Gen Y

[dgs49]

I am exchanging emails with my 30-year-old son about the "personality" of his generation - if it is not absurd to speak of such a thing.

"We" old people wonder about what sort of adults will develop from a generation that:

Got trophies for participating in sports,

Got inflated grades in school, and in many cases literally could not "fail,"

Were praised for work that was in no way extraordinary, and

Were taught to have "self-esteem" for no particular reason.

We wonder about a generation that avidly supports reality TV, MTV, the twitter feeds of talentless, self-absorbed "celebrities" whose names start with K.

We hear anecdotally about young "professionals" who expect to be promoted every year, refuse to work any overtime, and generally act like members of some government collective bargaining unit.

Is there any hope?

P.S. I am happy to say that my son is atypical - or so I think.

[Gob]

Generation "Y bother"they seem to me. Never known such a lazy / apathetic bunch.

[Joe Guy]

Youth! It's wasted on the bloody young!! Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way? They don't realize how easy they have it. I used to have to walk 10 miles through the snow with no shoes on in order to get to kindergarten. It went downhill from there.

Everything is handed to these kids. They're pathetic. The world is going to hell in a handbag. Spend what you've got before you kick the bucket. You don't want to leave anything to this lazy-assed generation of do nadas...

At least that's what my father told me when I was young...

[dales]

Generation "Y bother"they seem to me. Never known such a lazy / apathetic bunch.

Generalize much?

[Lord Jim]

They don't realize how easy they have it. I used to have to walk 10 miles through the snow with no shoes

You had feet? You had it easy...we dreamed of having feet....

[Joe Guy]

You had feet? Oh, we dreamed of having feet....

I used to be sad because I had no shoes.

Then I met a man who had no feet.

It really pissed me off because I wanted to steal someone's shoes.

[rubato]

Every generation takes for granted "the world as they found it" when they were born. And every generation is given a different set of challenges, generally not anything they chose.

We, people like myself >50 years old, created this generation and are responsible for it.

"Every man thinks that his burden is the heaviest"

Challenges come in different sizes and styles. The challenges of affluence (which we have failed at and it is this failure we see in the next generation) are difficult in that 1,000,000 years of evolution taught us how to deal with scarcity, hardship, suffering, bot nothing taught us how to deal with, too much.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Generation "Y bother"they seem to me. Never known such a lazy / apathetic bunch.

Generalize much?

Please allow me to generalize about my generation: the boomers.

THEY SUCK!

After being handed one of the largest plates of wealth in post war America (courtesty of the "Greatest Generation).....all the boomers have done is squandered a large part and pissed away the rest. My descendents WLL CURSE MY GENERATION for all the damge we did.

/generalized rant

[rubato]

Referring to yourself?

Well, you know best.

Referring to the rest of us? We pay for Planned Parenthood, scholarships for University of California students, we pay for the safe delivery of women in Africa, cataract surgery in Ethiopia. the SF ballet, local public radio, the SF Zen center, Tassajara, &c et al.

If you have led a dissolute life of total self-absorption and selfishness then that is too bad. But your lack of effect says nothing about anyone else.



yrs, rubato

[dales]

[INSERT GRATUITIOUS INSULT HERE]

[UP]yrs, rubato

Why am I not surprised?

eta: Charitable giving does not need to be announced unless one is small to begin with.

[Lord Jim]

We my wife pays for Planned Parenthood, scholarships for University of California students, we my wife pays for the safe delivery of women in Africa, cataract surgery in Ethiopia. the SF ballet, local public radio, the SF Zen center, Tassajara, &c et al.

Fixed.

[Gob]

Referring to the rest of us? We pay for Planned Parenthood, scholarships for University of California students, we pay for the safe delivery of women in Africa, cataract surgery in Ethiopia. the SF ballet, local public radio, the SF Zen center, Tassajara, &c et al.

If anyone believes this bunch of bullshit, I have just the medication for you!

[rubato]

The biggest failing, as I said above, for the Boomer generation is in coping with affluence. Which I will talk about later on but basically we were ill-equipped by nature to deal with excess.

But our achievements are significant as well:
Civil rights for blacks and other ethnic minorities.
The women’s movement.
The birth of environmentalism.
Computers
Biotechnology
The adoption of the “Carter Doctrine” that foreign policy must be shaped in part by the treatment of residents of other countries by their governments esp. civil rights. (even Bush followed Carter’s lead on this).

