Congratulations people born between 1982 and 2004! You’ve been “Millennialed”! Society has deemed you a wanton force for disruptive ruin of our treasured societal goods such as marriage, Applebees, and napkins. With this new found power you both get to operate in a world where average prices have drastically gone up while wages have stagnated, AND have to care for a large demographic of progressively aging seniors. All of this is to be done while shouldering oppressive amounts of debt, and being identified with qualities such as self-absorbed, entitled, and too into technology. The scarlet letter M on our chests are heavy, they can leave you depressed and angry at the temerity of it all, but the underlying cause of your newfound title is not a new one. Like the common cold it mutates every couple of years as new babies are born into differing societal realities. While it comes with differing names and approaches, it all stems from one unhealthy habit that you can (and should) avoid in order to prevent this condition from spreading, disregard.
Disregard of change: We all know that “The Times They are a Changin” as Bob Dylan once mused, and in his time it was in reference to a reality in which the United States was going through transformation. Embroiled in a protracted war in Asia, and civil rights protests gaining momentum, demanding the social and economic rights of Black citizens. The societal reality facing youth of that time was that the United State’s “Golden Moment” of moral superiority was over, and the United States had to accommodate the new moral space with radical views on race, gender and sexuality. The tools of their time was in using their bodies and voices in new and disruptive ways to change the status quo which did not wish to progress. Counter-point to this, the youth of that time were often characterized as “Hippies” with sole attention leaning towards promiscuous drug usage and sex. This was a clear example of seeing the tools by which the youth declare their transition of time to disregard their current reality. For Millennials it is a little more harrowing. The US economy is booming yet wages have stagnated and not kept up with inflation. Unemployment is low, and yet the quality of jobs including access to health care, benefits, or (perish the thought) retirement pensions have decreased. Education tuition has increased by 1300 percent, and yet 65 percent of all new jobs require at least a four year degree. This isn’t innuendo its fact. Common refrains against this new reality is that we were too interested in participation trophies, not money savvy enough to take on such debt, and not valuing hard work. These responses show that to be a Millenial means accessibility and opportunity has stayed same, and one needs simply more self-motivation to change their situation.
Disregard of pain and struggle: Snowflake, Buttercup, Safe Space, “Why don’t you tweet about it”. I’ve heard each of these directed at me, or near me since my early adulthood. It’s really funny because most of the time it comes from the mouth of White middle-aged men of means who given the space to speak are often the most self-aggrieved people in society (that is a topic for another time). Instead of attacking the messenger I want to parse the message. Sure we aren’t special, we don’t feel we deserve special consideration or extra boosts which may seem superfluous, but we definitely understand that for each person their conditions and life experiences are different, and that is the most important thing to consider. The “snowflakes” of today are more likely to share their life experiences, connect with people, cultures and ideas we’ve never had prior to the internet, and we can thank technology for that. When we hear social justice calls from Black Lives Matter, or tales of abuse from the Me Too movement we realize that the world is larger than we imagine, and this helps us exercise our empathy muscles in ways that makes us more informed and well-adjusted adults. This makes us “buttercups” more sensitive to the idea that unfairness isn’t something that we can will ourselves out of, but instead is a systemic issue meaning it is baked into everything we do. When you wake up to injustice you may find some commercials racist, or jokes uncool all of a sudden. Sensitivity is a good thing, because it means we have a better handle on our surroundings. When we see the disparity in experiences for women and people of color, victims of abuse, and violence, we tend to see that their life experiences make life hard to deal with. Even with our country getting richer we are more unhappy than ever with anxiety among youth being the highest its ever been. So we “tweet about it”, or e-mail about it, or have TEDTalks, book readings, and a whole extended list of opportunities for people to be comfortable in their wish to share their pain. And in order to muster the courage its nice to know that there is a place we can do it without retribution or fear. Some may have the luxury to not feel involved into this conversation or may feel left out, so they instead resort to name calling.
Disregard of desire: Nothing sounds more childish to the ear than “I want something”. To the average listener it sounds naive, petty, and frankly bratty. So as adults we recoil at the thought of saying what we need. To account for this fear we use objective facts and statistics to cover our wishes and wants. It means that we need statistics and climate science to want a better environment, school retention rates and demographic analysis to want better, equal schools, and comparative charts and line graphs to want better wages. When we do want something we often need to demand it in the form of protest or action. Millenials want a lot of things because we don’t want to sit in our anxiety and insecurity any longer. This makes our intent scatter into the ether, it makes us have to be policy and social theory wonks to see the future as possible for us. However I am learning that it is be possible to simply and clearly state what you want. I learned something from brave strong people like Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or Climate Justice Activist 16 year old Greta Thunberg, stating clearly that something needs to happen for your own reasons forces the world to respond. And boy does it respond, but the more the regressive forces are made to explain their reasons the less valid they appear.
Disregard of Trust: The average age of members of congress is 57 for Representatives and 60 for Senators the oldest member of congress is 90. This statistic is a stark reminder that Millennials are not trusted with power. As young people you are expected to wait your turn, learn how “things really are” before you are given the opportunity to lead, but there never seems to be a changing of the guard for that to happen. I find that I am still discussing economic policies of a President sworn in before I was born. I do not know my country at peace because my country has always been at war, and history is still told by text books old enough to be considered antiques. All this is to say, I think older generations of leaders are afraid to cede power because they feel then the world will feel drastically different for them, and ultimately they will be the ones left out. However isn’t that the fate of all ages of people. I hope after I’m gone that my descendants and their partners find better, smarter, and more innovative techniques to solve newer problems caused by newer realities. However that transition may happen too late, and by the time we get to those levers, we will be too grizzled and weather worn to know how to operate the machinery. We then just copy the ways done by our predecessors to keep the gears moving without incident.
What to do with Generation Z (Whatever the hell that is): The first step to solving a problem is to admit there is one. There is a lack of trust and consideration for youth which does not set them up to be the adult leaders of the future. So let us Millennials start the process of disposing of the Millennialization of Generation Z. There needs to be an acknowledgement that a) the world for them will be different than what we went through, b) that the issues they face may be and probably will be worse, so acknowledgement and support of their struggles is crucial c) They are going to want the world drastically different from anything we ever imagined and d) when given the opportunity we should allow them to make it happen. Finally lets dispose of the idea that Generations are a thing which great speakers like comedian Adam Conover dispelled in his great speech at a Millennial marketing conference. We can change things the conditions for people who come after us, even if this courtesy was never going to be afforded to us.
Women and people of color discussing issues affecting young people:
http://www.achieveagency.com/millennial-women-hear-them-roar/