Millennials are the most self-centered generation that has been raised. They are people that expect instant gratification. They never work for anything and all they do is complain.
These are common phrases used to describe millennials, which is unfair to those who are not like that at all. Yes, there are some people who are spoiled and feel like they do not need to do anything, but the majority of people I have had the opportunity of knowing do not fit into those descriptions.
Recently, more and more articles are coming out about how spoiled and useless the millennials are. Phrases like "Generation Cry Baby" are being used to describe us. I will admit that there is some truth to the criticism that we get, however, we are coming into a completely different world than our parents and grandparents did. So many people keep telling millennials that our lives are not as hard as we make them out to be. In some aspects, that is probably true, but let's take a look into the life of a millennial, shall we?
Millennials have these great expectation that were set upon them by society. My parents' generations needed a high school diploma to get a nice job to provide for their family. Yes, there are exceptions like being in the medical field or a teacher. Now, students will have to go to college and probably get a master's degree. In order to get into a good college, high school students are expected to get involved with basically every club, do sports, volunteer, maintain a perfect grade point average and work all while getting enough sleep. When I was a senior in high school, I would get to school at 7:15 in the morning. There were days when I didn't see my parents until 10 or 11 at night because of all the activities that were going on after school, and I was only involved with a few clubs at my school.
In 2013, a study showed that 57 percent of college women and 40 percent of college men had experience a sense of overwhelming anxiety. Millennials are the generation that have more mental health issues because of the overwhelming, and sometimes unreasonable, expectations that have been given to them. People will tell millennials to "get over it" because we're just "playing into" the fact that mental health issues are more common.
Society has taught millennials not to love their bodies unless they are super-model skinny. This has caused many people to starve themselves.There have been "challenges" circulating the internet such as the collarbone challenge that are there to show what the ideal person should look like. If someone isn't super skinny, then they've been taught that they aren't pretty or good enough.
Millennials have many more challenges than other generations realize. We are trying our best to adjust to the different expectations we have, but sometimes, when we get called lazy and crybabies, it does make us annoyed. Those articles are talking about only a certain group of millennials. The majority of millennials I have gotten to know are nothing like those stereotypes. Many of them work harder than those in the generations before us, in my opinion.
Yes, I am a millennial, and many people will think that I am only writing this because I was offended by the articles telling the world how terrible millennials are. But the truth is, I am just trying to make everyone who reads this see what it's like being criticized from people know probably a handful of people in this generation. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but before you make a judgement on an entire group of people, make sure you aren't basing your information on just a few people, and remember who raised this generation.
