# The Truth About Millennials **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 26, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716 "2016-05-26T00:25:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/41 "2016-05-30T07:46:46Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > If you’re not persuaded that “safe places” are useful, why should we provide them? > > Food poisoning and measles are not the same thing as hurt fweeings. I’m a Boomer, and the older generation was convinced we were all hippie freaks who went to communes and smoked LSD. And in fact more people did those things than rioted for safe spaces. (Oh, no riots? We had them. I was even in one.) Most of these things were more harmful to ourselves and others than even the most extreme of safe spaces. It is too laugh that anyone considers us as exemplars of a generation. And we had it a hell of a lot easier. Very few of us lived in fear of college loans or never getting a decent job. Both my kids are millennials, from the definition above, and both of them and pretty much all their friends worked damn hard in a less forgiving environment than we did. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/42 "2016-05-30T08:09:48Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > If you’re not persuaded that “safe places” are useful, why should we provide them? > > Food poisoning and measles are not the same thing as hurt fweeings. I see your safe places and raise you blue laws, blasphemy laws, and the war on Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/43 "2016-05-30T10:43:25Z")
> [@Wolf333](#): > > I see your safe places and raise you blue laws, blasphemy laws, and the war on Christmas. Blue laws\*, blasphemy laws, etc were laws that legitimately reflected the social mores of the time, and were supported by the majority of the poplulation. Even complaining about the war on Christmas is an (almost!) legitimate complaint , a major change for half the population, who see undesirable (to them) social changes happening, and are afraid that their long-standing traditions are being eliminated from their lives. As times changed, the blue laws were changed. And the role of Christmas in public is changing,too. These are issues that can be discussed by intellgent people. But demanding safe places and trigger warnings are stupid whines by selfish crybabies, who think the world revolves around theim. * * * - (for non-americans: these were laws a generation ago, requiring businesses to close on Sabbath, i.e. Sunday) ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/44 "2016-05-30T12:28:25Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > I’m a Gen-Xer, and I recall that our generation was viewed as slackers, unmotivated and directionless. We came of age during a fairly peaceful (no causes to fight) and prosperous (no real economic blips) time. > > Young folks today are facing more economic uncertainty, more difficulty affording college, a lot of political instability…and they’re seriously the most instantly analyzed generation of people to ever walk the planet. There have been blogs and websites devoted to dissecting their actions, motivations, achievements, etc.-- as it has happened for the past 20+ years. > > And of \*course \*previous generations think they’re lazy and entitled. That’s what previous generations have always done. My nearly-70-year-old father recently explained to me that the reason millenials are in the bag for Bernie Sanders is because they’re a bunch of lazy shits who just want free stuff given to them. Never mind the fact that the only millenials he actually knows are his step-grandchildren who are struggling to figure out a way to afford college right now, and my nephew who couldn’t afford college so he enlisted in the Navy. Not a lazy one in the bunch, but all five don’t have as clear a path to a nice career as he did or I did. Yet, he believes their generation is lazy and entitled because…well, I guess that’s what old guys do. Admitting the Boomers and even Gen-Xers have largely left these kids a fucked up place with shrinking opportunity is just too hard to admit. I mostly agree. As I said upthread, I remember when I was a kid, the older generation said that we were a bunch of lazy slackers. Even though I worked my ass off cutting grass for 10 hours per day most summer days, for some reason every time I would pick up a video game controller, my grandfather would just shake his head and talk about how the whole world was going to hell. The struggles that young people today face are certainly a worthy topic of debate, but (again, from my own observations, not data) these kids are fucking clueless as to how to meet those challenges. They don’t even realize that there are challenges to meet. The baseline of existence for them is driving newer model cars, taking foreign vacations, having the latest IPhone model, and living in a home with high speed internet, satellite television, and a spacious kitchen with granite countertops and built in cooking gadgets like grills, despite the fact that most do not know how to cook and bring take out food home every day. This, again, is the baseline of existence and simply demanded. That does have a lot to do with their support of Bernie Sanders (again, from my biased observations). They get out of school