Millenials Need Adulting School

[-Outsider-]

I have baby boomer parents. Millennials have a legitimate bitch at the state of the economy and this country. They're not lazy, not delusional for the most part and are pissed off that their future got shafted. Some of that blame falls on boomers but there are a lot of Wall Streeters that are my age that bear much of the responsibility.

I'm not giving a speck of attention to Alex Jones or anyone else people like to tout as bearers of information.

I'm not so much pissed at the economy as I am at our disgustingly unethical higher education practices. It really wasn't this way when my parents were growing up.

For the record, I'm not saying my parents had an easier life by any means. It's just that I feel that this is one of the biggest issues facing millenials, and not one that is willing to be addressed by anyone. It's not just a small issue that people are complaining about, but a rather significant one.

 

[-Outsider-]

Uhh,...I said these things should be taught by both schools and parents. Right here....

Lol I know, I responded to that part further down as I saw it. See the rest of my post beneath that? I still think saying "parents are falling down on the job" isn't entirely the greatest statement on the subject.

 

[ceecee]

Lol I know, I responded to that part further down as I saw it. See the rest of my post beneath that? I still think saying "parents are falling down on the job" isn't entirely the greatest statement on the subject.

Ah yes, I see. I think a whole lot of people are falling down on the job but I will say that absolutely no one attempts to make parenting a) a serious priority and b) does anything to make the job easier. At all. Until that happens, this will continue and get worse.

 

[-Outsider-]

Ah yes, I see. I think a whole lot of people are falling down on the job but I will say that absolutely no one attempts to make parenting a) a serious priority and b) does anything to make the job easier. At all. Until that happens, this will continue and get worse.

I think my parents did a good job in raising me, but they couldn't teach me the things they were ignorant about themeslves. And the fucked higher educational system/culture fucked me over way more that they could have.

 

[anticlimatic]

Proximity is not the same thing as acquaintance. That requires people to interact: to work side by side, attend class together, do business with each other, etc. We start by fulfilling the letter of the law, acting professionally, doing our job despite our personal feelings about the other person. Assuming the other person is doing the same, we develop a shared history which eventually overrides the prejudices. Then the question is how well we can extrapolate from our anecdotal experiences.

Proximity is the first step towards acquaintanceship. So if personal relationships are the solution to racial intolerance, areas with greater proximity which leads to greater acquaintanceships which leads to greater personal relationships ought to have advantage. If your logic is sound, the south should be the most racially tolerant place in the country. I don't think tolerance has much to do with personal relationships, and everything to do with the mind of the individual.

This is exactly where I find the religiously motivated homeschoolers go wrong.

Depends how awful their parents are. I've got no love for self righteous christian zealots, but I know too many people that were brought up in it the right way who have lives and minds and relationships that I am endlessly envious of. I think the relationship between tolerance and religion is non-sequiturial. There might be a pattern visible from the surface, but the fundamental motivators extend well beneath religion.

 

[Coriolis]

Proximity is the first step towards acquaintanceship. So if personal relationships are the solution to racial intolerance, areas with greater proximity which leads to greater acquaintanceships which leads to greater personal relationships ought to have advantage. If your logic is sound, the south should be the most racially tolerant place in the country. I don't think tolerance has much to do with personal relationships, and everything to do with the mind of the individual.

These ideas are hardly mutually exclusive. Our minds are quite malleable, affected by everything we experience. Generations of institutional segregation mean that blacks and whites in the south have lived in the same towns with limited interaction: different neighborhoods, different churches, largely segregated schools, etc. The north had/has segregation, too, but not as strongly enforced, meaning that there are probably more situations in which blacks and whites (and others) have the opportunity or even the necessity to interact as equals and in ways that allow each to see the human qualities of the other.

I'm not saying personal experience is the only way to overcome prejudice, but from what I have seen it often works among those who are not impressed by a more intellectual or even moral approach.

Depends how awful their parents are. I've got no love for self righteous christian zealots, but I know too many people that were brought up in it the right way who have lives and minds and relationships that I am endlessly envious of. I think the relationship between tolerance and religion is non-sequiturial. There might be a pattern visible from the surface, but the fundamental motivators extend well beneath religion.

