I agree. Typically the feeling lessens with time though, doesn’t it? For example, I now look at Baby Boomers, and the generations before them with much more respect. I see how hard they had to work, the sacrifices they made, and how my generation is really the one that benefitted. I was entitled, now I appreciate their example and try to copy it.
But, on the other hand, sometimes the younger generation has ideas that seem to be entitlement, but in reality are revolutionary ideas that are of great benefit. I think with time and experience comes better perspective and understanding in the differences between the generations.
I’m optimistic that we’ve finally reached a tipping point where going to college isn’t going to be sold as necessary for everyone and universities will actually be forced to put some effort into keeping their expenses in check. All the easy money and loans has helped our universities get way too extravagant and bloated. I want to believe that the millennial maxing out student loans at a private school for a communications degree is the exception rather than the rule and that the majority of them went to a state school, didn’t max out loans, but simply got screwed by out of control tuition increases coupled with the ridiculous notion that everybody needed a college degree of some sort.
At this point my main beef with millennials is the resurgence of political correctness we’ve experienced recently and everything that has come with that. It was mildly irritating in the 90s, but has gotten downright ugly in recent years. When feminism was about equal rights and stopping your boss from trying to grope you or treat you unfairly I could get behind that. When it evolved to raising a stink about men spreading their legs too widely on buses or accusing them of “mansplaining” I found myself shaking my head.
When racism meant treating someone unfairly or differently based on their appearance I opposed it. Now the term “racist” just gets thrown around as a form of character assassination when someone wants to “win” an argument, but can’t be bothered to state their own case, which is a real disservice to legitimate victims of racism since they get conflated with that.
I wouldn’t say the majority of millennials are to blame here either since it’s really just a small vocal minority who are getting their voices amplified by social media, but it would be nice if their peers were more willing to call them out on it.
So by that logic, isn’t it unfair to view Millennials (in this case) as entitled, or as anything at all? They simply haven’t had the same time on the planet to do what GenXers have had the time to do. Cart before the horse kind of thing. It’s funny, because my father (GenX) always told me not to have preconceived notions. Yet, GenXers have these preconceived notions that Millennials are all just entitled jerks. Perhaps that is why we think we know more than you old fellers.
@NotRonJeremy I concur 110%. Well said. Seriously, bravo man. Couldn’t have said it all better myself. Including the part where us Millennials need to start calling each other out on our dumb crap.
I don’t like it that my husband and I, at age 54, are lumped in with the baby boomers. We don’t share the beliefs of many of them.
We’re going to vote for a new governor next year. I’m happy to see that most of the candidates so far are younger. One candidate has been a life-long politician, as some of the others have been, but he’s 70. My feeling is, go away and give someone else a chance! I believe that more of the people who are deciding what laws we all live under, need to have a longevity stake in the effects of such laws, if I may be so blunt.
Yes it is unfair. However, that is the perception that many have of Millenials. What I have tried to do is understand their life and why they feel and act the way they do. I sincerely appreciate it when they do the same. The employees I mentioned in my original post have come around to that way of thinking. Rather than blame the other generations, talk to them, understand them, learn from them, and then we all benefit.
Or how about we skip the grouped generations and just live our lives? I don’t understand why this is such a “thing.” I always knew GenX, GenY, Baby Boomers to be simple shorthand names for specific “generations.” However, I never understood the significance. It’s almost like we all made something up just to talk about. How about, who gives a flying rat’s behind what made up label my “generation” has, or yours, or anyone’s?
You are right, the titles are just words, meaningless. However, the idealogical differences between generations has existed as long as I remember, but now they seems to breed contempt and hatred for other generations. That is what I don’t understand. I think the differences are challenging, but intriguing. I enjoy trying to understand them, and that is what this thread started out as.
[quote=“SummerSoFar, post:19, topic:1920, full:true”]
Don’t you dare talk down to me sinisler. Go burn your coal and own your bump-stocks.
Edit: Final comment before I abandon this thread: What have you honestly done to pass down your successes? Your parents gave this country our freedom from tyranny once nearly guaranteed during WWII. My generation has to clean up your raping, pillaging, and destroying of those foundations.
