Yeah but this right here, this is a meaningless statement. It’s not as though the boomers all started a big club (but if they did, it would probably be at Woodstock, NY) and worked out ways they could fuck over future generations. No, there was a subset of people in control of a lot of money and the legal system and they prioritized short term gains at the expense of, well, pretty much everything else. The fact that they were boomers is incidental to that. Could have been anyone, and probably was pretty much anyone, when you consider the robber barons of 19th century and on back. This generational warfare crap is tired.
Come on, Boomers are the devils playthings, or something like that.
But do you think you are unique?
Now, again, since I’m from the end of generation X, i guess maybe it makes sense that I’d end up going through similar things, but what you’re describing sounds pretty familiar to me.
Was there some generation where they DIDN’T have high expectations? I mean, hell, the boomers’ parents beat the Nazis and saved the world… I gotta figure they set a fairly high bar for their kids. I think it heavily drove the consumerism and stuff in the 80’s, didn’t it? Everyone was supposed to work their asses of and get rich like Gordon gekko, the villain who weirdly became a hero to tons of jackasses.
Sounds like we got the same stuff that previous generations did… But maybe without some of the REALLY bad stuff.
I mean, sure… we’ve had a war for our whole adult lives. But the boomers were actually drafted into the Vietnam war. They actually cowered under their desks in school, because the soviets might start a nuclear war.
Their parents went through the great depression. They freaking starved and crap. Look at stuff from the dustbowl… Did we ever have to deal with that? No. I mean, you’re taking about how your parents shuffled you around to soccer games and sheet school stuff… Older generations had to freaking work as kids.
Maybe we just had more time to watch TV and movies and stuff, and fantasize about the future than those guys did.
Again, I’m speaking as someone who basically is in your generation, not an outsider… but i don’t know if things are REALLY that bad. And other generations had to deal with a lot of bad stuff on their own, as much as i like to give the boomers shit. A lot of that is that I’m sick of boomers bitching about millennials… But I’m not sure i buy into the belief that millennials have had a uniquely hard life.
Came through my FB the other day. NOT REAL, of course.
I’m just a little older (born in '74), but I’m going though the same thing. Not necessarily for the same reasons, but I can totally get the burnout from this modern world. In many respects, I’ve just ‘opted out’ of the rat race- I’m living more simply, not particularly concerned with the car or the house or the job, etc. Sure, I started my own business last year, but that was the means to the end- my goal isn’t to get rich and retire- that’ll never happen, I’m pretty sure.
My generation just had to worry about getting drafted and sent to Vietnam. And Nixon of course.
Other than that it was cool.
May I direct your attention to the chart?
For sure each generation has had challenges, and for an example of a generation that wasn’t expected to do much, may I direct your attention to Gen X, aka the dropout generation.
Sometimes referred to as the “lost” generation, this was the first
generation of “latchkey” kids, exposed to lots of daycare and divorce. Known
as the generation with the lowest voting participation rate of any generation,
Gen Xers were quoted by Newsweek as “the generation that dropped out without
ever turning on the news or tuning in to the social issues around them.”
But nobody is arguing that the Millennials have it worse than other generations, but this is being brought up as a means to understand the phenomenon of what is happening to my generation now, and why, perhaps, with all of the advances in technology, we haven’t had it better.
I mean, again, look at the chart, we are not making any more than our parents did at their age, despite being better educated, we have more debt, and we are “killing” every industry left and right by not participating in them.
This isn’t necessarily a “this generation has it worse of than others” but more, this is why this generation, the first generation with computers in schools all the way up, cell phones in high school and college, better access to technology and innovation, and somehow things aren’t better off than what our parents had.
Yeah but it’s just a chart. It’s not a summation of life.
We never faced the draft. We never really worried about dying in a nuclear war.
(This next paragraph sounds harsher than i mean, but I’ve been on the road all day and can’t think of how to rephrase it… Just believe that i don’t mean it as mean as it sounds.)
You had it so hard compared to them, because your parents actually involved themselves in your life? They took you to soccer games instead of being of fucking around when you came home from school? And you think means you had it harder?
Yeah, Gen Xers are supposedly more self reliant an less interested in everyone else. I guess i got some of that in me too.
But you are making the mistake in thinking that nothing was expected of them. They had the same expectations of stuff like going to college as you.
