a guy in his late 50s (so one of the “kids” condemned by my then boss), who says the same thing about the 20-somethings with whom we now work.
It is a silly game that makes no sense other than to let lazy people try to make sociological statements (and moral accusations) without taking the time or making the effort to actually study reality.
Wow. I think people are different, and trying to pigeonhole them into prescribed stereotypes is foolish. On the other hand, as you described above, I feel sorry for what you are going through.
The wonderful thing about millennials is that they view people as individuals and not as faceless members of a generation.
If it is determined that they aren’t “more entitled/spoiled than other generations before them”, then what exactly are you blaming them for?
And then we trot out this quote attributed to Socrates by Plato:
I think much of the ‘anti-Millennial’ feeling, and probably much of the ‘kids these days’ attitude that seems to be an inevitable consequence of aging is based in nostalgia for lost youth along with failure to comprehend that things today are really massively different than they were 50 years ago.
Anyone using their experience of youth/young adulthood from the 40s/50s/60s/70s as some kind of realistic comparison or guidance for people of the same age in the 80s/90s/00s has no idea what they’re talking about (and that’s just using one variable, time. Throw in things like race, gender, and location and the foolishness trench grows deeper).
Every generation universally has expressed their contempt or dissatisfaction with “kids these days.” This is a trend that goes back millennia. Every generation is weaker / dumber / lazier than the one that came before it.
Here’s something to consider: The longest war in America’s history has been fought entirely with a volunteer army. The weak, lazy, and coddled “Millenials” joined the Army knowing with great certainty that they WOULD, inevitably, be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The rate of deployments has recently slowed down, but nonetheless we continue to deploy and young people continue to enlist. If Millenials are weak and lazy, I certainly haven’t seen it.
This.
This is cherry picking, though. For every Millennial who is willing to enlist, there are probably several or many not willing to.
Socrates may have had a point. It wasn’t too long afterwards that Athenian hegemony crumbled. Sometimes grumpy old men have legitimate complaints about the younger generation. I suspect for the most part older generations are simply misguided about the youth around them, but sometimes they get it correct. However, as with the boy who cried wolf we have become wary of such cries. I refuse to believe that every older generation are **entirely **wrong about the younger generation.