What is the right way to grow up as a self-righteous Christian zealot? When it comes to tolerance, religion is just one of many factors that make us different and can be a cause for prejudice and exclusion. The human tendency to misunderstand, mistrust, fear, and vilify people unlike themselves takes many forms. Religion just happens to have the extra impetus of salvation, eternal life, avoiding hell, however one wants to frame it.

 

[Ursa]

I have baby boomer parents. Millennials have a legitimate bitch at the state of the economy and this country. They're not lazy, not delusional for the most part and are pissed off that their future got shafted. Some of that blame falls on boomers but there are a lot of Wall Streeters that are my age that bear much of the responsibility.

I'm not giving a speck of attention to Alex Jones or anyone else people like to tout as bearers of information.

This is a big assumption about the Millennial work ethic. Is there a study or a reliable stream of experiences you can cite to defend that? Because I disagree based on my own.

Not being a a Millennial yourself, you didn't have to attend university with my generation. For nine years. I got to hear all day about free healthcare and easy access to buying homes all the while so many of my generation chose majors and degrees such as art, philosophy and journalism that would only ever result in zero income. So many of my generation thought it would be easy to just pick a profession, graduate with a degree in it and then make money and get a house. So many of my generation never questioned that, and that's THEIR problem. Because at that point, they were adults. It wasn't anyone else's problem. And when their dreams weren't realized, they cried and whined and screamed that it was another generation's fault for "screwing them over." Never mind that you can't always get what you want, that you have to do your own research to see what's viable, that you can't buy lattes every day and expect to buy a house, etc. Yeah, Wall Street screwed up. Yeah, the Boomers screwed us over. Oh, well, let's make the best of what we have, try our best and move forward. Said 90% of Millennials in my graduating class never. I still have former classmates collecting unemployment because they are convinced they will become an English professor in 15th century poetry, all the while cursing Baby Boomers for the financial crisis and so thinking that they are entitled to welfare.

This isn't the half of it. I can't even count the number of times colleagues wanted extensions, revisions to course criteria, extra help, you name it to suit their needs. So picky because so many of my generation have been raised to be coddled like showdogs or their hair falls out.

 

[anticlimatic]

These ideas are hardly mutually exclusive. Our minds are quite malleable, affected by everything we experience. Generations of institutional segregation mean that blacks and whites in the south have lived in the same towns with limited interaction: different neighborhoods, different churches, largely segregated schools, etc. The north had/has segregation, too, but not as strongly enforced, meaning that there are probably more situations in which blacks and whites (and others) have the opportunity or even the necessity to interact as equals and in ways that allow each to see the human qualities of the other. I'm not saying personal experience is the only way to overcome prejudice, but from what I have seen it often works among those who are not impressed by a more intellectual or even moral approach. What is the right way to grow up as a self-righteous Christian zealot? When it comes to tolerance, religion is just one of many factors that make us different and can be a cause for prejudice and exclusion. The human tendency to misunderstand, mistrust, fear, and vilify people unlike themselves takes many forms. Religion just happens to have the extra impetus of salvation, eternal life, avoiding hell, however one wants to frame it.

Sure they're not mutually exclusive, but only one is significantly relevant. Where have you seen personal experience overcoming prejudice outside of the movies? The scene in American history X where the black inmate and white inmate bond over laundry doesn't actually happen. If you're a racist before going to prison, you're definitely a racist when you get out. If you're a non-racist before going to prison, you're definitely a racist when you get out. The best thing personal experience can do for a person is "well I guess they're not ALL bad," but that is a no-brainer sentiment shared by every semi-racist except the most narrow minded and minuscule hardline faction therein. "Racist but for an exception or two" is still racist.

The right way to grow up as a self righteous Christian zealot is to not, and instead better understand the teachings of Christ and grow up as a humble self acknowledgingly flawed Christian with a love for both friend and enemy alike. I have about as much love for Christian's doing their religion wrong as I do Islamists doing their religion right, and for the life of me Ill never understand while most leftists transpose the two.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

The best thing personal experience can do for a person is "well I guess they're not ALL bad," but that is a no-brainer sentiment shared by every semi-racist except the most narrow minded and minuscule hardline faction therein. "Racist but for an exception or two" is still racist.

