Better Face It Millennials: You Didn’t Get What You Were Promised

Townhall ^ | 8-26-13 | Morgan Brittany

[ReformationFan]

They were the royal children; the sons and daughters of the Baby Boomers who adored and spoiled them and promised them that life would be wonderful. They were designer babies with clothing and shoes that sported logos just like their parents.

Their parents were on waiting lists to get them into the right pre-school, they were given lavish birthday parties and extravagant gifts. They were trained and brainwashed and made to believe that getting into the “right” college meant success or failure.

They were given trophies and awards for playing sports whether they were accomplished or not. It didn’t matter if they were good, as long as they “tried”.

These 18-29 year olds from all across the economic spectrum were made to believe that the world owed them something just because they were “special”. It didn’t matter if they really were “special” or outstanding, it was all about self-esteem.

Many of these kids don’t know what real work is. Their work ethic is entirely different from the one that previous generations had. Just because your mom and dad said you were “talented”, “special” and “oh so smart” doesn’t translate to what an employer might think.

[Vermont Lt]

Aahhh, no. Millenials are based on the decade where they came into adulthood. This means the decade when they turned 18 through 29. Therefore, if you turned 18 for the year 2000, you were born in 1982.

You may not agree, but that is how the generationists figure this stuff.

[Vermont Lt]

You may not agree, but the science and facts are pretty compelling. And they have been compelling back to the 1700’s.

No one likes to be put into a little box, and there are exceptions to the rules, and the lines at the edges are fuzzy. Your cultural environment has a lot to do with it. Rural areas tend to be less affected than urban areas. The cultures from different countries impact these differently.

However the cycles are clear.

[grania]

2008 crashed that ideal

But why? It used to be when you didn't have a job, you'd become self employed. Now, with taxes and regulation it's really hard for someone to do that. Then there's the situation with competition from overseas. If people would buy "made in the USA" and there could be a push back to locally made goods, that would employ a lot of people.

I hear younger people complain about the lack of opportunities for stable full-time jobs, which is true. So why do I still see them in line buying Chinese and other foreign crap? Why aren't they lobbying for more local control of their lives instead of storm-trooping for Obama? Why don't they demand more control of their lives instead of more freebies? They're going to inherit this world, mostly without the skills for self-sufficiency and innovation that earlier generations had. I do hope they figure that out, as a group.

[autumnraine]

Yeah i see that a lot around here. Or he shouldn’t have so stupid to get some lowly factory job

[Vermont Lt]

You can overlay the Millenials with the folks born just before the start of WWI. Their first full decade was during the postwar boom. Their second decade is full of economic turmoil, political unrest, and distant wars. We all know how their third decade turned out. The matching generation from the last cycle was “the greatest Generation.” It is likely the “kids” today are going to have to carry the burden of the past generations.

And the ones to screw things up were not the boomers—it was the “silent” generation who came into adulthood immediately after the war. When you see a leader and they graduated from college from 1947 through 1956—those are the ones you have to look out for. They have a chip on their shoulder from being constantly compared to their older siblings—the ones who saved the world. They are the only American Generation who have not produced a President.

[autumnraine]

You are absolutely correct.

[grania]

re: 15 to 34 in 1960

I'm a 1963 HS grad and in that group. I'm a little older than a boomer, so got a career and preparation for retirement when it was doable. Our culture was fun when we grew up. We and our children got education without loans, jobs we could depend on, and a whole lot of freedom, independence and opportunity. Our world was mostly safe and our country was secure. We're pretty healthy as a group.

I call us the luckiest generation that ever lived on earth. But something else...we had the chance to work for a living and take personal responsibility for our lives, and most in our age group have done that.

Just did my 50th HS reunion and am feeling a bit sad and nostalgic for everything we had. As a group, we still keep the life view of our youths. How did our country go so wrong in just 50 years?

[mrsmel]

My siblings and I haven’t diverged politically, but I used to easily forget that the music of my young adulthood wasn’t even remotely the same as the music of youngest sisters’ young adulthood (I finally got over that), and there are cultural things which don’t really affect their conservatism, on which we diverge. Of course, my youngest siblings are some 10 or more years younger than me.

Personal anecdotes of others interest me, and I find myself referring to them a good bit (I try not to, I know most don’t care for it, but after all, our own lives and those of the people we know best, are what we know best).

$37 a month for the mortgage!!! Oh well, I can remember when a pack of cigs was under a dollar, and gas was...really cheap :)

[mrsmel]

Good point, my husband has reminded me of this a couple of times. He served two tours (and volunteered, at that!), and lost his younger brother there (who lied about his age to volunteer).

[skeeter]

Everyone is an individual. I don’t buy the group mentality BS.

Agreed.

People cease being individuals and become instead part of a group only by choice. One of the traits that set conservatives and liberals apart.

[Gritty]

I'm a 1963 HS grad... Our culture was fun when we grew up... education without loans, jobs we could depend on, and a whole lot of freedom, independence and opportunity.