[/quote]Really?
This is why I hate being classified as a Millennial. Kind of like how I used to drive BMWs. All of the other BMW owners/drivers made everyone else hate me. Same with when I owned a motorcycle–all of the car drivers hated me. Same with when I had a GTI–every 16-year-old wanted to race.
I don’t think its just Millennials who think the economy sucks. I’ve known Genx and Boomers who’ve voiced opinions that the economy is going awful even while unemployment is ~4%.
The economic outlook in the general population hasn’t been very good for the past 10 years. Its taken a long time for it to turn positive overall after the recession.
Millennials are more hard hit because many of them started into the job market during the recession and they carry heavier student loan debt and housing and other costs are higher . Yet wages were pretty stagnant for quite some time. It all adds up.
I agree with Jaytrader that labeling the generations like this and then criticizing the other generations is just kind of silly. Every generation thinks the next is entitled, lazy, etc. and that the previous generation ruined everything. Its generally unwarranted and unfair labels.
I was so fortunate as to have my great-grandparents in my life until I was 16 years old. They were the most selfless, warm, loving people I knew. They valued relationship with family. They helped their kids when needed. They helped out with the grand-kids and great-grand-kids. When it was their turn to need help, it was there for them, no questions asked. They never demanded help, either. They were the kind of people who might be fought over during who would have them during the holidays. Not because no one wanted them, but everyone wanted them. Some were recent immigrants, short on money, but long on unconditional love.
I can’t say the same for some older people I’ve known in the last 20 or so years. Selfish to the bone. Demanding. Expecting things as their due. “I’ve done for you all these years, now it’s your turn to do for me.” And this kind of talk started when they barely turned 60. The attitude extends to the spouses of their kids, despite the obvious fact that they’ve barely been in their lives and certainly had no part in their upbringing. Laughter when relating the story of how so-and-so only paid into his company pension for a year, yet collected for 30 years. No joke and I personally don’t think such things are laughing matters. I believe such nonsense played a role in companies cancelling pensions, which hurts everyone who came after them.
The old people in my family had arthritis, yet they didn’t get handicapped stickers or use handicapped parking spots. There were no carts to ride around the stores in. They parked wherever they could find a spot and walked around like everyone else. They didn’t think they were special, or entitled, because of their age. I don’t know how many times I see old people in those carts, backing up without even looking to see if someone is behind them. I saw that for the umpteenth time this week! I was almost run over by someone riding in one of those carts. And they act like it’s your fault for not getting out of their way. They back up and the cart starts beeping, so they think they don’t have to look where they’re going. Yeah, I know that some people do need those things, but not all of them, I’m sure. People got around the stores before those existed.
I was almost run over by an old woman driving a car through the grocery store parking lot on my 53rd birthday last year. The heat of the engine was on my legs before I screamed and she stopped. A couple of witnesses watched, gaping, open-mouthed, as the old woman drove past me, like she hadn’t just almost killed me, and left the scene.
Since then, my husband and I were almost hit head-on by an old man who crossed the double yellow line and came right at us. I leaned on the horn and, fortunately, he swerved away. On another occasion, I was in a one-way left turn lane and an old woman drove into the turn lane, driving on the wrong side of the road. I leaned on the horn and she looked at me like, “What’s your problem?” My husband and I were taking an evening walk and almost got run over by an old man backing out of his driveway. My husband shoved me out of the way. I joked with him later on, “Now I know you really love me, because you didn’t shove me in the way.”
In general, old people driving 30 MPH in a 50+MPH zone. We have enough roads that are 35 MPH around here. If they’re not comfortable driving at the higher speeds, they should stay off those roads. But, they don’t. In contrast to a relative of mine many years ago, who stayed off the higher speed roads as she aged because she knew she wasn’t comfortable at those speeds anymore. Selfish vs. selfless.
Read some comments on any article about Social Security, even those that talk about getting a COLA, like they’re getting next year. Many complaints from seniors about how it’s not enough, it’s not fair, they’re getting ripped off, etc. Or deciding to take Social Security right away at 62, even though they don’t need it, because they want to “get theirs” before the rules change. “We vote!” Like, no one else does?