This is what I see and hear mostly. Yes, I live in the South. The cognitive dissonance of how culture is perceived in whole negatives is usually not eliminated from knowing an individual who is representative of it. The percieved representative is "forgiven" for his belonging to that demographic more than the other person accepts enlightenment to adapt opinion of those whole negatives.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Luckily the adult world doesn't care whether you're ready for it.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I'm GenX and haven't figured out how to be an adult. I wish I could live in my mother's basement and smear Cheetos on my face or whatever.

Taxes, mortgages, iPhones, DMV, are all pure head trauma that makes me want to drool and suck my thumb.

 

[Qlip]

I'm GenX and haven't figured out how to be an adult. I wish I could live in my mother's basement and smear Cheetos on my face or whatever.

Taxes, mortgages, iPhones, DMV, are all pure head trauma that makes me want to drool and suck my thumb.

You really are GenX, Millenials prefer waffle cut sriracha potato chips with aoili dip.

 

[OrangeAppled]

Many ideas about millenials are myths and the same old tripe trotted out yet again to complain about the latest generation of young adults. The older generations simply don't like it when younger generations challenge their values, their methods or their social structures. They call it lazy, immoral, immature, etc.

I also find it funny when older generations want to dump all the current problems on the backs of the latest generation of young adults, as if they had no hand in what led up to the problems or shaping the latest generation as parents, grandparents and even older siblings.

Millenials are the children of boomers who had a divorce boom too. So Millenials may have relationship problems - REALLY? Because their parents were hideous examples, maybe?

Millenials also inherited a crap economy after having it drummed into their heads since birth that college was a MUST. I am so happy I graduated before the crash and got a job and started establishing work experience right away; and I came out with no debt. I still went through a major low economic period that sent me crawling back to live with my family. At least I could contribute to them financially though.... Some people in my generation came out of college bogged down in debt and unable to get work, despite having the degree that was supposed to be so important to their future. And people wonder why Millenials don't buy into the American Dream and conform to the adult expectations. So they can become fat, divorced, in debt and miserable like their parents?

I didn't watch the video, so maybe it covers this. Contrary to ideas about my generation, I prefer reading information to watching youtube videos.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

I think there is a presumption of safety before everything in the later generations. Not without merit. I mean, I didn't grow up with school shootings, terrorist threats. I was graduated high school 2 years before Columbine and prior to 9-11. That's when USA changed. Truly it did.

So what I'm seeing with my generation (born in 1979 and the younger generations) is really more a resentment about what to do with it. Whether that is financially, physically, whatever. You know, that's real and there is marked difference at that point. Media became inundated with threat levels. Everyone was on high alert and that hasn't really changed. Especially with terror attacks, school shootings, suicide bombings, etc. Not to mention millennial's grew up as the Generation of Shame. They were shamed online by parents publically for likes and shares, shamed by friends at school in ways I definitely was not threatened with. It was disgusting.

So, there is this pervasive fear in these generations that looks different than how fear looked before. It had less of a recognizable face. Threats are everywhere. I think added to this, is that parents have been caught up in this and want to prevent harm to their children. They fell privy to over protection and fear just like anyone else. Look up Risk Compensation Theory and Risk Homeostasis for some interesting looks at this stuff.

Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected but what also gets argued is that with more preventative measures in place, more trust gets placed in those safeguards in lieu of the person maintaining critical awareness of risk. Eventually, I can't help but see what risk compensation tells us and having that reinforced socially equates to at least some amount of the population catatonic with anxiety paralysis. Trusting themselves less and less, reaching for higher and higher unbrella preventions.


I can't count how many of my friends have anxiety disorders and let that get the best of them. PTSD, whatever. Even more in this day and age, there are so many more resources for assistance!!! and yet, I see a shit ton of apathy and nihilism and wearing a diagnosis as a badge of honor instead of using it as an attempt to identify a path to solution. Let me tell you, my generation, not millennials, got PHd's in apathy and nihilism and no doubt, I see a lot of young people who have nothing to believe in, including themselves.

