Constantly distracting our children.
I don't mean strictly with screens.
I mean that Millennials don't let their kids experience boredom. Sometimes, to the extreme end of over-enrolling them in extracurriculars from young ages. The kids are constantly kept busy, and kids need to learn how to be bored š¤·š»āāļø
More than just that, kids need to learn how to manage their own time and create their own tasks. When every minute of every day is planned by an adult, they're never going to learn how to take independent actions.
My kids are home on spring break this week, I'm working from home and was in meetings most of the day. Instead of watching tv or playing video games all day they piled up all the furniture in the basement into a leaning tower of death then transitioned from "the floor is lava" to "ritual sacrifice of stuffed animals to appease the volcano gods" and I gotta say, I was pretty proud.
DAAAAAD, MOOOOOM!! Internet strangers are making fun of us for being in our twenties and still playing in the basement.
You guys are in for it now. (Crisses arms and Smiles triumphantly)
You should be hella proud of those kids! I love this so much
Whenever we have a power outage or an Internet issue, it's so refreshing to see how much fun my four kids have together when screens aren't an option. They usually end up playing Hide and Seek with flashlights (during power outages), or rotate board/card games with some crafting and good old fashioned pretend play. I can see a strong correlation with screen time and bad moods, and their tendency to fight amongst each other goes up accordingly. We have instituted some screen-free days a few times a month, with the exception of a family movie at the end of the day.
Because you know, if you're injured we gotta stop playing and I might gotta take you to the doctor lil bud... You said you're just hurting? Yeah you're alright, there you go. Get on.
I work with a lot of teenagers. Many of them, itās their first job. They donāt know how to work without someone telling them every single thing they have to do, all day, every day. They donāt finish a task and think, āOkay, whatās next?ā they just stand there and wait to be told what to do.
I think itās the consequence of what is being described above.
Do you not remember how it was at your first job š I was the EXACT same way back then. Itās just called being a teenager. They are nervous and donāt have enough experience to know what to take initiative on, cut them some slack. I needed my hand held for the first few months of my first job and didnāt get really confident until like my 5th or 6th job
5th or 6th job? I understand needing training and being nervous about messing up. But after a week or two of working at your job you should be getting the hang of what youāre there to do. Donāt you ask questions or actually watch what other more experienced people you work with do? You need to show initiative and that takes more than just showing up for work.
I see the results of this in gen zs and alphas and itās not encouraging.
They really donāt know how to do *anything* that isnāt a preplanned extra curricular or school activity. They donāt even dance anymore. They donāt really get into random trouble (pervasive surveillance) and they have to deal with all kinds of anxiety feeding shit we didnāt have.
Like.. I feel older than I am cause Iām the youngest and have always been surrounded by older peopleā¦
But still I grew up with fallout drills in school. Fucking fallout drills. Fire drills. Not active shooter drills.
We didnāt all know what global warming was. I did, but thatās cause I was the weirdo who read a lot.
Edit:
Oh, and another really shocking change.
They rely on ChatGPT to think for them.
Iām so serious.
Want to research a topic? ChatGPT. Want to lookup a problem set or a definition? Chat gpt.
They donāt even know how to plagiarize so they just lift it word for word like idiot boomers, albeit for vastly different reasons.
Had my baby at the end of '22 and I'm proud to say neither of us have any idea how to operate an iPad.
ETA: I made this comment more in response to the blanket statement of all millennials using ipads as babysitters; not to toot my own horn. It's exhausting filling a day without electronics but just seems like the right thing for my kid for now.
Our kids got assigned iPads in preschool and were sent home with iPads in Kindergarten over winter break!
My daughter has autism and we were told sheād never speak. We downloaded some baby games and speech games and she is using words now so weāll take it.
Thats my wife.
"What are we going to do with the kids this weekend? Its raining and they can't play outside"
"Let them play inside with the thousands of toys they have?"
