The generational divide between the old and wise and the young and dumb is not a new phenomenon. The only difference in this day and age is that now our parents have access to the internet, so they can complain to a larger audience about our greedy and frivolous way of life that they didn't lead in the good old days.
Those from Generation X like to off-handedly mention the horror and dismay our generation (millenials, born between the early 1980s and 2000) is causing them. We're ruining the American spirit. We're lazy, we expect that everything should be handed to us. We're so entitled, we're all socialists, we're so elitist, we don't want to work, we won't move out of our parent's home, etc, etc.
Obviously, this is a common reaction to the future. People don't like change, and when they see major cultural changes that millennials have set into motion, they get defensive. This is normal, and we should cut them some slack. Keep in mind that you can't just explain the Kinsey scale and Instagram filters to your parents in one night.
However, there are still some things we need to make clear to our critics, so I would like to speak to the elders on behalf of my millennial brethren.
First of all, you raised us. Remember that. I'm not placing the burden of all of our short-comings on our parents, of course. But to complain about a generation and forget who raised them is a rookie mistake. And we've seen you make mistakes, too. No one in my generation has forgotten about the devastation after the 2008 recession.My dad went to sleep on Friday and woke up on Monday to find out that his company had disappeared overnight. Parents and uncles and neighbors were unemployed in the blink of an eye. That kind of insecurity and reminder that the system is rigged creates a generation that wants to improve upon what they were taught, and fix the issues that caused such a huge failure in the first place. We learned early on the kind of corruption that the wealthy can use to help the rich get richer and keep the poor away from opportunity.
Secondly, my friends and those in my generation are some of the most driven people I know. We focus on choosing higher education and career paths with intensity and persistence early on, because our world moves faster than it did decades ago. Millennials have already built twice as many businesses as baby boomers. More of us are going into science, and choose to use the field as a medium of social change, not wealth. We are one of the most educated generations overall. So, as you can see, the "lazy" stereotype is a little offensive.
The most important point is that despite our seemingly narcissistic obsession with social media, my generation is compassionate. We want to help those around us, which makes it seem like we're killing the American spirit of individualism...but honestly, is that a bad thing? We're the generation that wants to help our neighbors, end the cycle of poverty, make the wealth disparity less apparent, and just overall improve the happiness and security of those around us. If this makes us naive, so be it.
At the end of the day, haters gonna hate, but overall, we're doing some great work for such an entitled, lazy, annoying generation. Just make sure you like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
