The article is partial, leaves out more than it offers and it is wrong. Comments are even worse, far worse, far more pinched and far worse. And now I'm cross.
Where are these people writing from, who are they seeing? Their own relatives, what? Nothing I read online matches what I see every day. The young people I see every day are fantastic, and the situation we've given them more dire than the situation given me that drove me insane. I doubly admire young people considering heavily the economic situation they inherit from us. The anxiety over the requirement of advanced education combined with its ridiculous and unnecessary expense. We've made education more difficult to attain and more necessary, we've made home ownership more difficult to attain and considered necessary. Transportation more necessary and more expensive. And on and on, we've piled it on even in many cases placed on them the burden of our retirement while making that more expensive too.
The writer and especially the commenters need to open their eyes and look, impressive, creative, adventurous, bold and intelligent young people all around. The writer relies on studies and refers to internet and helicopter parenting. A silly example about cereal is given, the bowl and spoon being too much cleanup. That's nonsense. A joke. The writer concludes the real anxiety is moving and leaving family behind, and paralyzing choice. She refers to surveys.
Too bad she doesn't live in a city and have eyeballs and ears with which to listen. Put on her glasses open her eyes and look! And when she has a chance, converse. She'd write a completely different story.
I wonder, do people even recall being that age? Do they not recall the things that drove us insane? Do the commenters not recall their own conversations back then? It's possible. If they could transport back and feel what was felt then and transport right back then they'd have an appreciation for what millennials must deal.
Here's where I gave up caring about their conversations. One commenter out of all those remarking sees beyond his own nose.
Maybe you can't blame the problems with millennial's created by their parents failed generation who embraced Free Trade, Government jobs, welfare for all and all the taxes now piled on to a home.
We are an economic basket case and 20 trillion dollars in debt. Was that their fault also!I thought, "there you go." We could have done much better. I feel shame on this point.
You just spouted the Bernie Sanders mantra, and that's who most of you uneducated dopes like. Look, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, all these schools that charge you $40K a year for a BAD education are your real enemies. Wake up, you Millennial jerks! The colleges run by Lefties are soaking you! They take all your money and mis-educate you to believe all Al Gore's crap. Wake up! Down with BIG EDUCATION! They're worse money grubbers than any oil company or energy company. BIG EDUCATION = DEATH.How rude. But he does make a valid point, one that I make, the uneducated dope who makes a weird connection then attacks the dopey uneducated generalized connection that he made. What an ultra maroon. I had to leave. Truth is not all the commenters are so bad but there sure are a lot of pinched opinions.
14 comments:
It's true that not all millenials are awful, and that their circumstances are not entirely their fault.
We need more trade schools.
The author's point is merely that the combination of too many choices, including the choice to move far from home and family, in combination with having been raised by helicopter parents creates heightened anxiety in millennials. In simple terms freedom scares the bejesus out of them. Makes sense to me. And she's not saying ALL millennials are overanxious. Just more of them than preceding generations.
I like how she mentioned the greatest generation. A generation that marched to war for freedom and didn't whine about it.
I am out of touch with a lot of people my age. I think most young adults of voting age (30 and down) fall into three camps:
The big one (Democrats, socialism)
The small one (Constitution, enumerated powers)
The tiny one (Apathy, not registered to vote, don't care, it's all a scam anyway)
These are what I've gotten from my friends and neighbors. Yea, it's a big generalization, but I see too many young people paralyzed by the government. They fear life without insurance. They are crippled by their student debt. They are unable to cut the cord and take a risk with their life in a cheaper state.
I also see my next door neighbor, 25, went to Texas to make his fortune. He got whatever job he could, and slept on his uncle's couch for a month until he could afford his own place. Did that for awhile, got laid off, found another job, back at it. No fortune yet, but he's working.
MY farmer where I buy my food! That guy is my age- 30! I met him three years ago when we were 27, and he had his 45 acre farm, wife, three kids (now four), and was living the dream and doing what he loved. Awesome.
Good people are like good music. You find them in every genre, but some genres you have to look really hard for the gems.
I didn't read the article for the first comment. I read it now.
The endless choices paralyze us! Thank god Bernie said we'll reduce choices down to government brand everything. Yes, the total homogenization of our people's products will really release the pent up creativity these socialists are just dying to express but for too many choices can not make a decision on the outlet.
I think it is more like the endless government meddling paralyzes us. Then again, my thought process is geared towards owning land, a family, self reliance, and education.