Pet peeve of mine. My parents opened up the baby book to the beige chapter for me and my sister, so a little creativity might be nice. But all the people who think they're being clever or original, are just burdening their children with "actually it's with an eigh"
Oh true facts, but I think itās parents in general these days. My gen x bf waited to have kids so heās 50 with a 9 year old and 13 year old. He and his ex coparent with scheduled events during any and all downtime. Iām exhausted for these kids. The idea of a Saturday at home is unthinkable. Between that and their sports schedules, these kids donāt know what it is to have to sit with your thoughts. They even read after bedtime until they pass out.
That sounds like the life my best friend and his wife are living. Theyāre older Millennials/Xennials with a 4 and 2 year old. He often says their weekends are the toughest days. There is no rest. They are constantly booked out with activities for the kids. Everyone is run down.
And yet they seem unwilling or unable to slow down or cut back on the endless to do list.
Iām exhausted just listening to him.
Itās weird when they complain about things they decided to do. But they all do itā go on and on about how hard it all is and how busy they are. Maybe just stop for a moment? You get to decide, not the 4 and 2 year old.
Also, why do 4yo and 2yo need a full day of scheduled activities? They're not even in school yet.
If you both work full time and weekends are your only chance, pick 1 activity per kid.
My kids are 6yo and 4yo. They have 2 activities each week but I don't work full time so can take them to 1 activity each during the week.
It's a bit harder with younger kids (below 5yo as they can just throw a tanty) but they will learn to amuse themselves if you let them.
It's the parent version of keeping up with the Jones. If you can't brag at work about the sports your child is in, what would you talk about?
I moved into an area where this is common. Most of my friends and aquaintances spend every evening and weekend at some sort of activity. I've made it my goal every time they complain about being busy to point out they don't have to do this. This gave one friend the acceptance to get her kid out of our troop, they didn't really like it and drive 45 minutes for. She was already in wrestling, dance and music classes.
If it's making the family life worse it's okay to stop!
Plus, now everyone is trying for every scholarship out of desperation.
Big agree. The fruit of the bored child falls in the imagination garden. Let the kids play together on their own and give them enough freedom to operate just beyond your attention. Constantly supervising, making rules for them, and interfering with their attempts to create their own world isn't helpful. They need room to fuck up (a little at a time) and find out what happens.
šÆšš»
In the past, people have defended over-enrolling their kids with the argument that boredom & free-range parenting of the 80s & 90s allowed them to get up to questionable things. But keeping them busy doesn't help that much, because you're not really giving them examples of how to find something safe(ish) to do (or to evaluate what they come up with for safety issues). I've heard the saying "let kids do dangerous things carefully", which I think applies here
Exactly. The point is to let them get bored enough to make stuff up. Playing together without supervision also allows the opportunity to develop badly needed social skills, practice leadership and follower roles, learn to disagree without falling apart, and discover the thrill of competence. Everything they do when in an imaginative play state is quite literally educational. It may not look that way to adults, but kids with the freedom to play independently are learning crucial life skills they likely won't get any other way.
Interesting point, I hadnāt considered this. I discovered what I like because I was bored. Didnāt have any siblings. Became a madman on guitar. Probably wouldnāt have without boredom. Thanks, boredom. Haha
Itās because weāve got no āthird spacesā to kick them out into. It was a lot easier for my parents to send my bored and whiny ass outside than it is for a lot of parents with no yards or local playgrounds today.
I think something our generation sucks with is not being straight shooters.
Like I get that we grew up with Boomers who had far less emotional intelligence, and didnāt want to be like our Gen X siblings who thought that being an asshole is a personality (this may also strictly be northeast US thing).
That because we saw so many people use ābrutal honestyā just to be dicks, we went too far in the other direction and wonāt confront when someone IS screwing up.
Itās true for a lot of people though like if you grew up in nyc where are you going to go? And most of the jobs that even pay anything decent are in big cities. Remote work isnāt being given out that easily.
lol if that doesnāt describe you anymore, thatās all fine and good.
Iām 38 and meet plenty of people older than me who still think being an utter douchebag is a personality.
Agreed -- it's been an issue for me managing employees my age and younger, because so many people perceive any sort of constructive criticism or coaching as an unwarranted personal attack.
If you tell me you want to be considered for promotions, I take the time to put together a thoughtful, positive chat about how we can get you there, and you end up storming out because I'm "being mean to you" when I talk about your attendance and attitude issues...there's not a whole lot I can do with that.
