Have you ever seen those videos that "lightly" make fun of the group of people born between about 1980 and 2000? Have you ever gotten mad at their ignorance and hypocrisy? Then we are on the same page.
If you scroll down Facebook, you will inevitably find several articles and videos bashing what is known as the millennial generation or, sometimes, generation Y. This media may announce that we are going to destroy our country and traditions. I believe otherwise. In fact, I believe the opposite. Here's why.
1. First, let's remember who raised us.
This is where the hypocrites come out. This may not be my strongest argument, but yet it is still one of your largest problems. Has anyone ever heard of Woodstock? And what about the seventies? Our parents grew up among sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Is this bad? No, not necessarily. But when you tell me that my generation smokes too much weed and judge us when we have a movement to make it legal, I will remind you of all the coke and acid your generation did, which, by the way, still isn't legal and has worse effects than marijuana. Every generation has its vices, that shouldn't be a surprise.
Remember, also, that you indeed did raise us. Now, children are not the direct spawns of their parents, we are are our own individuals and are effected by the environment, but our parents effect us the most. The first things we ever learn come from our parents. When we sit around a dinner table, we learn the political ideals of our parents. Or, on the other hand, it is our parents decisions whether or not we have dinner at the table together at all, which is proven to also have an effect on us. Remember that we learned from you first, we looked up to you first.
2. We accept each other.
This point is something that I never would have imagined be something our generation be criticized for. I have lived through the legalizations of gay marriage throughout the states and many countries. The LGBTQ community in general has made huge leaps in the recent years. And I congratulate them. Why? Because the person that someone wants to spend the rest of their life with is none of my or your business. Your self-important ass has nothing to do with the matter and it most certainly does not effect your life. Judge us for also accepting transgender people lately? Again, please read my previous statement. I will never be ashamed of the fact that I accept my peers for whoever they may be. Yes, there are people I dislike or not get along with, but it isn't because of something they cannot control and doesn't effect me.
3. Women's and Blacks' Rights.
Neither of these movements started during my time. However, they've been racing ahead. Black empowerment has been spreading and growing, with Queen B at the head, too. Women have demanded equal treatment and rights with protests like the Free the Nipple initiative. We haven't come to solve these problems yet, but our generation is so much more open to them. We have passion and this goes back to us accepting each other and therefore caring about each other.
4. Our technology.
From the start of the boom of technology I constantly heard comments about how my generation was too stuck to our phones, that we didn't interact with people anymore, that we didn't know how to talk to people anymore. Technology changed the world. It cured diseases, made it easier to travel, and gave us access to all the knowledge we could want. Did it have draw backs? Yes. It took us awhile to find the right balance with technology and we are still learning, but to cast us off as a bunch of kids who don't know how to communicate is wrong. Are there people out there like that? Yes. But if you have ever entered a school you would see the amount of intelligence booming out of the classrooms. Valedictorians are graduating with above a 4.0 with better public speaking skills than most adults. If anything, technology is making the divide of the hardworking students from the non-hardworking more obvious. It's harsh, but true. Fifteen-year-olds aren't going to Google political debates on the internet, but what 15-year-old wanted that before technology, either?
5. Presidential candidates.
This one is short and sweet. I recently watched a video bashing our generation, one that inspired this article actually, where a man became very upset that one day a person from my generation would become president. I'm sorry -- have you seen our presidential candidates right now? Excuse me?
6. We have more pressure on us than any generation before us.
The world has become a smaller and smaller place and the competition among not just nations, but the citizens within them has grown fiercely. There is more pressure on students to continue their education in college, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a degree to hopefully get a job -- that is, of course, assuming you make it into the college. Now, there are students from all over the world competing to get into those same colleges and grab those same jobs.
We are constantly being compared to other countries saying we aren't as smart or as dedicated or as disciplined. They change our education system to try and improve the level of intelligence. We become these guinea pigs of schooling. There is more pressure on us today than there ever was before. It is unfair to say that we shouldn't be tired because we're kids or that our lives are easy because we're kids. We have longer days than most adults. We wake up at 5:30 a.m. for school which gets out at 2 p.m.. But wait! We want to get into college so that means we must be part of student organizations, volunteering, and hold a part time job all while maintaining our GPA. So, we stay at school until 5 p.m. for some club or another, eat a fast dinner, and head to our volunteering position or part time job depending on the day. If we get home by 8 p.m. we are lucky. Then there comes the hour's worth of homework per class, which is always a lie because it takes longer than that. If we do all of it wholeheartedly we would finish by about midnight, and that is being generous.
We get our five and a half hours of sleep, and start again the next morning. By the time we come to college we learn that you only need to sleep every four days to stay alive. Yet, apparently, we aren't very hard workers.
I want to thank my parents for all that they have offered me and taught me. I respect them more than they know. I respect the generations that came before us because they all contributed something great even if none of them were perfect. However, the disrespect that some hold for my generation needs to stop. We have our imperfections, but to say we are going to destroy our country is completely and totally ridiculous and proves that you don't know us. Talk to the teachers and professors and anyone that interacts with us daily. They see the potential we have and the good we are spreading because they actually watch us. They don't judge who we are and the morals we hold. They see in us, success.