A good number of people my age see owning land or a house as shackles, without the freedom to move or travel. As if they would be tethered forever. They prefer to reduce choice than expand freedom, and they do not seek the truth of all matters. They are borg.
Maybe the stress comes from young people realizing this, realizing our ideologies are incompatible, and that a good number of us will die, and kill, to preserve the republic or advance the all powerful state. Not all dreams come to pass. Some nightmares, however...
"It’s also worth noting that for a long time the story about millennials was how they were still living with their parents. That might contribute to their decisions to move way out when they do eventually leave the nest. Millennials are also much more likely to rent their homes than buy them, even when owning might be significantly cheaper — another sign of their lack of permanent rooting.
It’s not that having options of where to live is bad, it’s that we underestimate the benefit of a nearby support network when we weigh these options. It’s not a coincidence that a safe, stable life has often included remaining geographically close to family.
That’s what I’ll tell my kids: It’s good to have the choice of living far from home — but it doesn’t mean it’s the right choice."
Oh, my, from this lady's tone, I think her kids will move away :)
As far as raising kids away from home was very bad for me, a depressed introvert. For someone outgoing and sociable, really, no problem. And for many being away from family is feature not a bug.
Steg, welcome to Lem's commentariat. As a life long observer of culture and people, I can tell you that millennials are the first generation that has been totally steeped in Marxist leftist indoctrination and we are now seeing the fruits of the labor that prior Marxists have put into play. Look at what they've done to these young adults. As you said, saddled them with anxiety and doubt. The ones that rise above that all have government consumption to look forward too. It's a brave new world of collectivism and they are the first wave of that legacy. Freedom and liberty have a meaning and a purpose, that's why the founders fought so hard trying to enumerate and codify what those feelings meant in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution. They wanted their legacy to show that they were trying to give America a chance to feel the beating breast of liberty and freedom that beats in all mens chests and now, we get to see what the suffocation of that freedom and liberty looks like with leftists. Leftism is the death of freedom and liberty. Leftism and leftist see freedom and liberty as a weed and they are the RoundUp. Can't let that plant grow and prosper, kill it.
Paralyzation of too many choices comes from the instilled fear that leftists have implanted in the minds of this generation of kids and young adults. That's why Conservativism is diminished. Leftists have been able to diminish it in our children because they get to them first in education and they get their eyeballs through culture and media. It's a constant and incessant barrage of leftist ideological programming. Literally. Conservativism will never win under such an onslaught even though it's a superior ideology and way of life. Leftists and Leftism are the RoundUp to Conservativism.
Being an old fart, perhaps I can make some comparisons.
In my youth we had things to look forward to. The world had bright promise. We felt we could accomplish anything if we put our minds to it. Meaning that if you wanted to leave home at 18 you could get a good job and make it in the world. It didn't matter if you went to college. It wasn't mandatory and even if you did want to go, the cost was very low. My first semester in college was all of $750. For those who didn't go to college there were still many great opportunities out there and people didn't look down on you if you decided to be a mechanic, cook, clerk in a bank or be a housewife and stay home. You were allowed to try and allowed to fail.
Wages were low.... however, the costs of living were not as much as now in rentals, food, gasoline. On the other hand we were not expecting all that much out of life either in the form of material needs/wants/. We didn't need cell phones, flat screen tv's, computers, smart tablets....those things didn't EVEN exist. No one pined for expensive name brand shoes or clothing. Penny's and Sears were pretty much top notch for most people. In other words, you could live within your means and still do pretty well. You could live a decent life without crushing debt of college loans. You could aspire to bigger things.
The lack of the PC police meant that you could go out and speak to people without the constant worry of offending someone inadvertently. If you wanted to offend, you would know exactly what to do and say. No uncertainty about it :-) You were free to live your life as you liked without the constant overseeing of Big Nanny. Smoking, drinking, eating fatty steaks, sodas. OK maybe those things might be bad for you but there wasn't the constant nagging guilt trips over it or the angst of whether you should be vegan, gluten free, paleo diet etc. NONE of those things were a deal.
The world wasn't about to end from having a BBQ outside or running your ski boat on the lake. Drinking a beer or a soda you weren't crushed under the obligation of recycling or else you were sinful... or the social justice guilt of drinking coffee that may or may not be harvested by unknown oppressed people. It wasn't that we didn't care about those things, they were just something you did or didn't because you wanted to. You didn't have the pressure of being made to feel responsible for killing the Earth with every single choice you made. Sure...the Cold War was going on and WWII was fresh in the minds of our parents so there were those worries.