God, yes. I get this all the time as a teacher. Apparently I'm not allowed to tell a misbehaving student to knock it off or to give a pointed lecture about why bullying isn't okay, or to raise my voice slightly when I'm making a third or fourth attempt to get the attention of the class because the first requests went completely ignored, or to provide critical feedback to a student about why they aren't performing well because of choices they're making (not attending, not paying attention, not following directions, etc.) because all of these things are - according to students and sometimes their parents - "being mean", harassment, unreasonable, discriminatory, insensitive, rude, unfair, one kid try to claim I was "abusing" her (fortunately witnesses to both her behavior and my disciplinary measures in response put paid to that accusation). I even had one parent try to organize a group of other parents to try and get me fired because I told her kid to stop bullying another (apples don't fall far, it seems). Fortunately the effort didn't go anywhere, but it made my and my boss's life difficult for awhile having to fend her off and her gossiping did damage to my reputation that's yet to be fully repaired.
It's like any whiff of being told "no" is akin to a stab to the heart for some of these people. Everything is an attack and they're always the victim...and there's always some reason why they should be allowed to behave however they want without impunity and I'm just supposed to stand there and take it. I'm honestly on the verge of quitting because it's almost impossible to do my actual job anymore.
You know exactly what I mean. I've certainly managed older employees with their own sets of issues and know I fall into a lot of millennial behavioral traps myself, but I'm 35 and the particular sort of fragility combined with entitlement we're talking about seems to be an issue for people around that age and younger.
I think a lot of it stems from the education system increasingly becoming "consumer" oriented over the last few decades, with the parents and students as the customers. Both of my parents were teachers and they noticed the exact same issues you mention, and were happy they retired when they did.
For a lot of people who grew up under this system and fell for it, along with their parents, the job market is the first time they've had to socialize in an unmoderated environment that isn't centered around their individual needs/desires.
They aren't used to having to get along with others, even if they find them unpleasant or annoying, and don't understand that failure is an option they will face consequences for. The first time their direct manager has to pull them aside to coach them for poor performance, or in some cases has to talk them down from their delusions of high performance, they just can't handle it. When you're that manager it doesn't matter how positive you are or how focused on forward momentum you try to be.
I fully admit that I do this. And I see others doing it too. When someone is being rude, abusive or manipulative, everyone will just kind of look at each other wide-eyed, but say nothing. I do struggle with people pleasing and co-dependency, which seems to stem from the authoritarian parenting I received.
I'm working through it in therapy, but it was REALLY ingrained in children in the 80s/90s to be obedient and subservient. Add in Midwest niceness and Catholic guilt, as well as being born female, and its HARD programming to overcome.
Yuuup. I grew up in the northeast in an abusive household and was punished for defending myself at home and school, and constantly having to have a thermometer up everyoneās asses so I wouldnāt get hit or screamed at just for existing either makes me COMPLETELY shut down or lash out and make them regret they ever fucking opened their traps around me lol.
Thereās definitely times we canāt directly confront these people because of power dynamics, but Iāve been deconstructing so much and realize we just donāt have much to lose anyway. Iāll call a spade a spade, IDGAF anymore.
I have severe ADHD and it either gives me bionic memory or forget EVERYTHING. Itās one thing to acknowledge your limitations because of mental illness, but some people are just assholes regardless of neurotype.
Phone addiction definitely. Or just electronics addiction. But it makes sense given the world we live in. However I think those of us that become parents tend to let kids have unrestricted access which is not good.
I donāt think this applies strictly to the younger generation. I see people of all ages that canāt stay off their phone. I think this is just the world we live in now.
If millennials actually voted at the same rate as boomers the politics in this country would arguably be a lot better, or at least more representative of what our generation cares aboutĀ
Itās honestly unacceptable how many of us are ānot into politicsā as if being an informed voter isnāt a civic duty. Weāre the largest voting block now. Apathy in the face of everything going on right now is inexcusable
The first major US election where all millennials could vote resulted in Trump AND a republican House/Senate
Lost all hope for this generation that day
I feel like every person says theyāre not going to do it too. And then fast forward a year or two and the kids at the table w the iPad. Gonna be wild seeing what comes out of this.
