Stop belittling the younger generation
By Jessica Berget, Staff Writer
Millennials get a lot of flak nowadays for no good reason. Time and time again, baby-boomers and Gen Xers tell us that our generation is lazier, more arrogant, and more self-entitled than any other generation. Numerous times, I have been approached by strangers spouting off a negative characteristic of a generation I did not ask to be born into. I have even been told that millennials are slower at processing information than the previous generations, which is obviously untrue.
What did millennials do to deserve this? We already have to deal with a lesser quality of living than the previous generation. Unemployment is much higher, and millions of people are now burdened with student debt. Why throw dumb generalizations in the mix?
The baby-boomer generation, Gen X, and even some fellow millennials love criticizing the current generation, especially the fact that we are entitled. This claim is usually backed up with statistics like: “over 30 per cent of millennials live with their parents at age 30,” “millennials typically change career choices four times before turning 30,” or “over 35 per cent still receive financial help from their parents.” However, these statistics don’t necessarily point towards entitlement. On the contrary, they are the direct result of a generation taxed with thousands of dollars of student loans and high unemployment rates. Millennials are the opposite of entitled, they just refuse to follow the system baby-boomers have put in place, or do not have the economic means to do so.
Millennials aren’t more or less of anything, they just have different societal norms, values, and living standards than previous generations. This doesn’t make them any better or worse than those that came before, just different. I know people have always been critical of the younger generations, but please, just leave millennials alone.
