Dear Non-Millennials,

I’ve never written a letter like this before, mostly because I don’t care for confrontation. And even as I write, I know there is going to be a lot of emotionally-charged, negative push-back from the people I am addressing. But I have heard that that the things that we fear the most, are the most worth doing. So I’ll give this a try.

I have recently read one too many open letters written by non-millennials about how terrible, whiny, ungrateful and privileged all millennials are. I’m not saying all of us have our life together or that some of us aren’t these things, but I am sick of my entire generation being put in a box in this way. You can’t do that when there are so many of us who come from so many places and walks of life. Not to our generation, and not to any generation. And admittedly, I think millennials are guilty of unfairly summing up older generations as well. I've read articles suggesting that my grandparents' generation, the Baby Boomers, are the "Me Generation" or very selfish. But two wrongs don't make a right, and this behavior is unacceptable in all of us.

We all need to stop calling our generation better than another. Millennials are not better or worse than our parents' generation, our grandparents' generation, etc. It’s just that we were born at different times to different circumstances. My generation has different problems than your generation. People my grandparents’ age and their parents' age lived through at least one World War, if not two, and their lives were, for a time, centered around the war effort both on the front lines and on the home front. Their children experienced Vietnam had the Cold War and lived through the social changes of the Civil Rights Movement. My generation, we live in the post-9/11 world, continue the legacy of social change with Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ equality but even now, we are all still learning. The legacies built and qualities gained don't make us more or less admirable than the other, they’re just a product of their times, as are we.

I have heard about how millennials are lazy, careless and whiny; a “gimme” generation that expects everything delivered to us on a silver platter. I say that’s not true. I think, now more than ever, my generation is realizing the costs of things. And we see that the things we need and want are no longer as affordable as they were 25 or 50 years ago when our parents and grandparents wanted those things. I can't pay for a year's worth of college tuition by working full time during the summer. I probably won't be able to afford a house as my fiance and I will both be paying off those crippling student loans. But we'll work at it.

I think my generation realizes if we want something, we work hard for it, putting in crazy hours at jobs (and some of us have many) or getting creative and finding another way to make our wishes come true. We understand that no one is going to carry us through college—I need to sit down and write that paper, I need to learn to advocate for myself to gain those opportunities and I need to suck it up and get through those times, just like anyone else. My mom isn't going to write my senior paper and my dad can’t take my lab science class for me. The responsibility is all me. My generation, this is all us.

I recently read An Open Letter To College Crybabies From A CEO. I was angry at this because I truly do not feel that he is right about a lot of college students, most of whom are millennials. From this article, we can conclude that Mr. Kyle S. Reyes is not a CEO we should want to work for. I don’t want to live in a world where the only things we care about are business and making money. I don’t want to live in a world where the people I am working for don’t care if finals week is coming up or if someone close to me passed away—those things can and will affect my productivity in your company. People are not made of stone and my life and yours are more than productivity. I think having empathy and understanding is something my generation is pretty good at doing. Your generation might be very skillful in the area of resilience and moving forward, and I think these are both great lessons to learn. I want to make it clear that we all have things that we can learn from each other. Yes, even you can learn from my younger generation.

Let’s stop throwing hate and start learning to see each other as people, beyond the period of time grew up in. We all have something to bring to the table. And if you think that this is too whiny or unrealistic, I’d be happy to sit down and have a conversation with you. Let’s get to know each other.

Sincerely,