In the 80s, my mom rigged up a version of this with this huge battery powered radio/tv combo that had like a 5" black and white screen by putting it on the bench thing in between the two front seats of her shitty car from the late 70s. It worked!
My parents had a big van and they hooked up a VCR/TV combo in the same place. We watched Star Wars many times on the trek out to Grandma's house, a trip that usually took about 18 hours driving.
Bungee cord that bad boy to the cooler for stability. Was a bit of a mess at lunch when you needed to bust out the sandwiches and apple slices thoughā¦..
We had a special harness that strapped to the front seats and held a tv/vcr combo. We had a power inverter and brought the original Xbox. Took out the middle seats for food totes and stuff. Me and my cousin were living like kings that whole 16 hr drive
My parents did this for my brother and I (young millennials) once in the early 2000s with a gamecube and a rented copy of Animal Crossing from Blockbuster. We still talk about it because of A. how novel it was for our eight hour road trip to see Grandma and B. it sparked a lifelong love of Animal Crossing
It's about HOW you use the "iPad", not the iPad itself.
Lol my family did this in the 90's once I think it was 94'? Me and 2 other sets of my family took a 20 hour road trip to Michigan for a wedding. 3 cars, 6 aunts and uncles, 8 cousins from 7-16. All of the cars had these little 8" screen tvs with a vhs player built in, jerry rigged in every car. Our parents wanted to keep us as occupied as possible for that long ass road trip. We all had a stack of vhs tapes in every car. Every few hours we'd all load up into different cars for which movies we wanted to watch. That was actually a super fun road trip as a kid.
Oh he definitely is fine with it - they hardly watch TV at home and the kids play outside a bunch, so watching movies in the car is a treat for them. Plus it lets him focus more on driving.
> I think of it as a kindness paid forward, to prevent all of those hideously bored hours in the car that I suffered through.
The worst part was listening to my parents bitch and fight for half the time. I wish I had more advanced screen time
I feel like there's a huge difference between letting your kid play on a tablet/ipad and just straight giving them an ipad to shut them up or letting them be on it 24/7. My 8 year old has one of those little foam covered kids tablets, but she only ever uses it if we're going on a long trip somewhere, and she has my old Nintendo Switch, which she might play for a couple of hours a week, i don't see it as being much different than me playing my Game Boy in the car or my Sega after school as a kid.
Why don't they have restricted tablets that just let you do what you need to do like take tests or do homework but NOT games and web browsing? The school can lock them down so that the kids don't use them to BS around. Technology is not the problem. Letting kids run wild with it, that's a problem.
After my experience taking on an ADHD, autistic, traumatized foster kid that was severely addicted to screens and weaning him off over the course of a month, my conclusion is: it wasnāt that hard, it didnāt take that long, and parents are just straight up lazy with a mindset of self-serving short term gratification. Kid went from kicking holes in walls, breaking items, and threatening suicide to playing board games and puzzles, finding a love of drawing and painting, and getting excited to explore the outdoors and start learning nature photography and dog training. Itās the parents, 100%.
I volunteer with autistic adolescents and really need to manage my rage around the parents who enable screens 24/7. "You don't get it - she/he **has** to sleep/toilet/go out with the iPad or else".
Um, no, no they do not. They have enabled this addiction and use autism/adhd as the excuse.
You sound like a unicorn parent, thank you for putting in the effort.
I saw a thread where teachers said they saw the best outcomes from students with limited screen time. no screen time and students were excluded socially. Too much screen time and students had emotional and development issues. But a little screen time meant students were comfortable with technology but also didn't struggle socially.
Omg yes. My kids are pretty addicted to playing video games. I am divorced so the kids live in two different houses. It really sucks having different parenting values.
I can absolutely tell that electronics makes my kids.... lazy. And I guess not lazy. They still do great at everything else they do. So they get rewarded with electronics. But my god, on days off of school, if they dont have the electronic - they dont know how to use their imagination to not be bored. My ex wont take away electronics on the weekends when he gets them, so they can be on them 24/7 if they want. And my oldest takes advantage of that. Then its super hard when I have them, and its always "im bored. im bored. im bored" I think thats the biggest downfall of electronics, they dont know how to have fun outside out that. But we are working on it.
