Posted on 05/21/2024 12:20:01 PM PDT by DallasBiff
The downturn of the pandemic economy has hit many groups hard. But for many millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — and Generation Z, who follow them, that pain — plus a number of other factors — are creating questions about who is responsible. Over the next few nights, economics correspondent Paul Solman is going to examine this. He begins tonight from the perspective of some millennials.
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
I’ve seen a lot of millennials say that they can’t wait until all the boomers and GenXers “die off.” (As they take another selfie, pontificate on Tik-Tok from inside their vehicles and sip their lattes.)
Ghoulish little people, they are.
But we weren't spoiled the way many millennials and gen-z seem to be.
When I went away to college I came back one summer, when I went to fill up with gas the girl behind the counter lived just down the road from us. This was a college town with an Ivy League university where her father taught as a law professor.
Can anyone image a law professor's daughter working as a cashier for extra money at a gas station while in college these days? This wasn't unusual then.
“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s.
In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960.
In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin.
After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”
The “generation gap” was engineered.
Started with the development of “teenage” life. Then was advanced with the young Boomers: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”
But the more dependent young adults are on their parents, the less they can developmentally separate from them—and the more likely they will instead displace that dynamic on their parents’ class more generally.
A couple of statistics about military service and boomers, about 10 million boomers served in the military, and the strongest support for the Vietnam War was the under 30s.
I’m early Gen-X. We were mostly feral.
I give her the same answer as you: my dad. My grandfather had a farm in North Africa where my dad grew up during WWII. No gas, so my grandfather built a CO trailer to feed the carburetors on the car and farm machinery. They did all their repairs and my uncle learned how to machine parts from blocks of soft steel with a drill press and files. Plus the usual farming chores.
Wow, amazing upbringing! Kudos to your dad. I did a lot of stuff around our house growing up, but never that workload. Our kids did usual chores, but nothing severe. They were all expected to work from 14 onward and worked a lot of jobs from the local boathouse at the lake, to retail, pizza delivery, tire shop, and equestrian training.
I taught all of them how to use tools and build things. I gifted a lot of tools to both daughters and they know how to use them. Ironically, neither have very handy spouses, so they dig in, make things, and get things done. There’s no job too tough for them. The older one just completed a major remodel and did a lot of the work herself (with my help) and learned how to select and manage contractors. Her house foundation had settled about 3 inches on one side and she evaluated alternative ways to deal with it. Jacking up the foundation was going to be a permanent fix, but $40k to $50k. She thought about their expected stay in that house and decided it wasn’t worth it so she had a contractor install long wedges and a new subfloor on top of the wedges. Since their roof is angled, you don’t see the fact that the floor was adjusted like that. Our middle daughter is laying floor, building shelves, installing a workshop in the garage, and now installing a barn-style door to her home office.
I’m really proud of both of them for their can-do attitudes and willingness to tackle new challenges around their houses. It’s very gratifying as a dad to see that.
I forgot to mention how you guys and even we late boomers also got the "joys" of no-fault divorce and widespread drug abuse.
I think this is due to later generations being more secularized than boomers. Where God’s spirit is absent, demons move in.
I remember building a small barn with my son. He asked ME how I learned to do stuff like this? I told him I learned to build things from MY DAD.
The problem with so many kids today is that their parents NEVER made them work around the house. They have no idea how to fix something. They have to hire people to do those things.
A lot of kids today grow up without Dads. Some don’t even know who there’s is.
Some of the problems started even before Boomers had any real political
Power though they didn’t really try to fix anything either
My kid turned out fine. Four years in the USMC. One wife. Many kids. Very happy.
And both of those groups were primarily boomers.
90% of the folks here on Free Republic are Boomers...
Sure there were problems before th 1990’s.
But the USA was the absolute Global Hegemony 30 years ago. And now look at it.
Who was in charge for all that ?
Millennials are the spoiled, self entitled spawn of the Boomers. Mr.GG2 has two of them and my cousin has 2 also.
I’m a late boomer. I hate front of the line boomers. They took their turn and kept taking their turn.
*sigh* guilty. The ex imposed a no spank rule.
Fixed the no spank rue typo, but I do rue it...
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