10. Did this book change your thoughts about Millennials and even younger Americans? Brooks spends considerable time comparing surveys of college students in the 60s and the 2000s. He often portrays Millenials as delicate snowflakes with unrealistic exepctations for their lives. Is he being fair to them?
Y’know who is doing all the complaining about Gen Xers and Millennials? The Baby Boomers. Brooks, God bless him, is very much a Boomer. The Boomers’ parents complained about their long hair and wild clothes and loose morals. And the Boomers grew up, went to work, and as later generations came, they complained about THEM. They complained that Gen Xers were lazy good for nothings who were going to bring the country to ruin with our lack of social conscience (hi there!) and that Millennials won’t grow up OR work. Oh, and that they think the world should be handed to them on a silver platter.
I’d like to point out first and foremost that early and late Boomers are the parents of Gen Xers and Millennials. So, if you don’t like how your kids turned out, I recommend remembering that they’ll be choosing your nursing home.
Can we agree that teenagers of any generation want to sleep late? It’s biological, not criminal. But it seems to drive adults bonkers. And that once teens can get around on their own, they want to spend a lot of time on pleasurable activities, usually with a cohort of their choosing that their parents may or may not approve of? Now that’s just practice for the rest of your life. Maybe a little guidance is called for, but rock bottom I’m going to call that normal human behavior. And so what if young people don’t always have a lot of focus? Aren’t you allowed to take some time to figure out what you want to do?
Can we agree that as you get into your thirties, you desire the things that require responsible behaviors, such as a home of your own, an income you can count on, and to be a good parent? Life simply happens, whether you plan for it or not. Whether you’re emotionally vulnerable or resilient. Whether you’re well educated or not. Whether you’re wealthy or poor. And you learn to cope. Some better than others, true, and some later than others, but eventually individuals will pick up the hang of adulthood.
I think that what happens is that people who are already saddled with responsibility – who care about things like retirement and their legacy and paying not just for their own college education but their kids’ – are just appalled by people who are physically grown but not psychologically and emotionally mature enough (yet) to care about those same things.
So, in short, I don’t take much of Brooks’s complaining about Millennials seriously. For one thing, I remember with some bitterness when it was my generation that was going to ruin the country and I’m simply not willing to lay that on another generation. For another, almost all of his “evidence” comes from surveys of college students who have reason to have high expectations. But, y’know, and by the way, what the heck is wrong with Brooks that he uses a narrow slice of a generation (college students) to represent the whole?
Ah, Boomers! SO MUCH confidence in their own way of looking at the world! It’s endearing when it’s not infuriating.
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