Their parents were apparently shittier, and didn’t do things like show interest in their kids doing stuff like soccer and other extracurricular stuff… And then, they became parents of the millennials, and were seemingly better parents. Again, I’m not seeing this aspect of millennials lives being a hardship.
I dunno man, maybe it’s because now there are a few billion other people around the world who are starting to enter the labor market. There’s more competition. Simply being born in America isn’t always going to guarantee a win.
Heard recently on a podcast, appropriate here:
No food, one problem.
Have food, many problems.
Their childhoods aren’t the problem. It’s that once they leave childhood getting a living wage is harder for them than anyone else before them (barring the Gilded Age and before).
My grandparents could support a family of TEN with one working parent with no education.
My parents could mostly manage it, but maybe the wife needed a part-time job.
My generation both people had to work, full-time. One of them needs a degree probably.
The next generation, both people working full-time can’t afford a house when they both have degrees. Hell, they can barely keep above water.
Now sure those kids didn’t have to fight Nazis, go to Korea or Nam and aren’t as likely to get nuked, but past the threat of immediate violent death, most things are a lot worse for them financially. And while they struggle like no one has since their great-grandparents, they get told they’re lazy and useless while working harder than their grandparents ever had to for less.
I’m old enough to be grandfather of most people in this thread, so that may disqualify me. But in any discussion of how tough the times were for any particular cohort (or individual), it is easy to get sidetracked on objective measures and “but look at this bad thing they had in year X.”
However, in my observation of people, it has always seemed that disappointment is among the strongest of negative forces, if not the strongest.
Sure my generation has obstacles, but on the whole we were the opposite of disappointed. Vietnam War, etc. aside most people had opportunities far beyond what their parents and grandparents had, far beyond what they had been brought up to expect.
It’s not just that today things are getting objectively worse, and that so many people (including practically every one of my old students I kept in touch with) face situations worse than what they were brought up to expect. It’s also that all this interconnectedness connects people with messages accentuating just how much better life ought to be. The ads, the culture in general really makes a person feel their own life is pretty lame.
Humans are deeply social animals and are profoundly affected by these sorts of messages, way beyond the effect our rational minds would have it.
Yeah, I can see that. My grandfather on my mother’s side was basically a Canadian dirt farmer. Like he lived in a shack in the woods and cut down trees and hauled them to town for firewood or something. That was it. That was all he knew. He eventually moved to the US to work in a steel plant. His life and that of his family improved exponentially.
I think a lot of it is the whole concept I always grew up with that your kids would always live a better life than you did. People said it all the time, it was proof that the system and the American Dream were still working. By my generation (X) that trend had mostly stopped being true for people. My step-father never understood that places didn’t take you in off the street and give you an entry level job that you could work up to CEO at. He didn’t understand that entry-level now meant a Bachelor’s Degree for most things and that factory jobs didn’t exist anymore. You either had a 2 year degree or you were minimum wage for the most part.
It hasn’t gotten better. To get what their grandparents got with a GED a kid these days would probably need at least a Masters and it better be in something in high demand. And it will come with more debt than grandpa could even fathom.
Yup. I contrast this with the way my Dad grew up. Really an okay life, neighborhood kids with plenty of chores but lots of time to do what they wanted, and very little sense that they needed to do this or that for the future. Because no one expected life to be better for each generation. That expectation probably pertained in a lot of first generation immigrant families, and most of America after WWII. But before that, not so much.
It makes today’s disappointments that much more acute when life has been organized around planning for the future, and then the future isn’t that at all.
As an older millennial, the worst part was graduating in 2007 and having nothing lined up. The recession wiped out a lot of opportunities, and I ended up working at Sears for a year to make ends meet. I packed myself up to Grad school in 2008, and in 2012 I got my first real job after tutoring statistics for almost 3 years.
Even though, the job barely paid the rent and other odds but the competition for any job was always really stiff, even entry level ones. I only got the job because a friend recommended me.
That’s the problem today. Even crappy jobs that barely pay enough to keep you head above water have dozens of people jumping on it. You can’t get ahead with these jobs, and saving is out of the question because of student debt and housing costs going up.
We did get ‘lucky’. We moved back to my wife’s home town and I found a job near Baltimore. Are costs and payouts became roughly equal, an hour commute ate up a lot of spare time. At times, it just didn’t seem worth it to keep our heads above water since I often worked unpaid over time to keep up. And being told stories of home my in-laws where able to live off of one salary was a bit demoralizing.