The following generation are as we made them. If they did not learn some important life lessons then we did not teach them.

And as to private charity: It’s an American thing. We are taught that once we have provided for our basic needs we have an obligation to our community and the world to relieve suffering and benefit the future if we can. I understand that most foreigners aren’t like us in that way and to that degree so it will be difficult for you to understand. Obligation scales with ability. 35 years ago when I was an impoverished student I still supported local public radio each year.

yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

My generation was raised by the so-called "Greatest Generation," who endured the Depression and WWII.

Our parents (in very general terms) wanted us to have everything that they lacked, and in many cases things were given to "us" that were not earned. Parents insisted that their darlings go to college because previous generations could not. Amplifying this desire was the Vietnam War which, by an unfortunate concidence, one could avoid by - what? - GOING TO COLLEGE! So a large portion of my generation went to college with minimal credentials and no purpose other than to avoid the draft, and indulge in the Three mainstays of college life - Sex, Drugs, and Rock&Roll. No prior generation had had such a huge gift bestowed upon them. Adolescence now lasted from age 12 through 22.

Colleges became gluttonous for the influx of students, lowered entrance requirements, built new facilities, hired more faculty, created nonsense "majors" to cater to the less-qualified new students, and made it more or less impossible to fail. The expression "college material," became something of a sick joke. People who were not "college material" were not only getting into colleges, but graduating with "honors."

The so-called "middle class" kept its darlings out of military services through this ersatz educational scam, which accounts for the fact that so few of today's Congresspeople are Vietnam Vets. Most were, in one way or another, draft dodgers like our forty-second president.

We as adults ruined the public school system by seeking to eliminate the possibility of anyone "failing" or feeling bad about themselves, by inflating grades, watering down academic requirements, unionizing the teaching force, and creating nonsense paradigms like "outcomes-based education," in place of rigorous testing to ensure than substantive material was being learned. Self-esteem became a human entitlement, rather than something earned through actual accomplishment.

Being chronically indulged by our parents made us demand "what we want, when we want it," thus leading to mountains of debt, both personally and publicly, as we bought everything we wanted on credit, with no real plan or intention to pay for it.

Which is why our kids are so fucked up.

[Big RR]

Gee, that post could have been written by my father (absent the profanity) about his concern for my generation, and probably by my gradfather about my father's generation, etc. Every generation believes the subsequent one will be the ruin of all of us, but it hasn't happened yet, and it never will. But rant on.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Every generation believes the subsequent one will be the ruin of all of us, but it hasn't happened yet, and it never will.

I do respect your opinion BigRR however, I do have to say that my (our?) generation is leaving the next generation with a shitload. While future gens may or may not be the "ruin" of all of us, I do believe that we have screwed up this world be it morally, physically and/or mentaly.
your mileage may vary

[dales]

My point exactly, o-n-w.

[Big RR]

Sure there are problems we are leaving, but no worse than the problems of fascism in the 40s, the threat of nuclear annihilation in the 50s - 70s, air and water pollution from the 50s on, etc. Each generation has risen to address the most immediate of these problems, leaving some or more for subsequent generations to resolve. But we're still here, for better ir worse. From Socrates on (and probably weell before) people have bemoaned the horrible subsequent generations in being able to handle the tough problems facing them, but we're still here.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Every generation tried to leave the next gen with an easier life. And I suspect that is ending. My father (and mother before she died) left me and my siblings with a possibility of an easier life. Get a good trade or education, have a good work ethic and it will pay off. And for the most part, it has, at least for me. I tried to instill the same in my children. Seems it's not the way of todays world.

[Guinevere]

I'm part of the really squeezed generation --- we are not Boomers, but we also aren't X or Y. We've got Boomer (or just pre-Boomer parents) and Y kids, who we are increasingly supporting. We work more and harder, and we will probably be the first generation that doesn't receive social security -- or what we get will be fractions of what the previous generations were paid.

I agree with BigRR that every generation left problems in its wake for the following generation and much gets done. But I agree, sort of, with oldr, that this time around, given the financial difficulties of the nation, we are less prosperous overall and that makes big picture problems much more difficult to resolve.