and make $30k per year because they majored in philosophy or minority studies, never thought about how to use that degree, and are just gobsmacked that they cannot afford to take a 2 week vacation to Paris. It’s someone’s fault that they cannot do that, but they can’t even pinpoint who that might be. And I really think that is my generation’s fault for spoiling these kids. It comes from a desire to provide things for our kids but we do not consider the implications of spoiling them. For example, my daughter is almost 13 years old. She plays volleyball for her school. She’s a great kid, always polite to everyone, makes good grades, does her chores, etc. This winter she wanted to play on a travelling volleyball team. Registration cost: $1200. Travel to six cities in three months. Of course, since I have become a spoiled rotten asshole, and because my income can support it, we don’t stay in Super 8 or Motel 6, or even Days Inn like we did on my family vacations. We stay at the Hyatt with valet parking and bell hops. Easy $700 to $900 per trip. And all of her friends are coming along, even those parents who I know cannot afford it, and they all stay at the Hyatt because everyone else is staying there. Now, I didn’t mind doing that for her. Like I said, she is a good kid, I have the money, and she is learning valuable life lessons in these competitions. But if I look back, my parents would have shit a brick if I even asked to join this team. A quick and dirty calculation shows that the value of money in 1987 is about twice what it is today. So, the equivalent to me would have been to ask Dad if I could join a travelling baseball team, cost $600, and an additional six trips at a cost of $350 to $450 six times in three months. Honestly, I would have gotten in trouble for even asking. He would have told me that in his day, $600 would pay for two years of college tuition, and that if I wanted to play baseball, I could just as easily go down to the park and play it. Not every day, of course, because there was grass to be cut, but Sunday afternoons after church were okay. I enjoy providing my daughter with opportunities that I never would have had, but I also fear that I will make her feel entitled to these things. I think this thread is a very good one, because there is certainly an element of truth to the fact that the next generation has (my observations) been exposed to a very comfortable lifestyle before day one of work. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/45 "2016-05-30T12:42:50Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > . . . Honestly, I would have gotten in trouble for even asking. He would have told me that in his day, $600 would pay for two years of college tuition, and that if I wanted to play baseball, I could just as easily go down to the park and play it. Not every day, of course, because there was grass to be cut, but Sunday afternoons after church were okay. > > I enjoy providing my daughter with opportunities that I never would have had, but I also fear that I will make her feel entitled to these things. I think this thread is a very good one, because there is certainly an element of truth to the fact that the next generation has (my observations) been exposed to a very comfortable lifestyle before day one of work. Yes, but isn’t it true that (for at least the last couple of centuries) each generation has take for granted material prosperity that the previous generation would have regarded as exceptional? I grew up in the 1970s in a family of five kids where we each had our own bicycles and (eventually) our own bedrooms. My parents did not grow up in those circumstances but, as young adults, they were able to travel for recreation to continental Europe (from Ireland, which is something my _grandparents_ could never have afforded. My grandparents, in turn, took for granted things which my great-grandparents would have considered remarkable. And so on. And of course it’s also telling that your daughter is growing up in a world where joining a travelling baseball team is more affordable that two years of college tuition, whereas for your father the reverse was the case. This isn’t something that has impacted on your daughter yet, but of course it will. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/46 "2016-05-30T12:47:20Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Blue laws\*, blasphemy laws, etc were laws that legitimately reflected the social mores of the time, and were supported by the majority of the poplulation. > Even complaining about the war on Christmas is an (almost!) legitimate complaint , a major change for half the population, who see undesirable (to them) social changes happening, and are afraid that their long-standing traditions are being eliminated from their lives. > > As times changed, the blue laws were changed. And the role of Christmas in public is changing,too. > These are issues that can be discussed by intellgent people. > > But demanding safe places and trigger warnings are stupid whines by selfish crybabies, who think the world revolves around theim. > > * * * > > - (for non-americans: these were laws a generation ago, requiring businesses to close on Sabbath, i.e. Sunday) So whining and being selfish by older generations was okay because the majority did it, thus the generation was not whiners. But a very small number of a generation doing something that you think is whining defines that generation as whiners. And this is not a whoosh? ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/47 "2016-05-30T12:48:37Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Blue laws\*,[…] > > - (for non-americans: these were laws a generation ago, requiring businesses to close on Sabbath, i.e. Sunday) BTW, in many areas of the U.S., blue laws still exist today. For example, in my town I’m not allowed to buy a car on Sunday. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/48 "2016-05-30T12:52:30Z")
