To those of you in your forties, fifties, and anything older than that, I ask you once, politely, please consider what it means when you call an entire generation "entitled."
It's completely ironic to hear an older generation, a generation which invariably raised the next generations (that's kind of how it works), call millenials lazy, entitled brats. The fact is that the baby-boomers, many of whom were our parents, mentors, teachers, and existed elsewhere within the peripheries of our lives.
It was they who suggested we work hard in school. It was them who decided for us that we would attend a four-year school.
It was within the framework of these demands that we had to figure things out... However, what we figured out was that complete lack of forethought that was put into the demands placed on us. I can vividly remember thinking about the logistics of moving out on one's own. What was it like to pay all of your own bills? How much did it cost to live?
Growing up in the white-bread world of the San Fernando Valley, I couldn't shake the feeling that they were hiding something from us kids. Watching two adults fight over who pays the bill for dinner always confounded my childhood self. It's not to say that I haven't, in my own brief adulthood felt the urge to pay, but my question is: what is a kid supposd to think:
Obviously if I can't pay, someone will pay for me. Or, there's definitely enough to go around.
My, oh my, how the truth shocked me.
After the painful realization, sometime during college, that things didn't have to work themselves out. That my attention was required, I realized, too, that there was no beaten path. That the beaten path that existed was being crowded by the ever-increasing pool of applicants.
Still, during the mid 2000's, banks were encouraging debt like it was their job. You can pay it off slowly. Oh crap, the entire country is paying off their debt way too slowly turned to, they're not paying it off at all.
At some point, I realized there wasn't much difference between the older generations and the younger ones. Not anymore. Everyone seemed volatile... What seemed to buffer oneself was their contacts. I started seeing less qualified people form an army against the millenials. My sister who didn't go to college had a great job. Contacts. It's all about knowing people, and knowing how to know people.
It was the M.O. of the baby-boomer to hide these statistics. The stench of pride in themselves, of inherited pride, to varying degrees, makes me sick. The same generation who propagated the value of truth, and who told nothing of the sort.
It's up to our generation, Millenials, to not repeat the mistakes of the past. To those who millenials bold enough to be having children: Tell them the truth. A culture of lies, leads to a clueless culture. To those baby boomers, and Gen X'ers who have teenagers, tell them the truth about life. Tell them to start thinking about what they want to do. Tell them to pay attention to what they do. Make sure they take care of their health, and make sure they take care of their teeth (the dentist is a bitch and a half... tell them that!)
And if one more Baby Boomer calls me entitled, I'm going to ask them to clarify... definitely not the strong suit of the baby boomers... you know, that whole articulation thing.
It's completely ironic to hear an older generation, a generation which invariably raised the next generations (that's kind of how it works), call millenials lazy, entitled brats. The fact is that the baby-boomers, many of whom were our parents, mentors, teachers, and existed elsewhere within the peripheries of our lives.
It was they who suggested we work hard in school. It was them who decided for us that we would attend a four-year school.
It was within the framework of these demands that we had to figure things out... However, what we figured out was that complete lack of forethought that was put into the demands placed on us. I can vividly remember thinking about the logistics of moving out on one's own. What was it like to pay all of your own bills? How much did it cost to live?
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| This is a picture of me just not getting it. |
Obviously if I can't pay, someone will pay for me. Or, there's definitely enough to go around.
My, oh my, how the truth shocked me.
After the painful realization, sometime during college, that things didn't have to work themselves out. That my attention was required, I realized, too, that there was no beaten path. That the beaten path that existed was being crowded by the ever-increasing pool of applicants.
Still, during the mid 2000's, banks were encouraging debt like it was their job. You can pay it off slowly. Oh crap, the entire country is paying off their debt way too slowly turned to, they're not paying it off at all.
At some point, I realized there wasn't much difference between the older generations and the younger ones. Not anymore. Everyone seemed volatile... What seemed to buffer oneself was their contacts. I started seeing less qualified people form an army against the millenials. My sister who didn't go to college had a great job. Contacts. It's all about knowing people, and knowing how to know people.
It was the M.O. of the baby-boomer to hide these statistics. The stench of pride in themselves, of inherited pride, to varying degrees, makes me sick. The same generation who propagated the value of truth, and who told nothing of the sort.
It's up to our generation, Millenials, to not repeat the mistakes of the past. To those who millenials bold enough to be having children: Tell them the truth. A culture of lies, leads to a clueless culture. To those baby boomers, and Gen X'ers who have teenagers, tell them the truth about life. Tell them to start thinking about what they want to do. Tell them to pay attention to what they do. Make sure they take care of their health, and make sure they take care of their teeth (the dentist is a bitch and a half... tell them that!)
And if one more Baby Boomer calls me entitled, I'm going to ask them to clarify... definitely not the strong suit of the baby boomers... you know, that whole articulation thing.
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