'61 grad, here. I heartily concur. America was the land of opportunity in those days. Everyone worked (I started when I was 12, but also had a paper route before that) and that was encouraged by parents and also the laws. I bought my first high powered hunting rifle through the mail when I was 14 although I also owned a .22 and a shotgun by then which I had bought locally and legally as did my friends. Nobody ever heard of school shootings in those days.

Our world was mostly safe and our country was secure...

I have to disagree here. The Soviet Union was a HUGE threat in these years, and for years afterward.

How did our country go so wrong in just 50 years?

There is lots of blame to go around here.

First, a 1962 Supreme Court decision took God out of the schools. Things started turning sour quickly after that. Then, Kennedy was assassinated. That prevented Barry Goldwater from being President. We got LBJ and the Great Society and the Vietnam War, instead. We also got massive culture rot with the anti-war crowd, drugs, and Hippies. Then the Liberals took over almost all our major institutions.

Aside from a temporary restoration under Ronald Reagan, it has been pretty much down hill ever since.

IMHO, we lost our way and our Divine blessings when we threw God out of the public square and began building our own Tower Of Babel.

[Nowhere Man]

Yeah... my son watched his dad give up sick days etc... all for the factory he worked at for 27 years get sent to Brazil and we aren’t even a union state.

I think that is a big factor in all of this. I've seen it here in spade here in the Pittsburgh area a generation ago. One of my closest friends grew up in Alliance, Ohio and he saw his father lose his job when they shipped the factory overseas. I also know a mechanic who worked at a factory, when the plant and equipment was being sold, he was told to show the foreigners how to run the machines. He was on lunch break at the time he was told and his exact reply was, "you want me to teach some 'g--k' how to do my job and then you'll put my out of work? Goodbye...." Then he got in his car and left. My friend and the mechanic are in my age range.

[redgolum]

That is what most don't want to face.

We are a much poorer nation in real terms than any time in the last 100 years. We are losing production to overseas, and those jobs are not going to be replaced with anything.

We are going to make France and Spain look like full employment areas soon. Seems like we as people forgot that you can't have a service economy and have real wealth.

[ansel12]

As a reminder though, remember that the "silent generation" was the generation of the 1960s, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Joan Baez, Bill Alinsky and Bernadette Dohrn, Jane Fonda, The Chicago Seven, Janis Joplin, Bob Seeger, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Van Morrison, Jim Morrison and so on, just about everyone that a person thinks was a boomer during the 1960s, was not a boomer at all.

According to the Selective Service System, from 1954 through 1963 (peacetime) they drafted 1,327,343 men for military service, from 1964 through 1973 (Vietnam War), they drafted 1,840,650 men, the Cold War was raging and dangerous.

If you want some eye opening reminders of how much conflict was going on in 1950s and 1960s America, look at the activities of the 101st Airborne and the 82nd Airborne being called into service in some cities and states in America during those years.

The 101st Screaming Eagles in America, during the 1950s.

[ansel12]

I think the 1965 immigration Act killed us, it (the propping up of the leftist vote) prevented and blocked the rightward swings back to normalcy.

[Revolting cat!]

It doesn’t matter if I agree with those generationists, whoever they are, it’s just another occasion for (weak) jokes and puns, as the very definition of the ‘millenials’ is completely arbitrary, and could instead apply for example to all those who died in the year 2000, don’t you think?

[Gritty]

I think the 1965 immigration Act killed us, it (the propping up of the leftist vote) prevented and blocked the rightward swings back to normalcy.

Yes, that too. It was part of the LBJ disaster that haunts us today - and that particular disastrous gem was led by Teddy Kennedy.

The GOP was powerless in those years. They could stop nothing. The Democrats and Liberals owned both houses of Congress, the Executive, and the Courts and LBJ ruled it all with a corrupt and iron hand.

[Nowhere Man]

I think the 1965 immigration Act killed us, it (the propping up of the leftist vote) prevented and blocked the rightward swings back to normalcy.

Agreed. I think this was a big part of the downfall where it created more people with their hands out. I know on other thread, we might get into a tussle since I am somewhat more of a paleo-libertarian but I do not agree with the standard Libertarian party on immigration. We do need to take a 5 or 10 year time period, bring immigration to a zero or near zero (the only two exception, spousal visas and asylum seekers although the former, it would be the responsibility of the spouse bringing them over to support them), get our house in order, bring our jobs back, etc.

[Nowhere Man]

BTW, I do not pick on people because of generation, there are plenty of lefties and O-Hole supporters of all stripes and ages, those are the ones I’m mad at.

[ClearCase_guy]

We do need to take a 5 or 10 year time period

I respect that. I do have differences with Libertarians, but there are plenty of grounds upon which Conservatives and Libertarians agree -- we should work on what we share and put off till tomorrow the ideas that divide us.