Apathy of the Millennials

Call them what you will; Generation Y, Generation Next, Millennials, the Internet Generation; these are people coming of age in a time wrought with all manner of difficulty. I was reading an Associated Content article from one of my favorite writers Michele Starkey today which talked about Millennials; their attitudes, their disposition, and their shortcomings; and I have to say, I was a little taken aback.

I am a borderline Millennial. I am certainly not a "Generation X" though I fancied myself as such. One of the films I grew up idolizing was "Singles." A Gen-X themed hit from 1992 starring Bridget Fonda, Kyra Sedgwick, and Matt Dillon about the lives of 20-somethings in Seattle near the dawn of a new century. They were bored and aloof and all searching for love. It was like one long episode of "Three's Company" with an awesome soundtrack. Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, The Smashing Pumpkins; the soundtrack stayed with me much longer than the film, or so I thought.

The Millennial generation are those born after 1980. I was born in 1979. I was the child of a pair of boomers. Hippies, make-love-not-war types who came of age in the Alex P Keaton stock market of the 1980's with child in tow.

So this Michele Starkey article pointed out a number of illuminating facts about the millennial generation. Millennials are more ethnically diverse, racially diverse, less religious (though more independently spiritual), and more educated. All good, positive things.

However the article also pointed out that 37% are unemployed and "more millennials live at home than ever before."

I take some umbrage with this figure. In America today there are decidedly fewer jobs than ever before for the number of people in the country. So with fewer jobs and more people, what does anyone expect? It's not like the boomer generation's parents who worked their 20 years, punched their timecard, got their Social Security, and could sell their house in Boston for 10x profit and go buy a house in Louisiana for eighty thousand bucks.

Our parents are still working. The boomer generation never stopped working. They built up these efficient, very profitable companies, eliminated all the entry-level jobs that they hung onto when they entered the workforce, outsourced payroll and production, and kept working.

So where do the boomers think we're going to work? How do the boomers think we're going to move out from their couches and guest bedrooms?

Maybe a more important question to ask; a question that I ask my wife all the time: why did the boomers bring these families into the world in the first place? I'm grateful for everyone I know and all my friends, but it's a question worth asking. Because the boomers did not have the resources or the wherewithal to afford these large families, it's a big deterrent for millennials like me to be able to shoulder the burden of bringing a child into this world myself.

Sources:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8128457/whats_on_the_mind_of_the_millennials.html?cat=7#comments

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800177668/info

http://www.amazon.com/Singles-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B0000028MA