I think Millenials are more economically deprived than the previous generation, but more politically coddled. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/49 "2016-05-30T13:22:35Z")
**UltraVires** , at 13, your daughter is likely not a Millenial, at the most she’s at [the tail-end of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials#Date_and_age_range_defining). I’m the opposite, as I’m one of the older Millenials, which, btw, are already approaching their mid-30s. Many of us are true digital natives, we had access to computers, even if “older generations” at an early age, and access to the internet before we were adults and on our own. I knew how to type in the computer before I knew cursive. My generation has been the one affected by the student loan bubble, and in part by the housing market issue. A nice bulk of the Millenials graduated college at the cusp or in the middle of the recession. I think we got a worst hand to play than Boomers and Gen Xers, although that last group was also greatly affected by the housing market. I don’t think the group as a whole is more entitled or spoiled. In fact, I think overall they may be more fair and just, and willing to voice out the complains instead of accepting them. I can see, though, that in a subset of Millenials, those in higher socieconomic status, the same attitudes may come through as entitled and spoiled. I also see Millenials as the group who is going to have trouble with retirement, at least in the current conditions. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/50 "2016-05-30T14:39:55Z")
Two “N’s” people, _two_ “n’s” M-i-l-l-e-n-n-i-a-l Two “N’s”. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/51 "2016-05-30T17:46:56Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > If you’re not persuaded that “safe places” are useful, why should we provide them? > > Food poisoning and measles are not the same thing as hurt fweeings. I do not know that we should provide them, (your childish dismissal notwithstanding), but that was not the point to which I was responding. Your claim was that there was something wrong with them for no better reason than that we did not have them in earlier decades. That is a silly and baseless argument. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/52 "2016-05-30T17:53:48Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Even complaining about the war on Christmas is an (almost!) legitimate complaint , a major change for half the population, who see undesirable (to them) social changes happening, and are afraid that their long-standing traditions are being eliminated from their lives. > > . . . > But demanding safe places and trigger warnings are stupid whines by selfish crybabies, who think the world revolves around theim. The irony is strong with this one. So, asking for safe places to avoid emotional trauma is the behavior of selfish crybabies while demanding that a “war” that never existed be brought to a halt, (to avoid hurting he feelings of some unidentified group of the ignorant) it not? Piffle. ---
**Author:** ![UberArchetype](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/2bfe46/32.png) [@UberArchetype](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UberArchetype)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/53 "2016-05-30T18:03:45Z")
[The Times They Are a-Changin’](https://play.google.com/music/preview/T52tahnp523qwihbuqd2za2ekri?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-songlyrics) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/54 "2016-05-30T18:56:08Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > In college, I would scrimp and save for spring break to drive to the beach and stay in a shitty motel with broken a/c and cockroaches. Kids today go to fucking London and Paris for spring break. Well, sure, if they’re well off. Most do not. My kids won’t. Many kids don’t. What kids are you talking about, and how of them are there? I know of no kids who can so easily flit off to Paris. If they do it’s because they worked at a part time job to save up the money. Perhaps there are some rich kids out there. But there always have been rich kids, haven’t there? > [@](#): > > In other words, all of the stuff that people in my generation were only able to do after starting a career and beginning to make decent money, the millenials have had it all handed to them before they ever worked their first job. You know, I assume, that this is positively hilarious? That people said exactly the same thing about your “Generation”? Surely you know that? Honestly, I actually laughed out loud. You went without air conditioning? My parents went without seat belts, polio vaccines, and decent dental care. My grandfather went without food. My wife’s grandmother was in _a goddamn concentration camp_. Someday the millennials will be cranky old goats and will bitch about the kids of 2050 or whatever and all the virtualconvos and liftshoes, bitch bitch bitch. IT’s always the same. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/55 "2016-05-30T21:02:23Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > And of course it’s also telling that your daughter is growing up in a world where joining a travelling baseball team is more affordable that two years of college tuition, whereas for your father the reverse was the case. This isn’t something that has impacted on your daughter yet, but of course it will. Not entirely true. My father started college in 1968 and paid $135 per semester for tuition. This calculator: [CPI Inflation Calculator](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=135.00&year1=1968&year2=2016) , says that it would be the equivalent of $928.17 in today’s money. Why is tuition fucking three times that, even at state schools? That is a challenge for the next generation, but more of a challenge for our legislatures to determine why the costs keep increasing. And one part of that may be that the demand, due to the availability of federal student loans, increases the supply and throws everything out of sorts with what the true costs are. Maybe not. But it needs looked into. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/56 "2016-05-30T21:33:05Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Not entirely true. My father started college in 1968 and paid $135 per semester for tuition. This calculator: [CPI Inflation Calculator](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=135.00&year1=1968&year2=2016) , says that it would be the equivalent of $928.17 in today’s money. Why is tuition fucking three times that, even at state schools? > > That is a challenge for the next generation, but more of a challenge for our legislatures to determine why the costs keep increasing. And one part of that may be that the demand, due to the availability of federal student loans, increases the supply and throws everything out of sorts with what the true costs are. Maybe not. But it needs looked into. In 1972 my father paid $2250 a semester for me at MIT, which is admittedly the high end. So your father’s tuition was damn cheap even then - I assume he went to a state school. Why there are many reasons for tuition increases, for state schools a big one is cutting the amount they pay - so the state legislators could use a mirror for their investigation. BTW we got window units in 1962, and we were solidly middle class. They were not all that expensive, even back then. But cheaper now. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/57 "2016-05-31T03:38:30Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I do not know that we should provide them,but that was not the point to which I was responding. > Your claim was that there was something wrong with them for no better reason than that we did not have them in earlier decades. That is a silly and baseless argument. It’s not up to me to justify their existence, it’s up to the people that advocate such nonsense. So far, they have been unable to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/58 "2016-05-31T03:53:52Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > 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. I don’t really see how the Boomers and Gen Xers could have a wrong view of Millennials’ upbringing, because…they raised them? I mean, maybe they’re thinking they did it wrong? If the Millennials weren’t raised by Boomers/Gen Xers, who were they raised by? (Actually this is moot. “Millennials” and “Boomers” are both huge groups with unlimited variation within them. But sometimes ya gotta generalize.) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/59 "2016-05-31T03:57:53Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > It’s not up to me to justify their existence, it’s up to the people that advocate such nonsense. As noted by other posters, I hope you are equally dismissive of the nonsense advocated by the various whiners demanding “respect for family values”, “traditional marriage”, the discontinuation of holiday greetings other than “Merry Christmas”, eliminating any depiction of same-sex couples or their families in children’s programming, discriminating against law-abiding customers in the name of “religious freedom”, and protection from the alleged “trauma” of sharing restrooms with people whose (unexposed) genitalia might be different from their own. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716/60 "2016-05-31T04:01:07Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > It’s not up to me to justify their existence, it’s up to the people that advocate such nonsense. > > So far, they have been unable to do so. The issue is not whether people are justified in demanding safe spaces. The issue is whether the demand for them is materially different from, or less well-founded than, hyperventiliation about the “war on Christmas” and similar manifestations of entitlement and over-sensitivity displayed by previous generations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-millennials/755716.md?page=4)