We were FREE.
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Today the young have no hopes. They are told what they CAN'T do. What they SHOULDN'T do. Crushed under political correctness. Told that they are responsible for the ills of the world by virtue of being born in a certain ethnic group or by being heterosexual. Micro aggression everywhere!!!. Yet, at the same time given unreasonable and unobtainable expectations and goals. Ending up being crushed under unreasonable debt for College degrees that are worthless for jobs that don't exist. Given goals that few can obtained and given false and elevated senses of capability and self worth. Trophies for participation. Being set UP for failure before they even have had a chance to be adults and slapped in the face when the fantasy world that they have been fed turns out to be unobtainable. Kept in an extended adolescence instead of being set free as adults at 18 to make their own decisions. Weighted down with guilt for things that they have no responsibility for and for things that are imagined. Afraid to misstep. Afraid to offend. Afraid to make a choice. Afraid and paralyzed emotionally.
So sad. I'm sorry for you guys. I know it isn't all millennials. Many, especially from what has been described the "downscale" white working class still have the values and work ethics and have escaped the false fantasy meme that the young millennials have swallowed whole.
I blame society, I blame their teachers and the education system and more...I blame their parents for not forcing their children to face reality. I fear that when the feces hits the oscillating mechanism, many of these young people will be unable to cope. It will be ugly.
Thanks, Meth. I have hope based on our country's history, yet I am well aware it could be a bloody struggle to gain back what we've lost. Although I believe that the masses will resist hard in their own ways. Just like soviet Russia. They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work. Pravda has been here for years.
Arguing with a young socialist in PA one day, he told me the government should have more power. I said ,"Unlimited power?!?" he said,"No, man, like, uh.." I cut in,"Like, we should spell out specifically what the governments can and can't do, as in, enumerated powers?" "Yea! Exactly!"
The honest Bernie supporters want basically what I want, they just never cracked open a history book, let alone economics. I do know a girl, however, who said she would read Sowell's Basic Economics because I said I'd buy it and mail it to her, with the caveat that she read it and discuss with me what she disagreed with. I said this is my basic world view, do you have a similar book that I could read to get me into your head?
She couldn't come up with one, so I let it slide and bought her a used edition of an education. That was recently, and I don't think she's read it yet. I'm hanging on the edge of my seat. :P
I was a pretty bad student in high school. My grades from 9-12th grade follow a remarkably steady downward slope. I was lazy my first years in college, until I finally understood something about work and self motivation. I used to tell my folks,"Just because my grades are bad doesn't mean I didn't learn anything", which would irk my mom, but it's true.
I think that actually ignoring school (except math) has benefited me in the long run. I also eschewed their rules and would bear my knife on my side pocket every day, never had a problem. I was quiet.
You got it DBQ. Exactly.
One of my recurring questions is...
How come we can't do sell home baked goods? Every potential customer would be informed and sign a contract waiving all liability on behalf of the baker from any and all illnesses and conditions which may or may not have been incurred by ingesting our goods which the buyer was informed before purchase of all cleanliness and professional or lack thereof practices in the baking process.
I told you I baked it in my kitchen, with my bunny hopping around my feet. Yea I wash my hands. Do you want that cookie? Can you make that decision for yourself? Block parties where we all share the food is OK, but start charging money for it? *BZZZXXT*
I know a professional cake baker (caker?) who started in her home kitchen because she couldn't afford a huge commercial rental space, and you don't actually need that except for the rules that says you do because public safety, or something.
I ask the baking question because my sister is an excellent cook. People would trample each other to get her soups. I'd love to help her make a huge pot and bring it somewhere in the winter and charge a dollar a cup.
But noooooo. You're not allowed to take initiative. Nooooo. rules rules rules. How did the human race survive without the government to protect us from ourselves?
Must have insurance. Must have health care. Must have minimum wage. Must be licensed.
It is not the people who will come down and overturn our soup cart, but the official state enforcers. The people show up with money and rumbling tummies. The state shows up with contempt and handcuffs.
Characterizing an entire generation of people (or in the case of the "boomers" 2 generations) is ridiculous. There are trends but they're hardly descriptive of everyone in the generation.
It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you let it.
The media likes to label generations and then encourage everyone in that generation to live up to the potential that the media has allotted them.
Nobody ever talks about the boomers who didn't go in for hippie shit, the Xers who didn't feel the need to be hipsters, and all the other people who didn't buy in to the sale of Cool.
Hey I like this new commenter Steg. Fresh new pov. Interesting writing style.
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