They look for blanket cures for anxiety, bill paying, mortgages, loans. Not realizing that those anxieties have been every generations anxieties and it isn't about erasing those things but managing it. Living with it all. That's what a successful adult does. I'm not bashing anyone who seeks to change the world for the better here, but I know a lot of people who fight for change on a grand scale while ignoring the small scale battle of their own lives.

 

[Tellenbach]

I first heard the term "adulting" while watching Freeform's very funny reality show: The Twins - Happily Ever After. I think the season's over, but you can catch some episodes online. It's about millenials learning to be adults.

 

[Coriolis]

I'm GenX and haven't figured out how to be an adult. I wish I could live in my mother's basement and smear Cheetos on my face or whatever.

Taxes, mortgages, iPhones, DMV, are all pure head trauma that makes me want to drool and suck my thumb.

I would say DMV, medical appointments, laundry, cleaning, and fixing stupid little things that break around the house.

I want a house elf.

 

[ceecee]

I would say DMV, medical appointments, laundry, cleaning, and fixing stupid little things that break around the house.

I want a house elf.

I'd like a grocery fairy and a laundry leprechaun although, I may have located the fairy.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I would say DMV, medical appointments, laundry, cleaning, and fixing stupid little things that break around the house.

I want a house elf.

I'd like a grocery fairy and a laundry leprechaun although, I may have located the fairy.

Let's get pragmatic here. The realistic answer is a helper robot.

 

[Coriolis]

Let's get pragmatic here. The realistic answer is a helper robot.

There is something seriously wrong with how this exchange has turned out.

 

[anticlimatic]

I think there is a presumption of safety before everything in the later generations. Not without merit. I mean, I didn't grow up with school shootings, terrorist threats. I was graduated high school 2 years before Columbine and prior to 9-11. That's when USA changed. Truly it did.

So what I'm seeing with my generation (born in 1979 and the younger generations) is really more a resentment about what to do with it. Whether that is financially, physically, whatever. You know, that's real and there is marked difference at that point. Media became inundated with threat levels. Everyone was on high alert and that hasn't really changed. Especially with terror attacks, school shootings, suicide bombings, etc. Not to mention millennial's grew up as the Generation of Shame. They were shamed online by parents publically for likes and shares, shamed by friends at school in ways I definitely was not threatened with. It was disgusting.

So, there is this pervasive fear in these generations that looks different than how fear looked before. It had less of a recognizable face. Threats are everywhere. I think added to this, is that parents have been caught up in this and want to prevent harm to their children. They fell privy to over protection and fear just like anyone else. Look up Risk Compensation Theory and Risk Homeostasis for some interesting looks at this stuff.

Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected but what also gets argued is that with more preventative measures in place, more trust gets placed in those safeguards in lieu of the person maintaining critical awareness of risk. Eventually, I can't help but see what risk compensation tells us and having that reinforced socially equates to at least some amount of the population catatonic with anxiety paralysis. Trusting themselves less and less, reaching for higher and higher unbrella preventions.

9/11 was a major turning point for sure. I was a year out of high school when it happened, and I still remember the striking cultural differences before and after. I remember the dominant social value among young adults before that was experience. A type of existentialism inherited from their hippie parents in which danger was simply an aside to be taken for granted. What was often mistaken for apathy in my generation was simply a pleasant willingness to just like go with it, for the sake of participating in a palpable way in all of the curious wonders and beauties of being alive. At our social core we craved the novel and the artistic and it fueled a type of spiritual hunger that I think helped move the economy on a fundamental level through curiosity innovation pursuit and celebration, even if the nuts and bolts of it were coming apart. After 9/11 that core spirit dissolved, and without that engine the vehicle of our falling-apart economy pretty much coasted to a stop.

9/11 sparked a fear that had a snowball effect on everything. An obsession with physical safety decayed into an obsession with emotional safety. I overheard a couple of teenagers talking in a restaurant about how difficult it must be for a transgendered person to experience body dysmorphia, and all I could think of while I was listening to them was... what the hell? When did teenagers start giving a fig about that kind of thing? What happened to being assholes and doing drugs and trespassing into hot tubs in the middle of the night?