How about all the demands for medical care, at everyone else’s expense? My great-grandparents didn’t swallow handfuls of pills, constantly run to the doctor, etc. Most lived to about 80 to 90+ without all of that. Yet now, all this constant medical care just because one happens to be old, has become expected and demanded. I read some years ago that Medicare had approved some new treatment for prostate cancer that would extend life for another 3 months at a cost of over $90,000. Who paid for that? Not the 90 year old guy they tested it on, that’s for sure.
Remember when that flu was killing pregnant women several years ago? When they came out with a vaccine for that strain, an old woman that I knew complained because she couldn’t get that vaccine. Her doctor had told her that the strain wasn’t killing old people, so it was not to be given to people not of childbearing age. He refused to give it to her, rightly, but she didn’t like it.
I’m not sure any of that can be defined as morally corrupt, but selfish, egotistical, yes, IMO. And it’s been fostered by the politicians, many of whom are in the same age group, pandering to them, treating them like they’re special.
In my state, those age 65 and over qualify for a homestead exemption, saving them several hundred dollars a year on property taxes. It started in 1970 and was means tested. In 2007, they allowed everyone 65 and older to get it, regardless of income. In 2014, they went back to means testing, but everyone who was getting the homestead exemption before the law changed is grandfathered in, regardless of any actual need. I don’t think that’s right. I wonder why they changed it in 2007. Oh wait…
The first baby boomer started collecting Social Security in 2008, at the age of 62. Coincidence? Maybe not.
So, a recent local article is encouraging residents who qualify for the state homestead exemption to apply for reduced water/sewer/trash collection rates, many of whom don’t know they’re “entitled” to this. The rationale behind this is that people who get the homestead exemption generate less trash and use less water than other households. Faulty reasoning. One of my neighbors is 90+. There are 4 people living there, spanning 4 generations. Because the house is in her name, she gets the homestead exemption, yet she doesn’t generate less trash or use less water. She’s not a little old lady living alone! Unintended consequences, for sure.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to make this a novel. Maybe more of the blame rests with the politicians for enabling all of this stuff. I can’t really blame seniors for taking advantage of some of these things. But the idea that they’re owed because of their age really gets to me. I don’t think it used to be this way.
I’m not sure that @sinistler’s generation is majorly responsible for any of that. I am surprised that the employees are so vocal about their opinions to someone they report to though, whether true or not.
IMO, a lot of this is simply an artifact of technology. Millennials aren’t any more whiny or entitled than I was when I was their age. They just have a platform to broadcast it now, All we had were a few Douglas Rushkoff books and John Hughes movies to speak for us.
Also, one theory I heard about the workplace is due to workers today having much better price discovery in terms of salary negotiations due to the greater mobility and transparency due to the internet. Gone are the days that you start at 20% of your job worth and are expected to work your way up over 20 years at the same company. Now you might get 80% of it starting out. But to the older establishment, that’s perceived as entitlement or trying to get out of paying your dues. I’ll have to hunt for the link.
Maybe it’s fear. We’re too informed these days. Or we think we are. How much is really based on fact vs. sensationalism vs. pure speculation?
Being able to express ourselves so freely on the Internet can feed this, but it can’t totally be blamed for the phenomenon.
I remember being told by an elderly person (who I know barely accesses the Internet) that “Young people get everything their own way.” To this day, I have no idea where that comment came from or what it was supposed to mean. It was said with great bitterness. But it’s as wrong as saying, “Old people get everything their own way.” Neither is really true, but they’re both inflammatory. It can lead one to defend their generation and attack the others.
Then it can really seem that the “other” generation is (fill-in-the-blank). It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’m a Gen Xer. When I was in my 20s, the conventional wisdom about Gen Xers was that they were slackers; the first generation in modern American history fated to not do as well as their parents; they watched too much TV, etc, etc.
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
Housing has gone up 22% this year alone in my area. Housing in the last 10 years has about doubled. Higher education costs have probably doubled in the last 15 or so years.
Median salaries for entry level college jobs have stayed about the same over the last 10 years. So now you have people with double the debt and double the housing costs earning the same amount of money. Milk prices are inconsequential.