Finally, after 6 years in the field, and 6 months unemployment, I finally got a job that let’s me work from home and a better work/life balance. We still only keep our heads above water with rent, paying our student loans and preschool, but with help from both parents, we should be able to afford a house soon with a good down payment.
Compared to the stories of my parents and my in laws, it just feels like everything in my life is starting really late. The house, the family, everything. It costs a bit more, jobs pay a bit less and student loans put a lot on hold. Then you see companies with record profits, the old people going to college for free and the rich getting tax break, and you think. What the fuck?
We have money for that, but not free preschool, or cheaper colleges, or higher minimum wages?
What is wrong with our priorities?
Just skimming the thread, I’d invite anyone who thinks earlier generations didn’t experience innovation in technology to reflect on what they’ve just said :)
I’ve reflected on it. Okay. Now what?
Does anyone really doubt that real wages have been stagnant since the end of the seventies; and that, while the cost of some consumer goods has actually come down, the real cost of living (i.e. education, housing, health care and insurance, child care) other then stuff has increased dramatically? Does anyone doubt that millennials carry much higher education debt loads than their parents did, and pay more for the basics of life than their parents did, while earning little more than their parents did?
I can’t really grasp what the dispute is about here. I think those are facts. Doesn’t everyone?
Edit: This is from the American Enterprise Institute, hardly a bastion of liberal thought. Of course what they conclude from this data (regulation is bad!) is laughably execrable.
http://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-century-price-changes-1997-to-2017/
This is how basically all of my friends feel/are.
Speaking of starting a family, we recently bought a house, and are doing ok, but the though of the expenses of having a child? I can’t imagine. Daycare in my area costs the equivalent to college tuition. How can I afford that? How could anyone afford that, we haven’t even finished paying off our college education yet.
Again, may I direct you to the chart.
Actually, unemployment in the U.S. is at a historic low, you have a lot of companies complaining about how they can’t find enough skilled candidates. You also have this historic low unemployment with historically low wage growth. Our generation entered the post 2008 labor market as the new employees, and that labor market has been one of low wage growth, and that has not been fixed.
We are working just as hard as previous generations, but we aren’t making as much. Which is why you have burnout, which is why people can’t be bothered to sweat the small stuff right now. We can barely afford to live at a middle class level on our wage level.
Basically, the millennial generation has been one of financial instability and debt. And it gets to you. My parents both went to college and worked summer jobs to pay for it. I worked 20 hours a week WHILE going to school, WHILE performing in a choir (scholarship) and school plays, and working as a member of the school theatre leadership committee.
We feel burned out because we all have worked extremely hard, and it feels like the economy is leaving us behind. We can barely keep up, despite being very hard working.
I think the entire TLDR of millennial burnout is, “Stop complaining about millenials ruining “x” or not doing “y” we have also have had it difficult, just like everyone else” Part of why I bristle at the opposition to this is maybe the last 5-6 years of boomers complaining about how “Millenials have everything and they complain about it”
There is a reason, we don’t have it any better off, and if you look at the financial situations of most people 25-34, we explicitly don’t have it better off than previous generations. It is literally quantifiable about how we have it worse, we have less money, and work just as hard.
This is a thing that is effecting Gen-X people as well, but is lessened somewhat, because they are older and more established in their careers. It is really difficult being in the lower levels of the job market, with such low wage growth.
But I guess it is all of the “avocado toast” we are buying.
I’m a lot more sympathetic to the economic (wage stagnation) argument, than the expectations argument. I think that people feel like the expectations thing is important, because, well, it’s more personal and feelings-based. But the economic environment is the invisible hand, as it were, that actually applies the pressure that makes everything more stressful.
I do think that there’s a sort of normalcy-of-modernity that’s baked into our assumptions now. I don’t think that people who lived through the great depression thought of it in terms of “man, I’ve sure lost some years in my professional development”. They thought of it as “well, those were the years when everything was terrible”. We have more formal language to describe these things now, which lets us establish a kind of implicit context for how we view things (words having power and all that).
Pfft, I bet you even own a refrigerator. How hard could your life possibly be?
https://i.imgur.com/NF1JtBE.jpg
Yeah, but they also lived through the great depression, then got drafted to fight the Nazis in the biggest war ever.
A lot of the economic golden age that followed was because the war destroyed a big portion of the world.