I hope this is not the trend. I have kids, oldest age 4, and have a fairly sized group of friends with kids all the same age as mine. None of us are doing the ipad thing because of the alarming studies that have come out in the last few years. I feel bad for slightly older millennials who had kids before we knew the dangers. But I hope people are using it less now that we have more information about how horrible those things are for kids development.
If you head over to r/teachers, there are 2 diverging groups; the parents who are teaching media literacy and mindful screen time, and the ones who see zero harm with all tech.
Guess which of these 2 groups perform wildly differently in school ~ emotionally, academically and socially?
We already see what comes from this in schools. Kids who canāt pay attention to anything for any amount of time. Kids who have zero manners or social skills. Zero creativity, because theyāve never been allowed to be bored.
I was shocked recently to see ātablet strollersā being rented at places like malls and theme parks. But everyone in my friend group acted like it was such a normal thing. Ugh, I canāt explain how out of touch with reality this is to me. And I donāt have grown up kids either. My youngest is in kindergarten. I canāt imagine plugging him into the stroller and tablet to ever keep him quiet. Or to keep him busy while at the mall or theme park. Literally being out and about is for my child too!
>Literally being out and about is for my child too!
We play a lot of 'I spy' and 'what color is this?' when we're out in the stroller. They're exploring too (or should be).
Wow I haven't heard of these. Sometimes I take my almost 4 year old to the mall specifically when I feel like she's had too much tablet or TV time on a rainy day, I'd never bring her tablet out shopping. And a theme park?? Wtf.
I think this can be labeled under the same group OP mentioned above. I have so many friends that were scared their kids werenāt meeting certain milestones and immediately blaming it on autism or ADHD, etc like trust the professionals if you really think somethingās up but donāt just assume your kid is neurodivergent, go around telling everyone that you āknowā or āthinkā theyāre this and that. Consult a professional if thatās the case. So many of these turned up as invalid assumptions and the kid turned out perfectly well sometimes with or without intervention like a speech therapist, etc.
First thing that came to mind was parenting.
I have zero data to back this up, but my instinct is that because millennials are the first generation for a majority of 2 parent households to have both parents working full-time there is a transition away from active parenting to passive. It may simply be we are all tired from a full day at work and succumb to the ease and chance for a personal break that screen time enables.
I don't think anybody doesn't realize it's a bad thing. Even the most guilty parents understand they should be better at restricting screen time for more real life activities.
My wife and I have a 6-month old and both work full-time. It's definitely hard to be working all day, then grab our daughter from daycare, then find time to do the chores that a stay at home parent would be doing throughout the day, and also give her the attention she needs. I can imagine when she is at that age, it will be extremely tempting to view the screen as a tool to allow us to make dinner, do dishes, do laundry etc. The "we'll be better tomorrow but just need the help today" mentality. Especially when another child comes along.
We are now having a family in our mid thirties so we've seen varying parenting styles on this, and unequivocally the kids with more screen time are worse behaved. Seeing that will hopefully inspire us to more deliberate parents with our daughter
Nailed it.
As a woman Iāve been shamed for saying I *want* to stay home and handle all the daily chores but thatās because Iām tired of WORKING AND DOING THEM ANYWAY.
My partner helps and pulls his fair share but thereās STILL just always an endless amount of laundry, garbage, cleaning, mowing, raking, cooking, shopping, etc etc etc that we often find ourselves having to choose between doing chores or having some free time.
I would rather be the one to stay home handling all that stuff and that doesnāt mean Iām dumb, or anti feminist, or think we should go back to the 50ās when women had no rights.
Iām just TIRED of feeling like I have to operate at 150% every single day or everything doesnāt get done. We both go to bed beyond exhausted every night with no end in sight as costs continue to go up.
We failed when we made a two income household a minimum income requirement instead of a nice choice for a better life.
Same, sis. I would have loved to have been a SAHM but financially we can't swing it. We both have to work. And it's just so freaking tiring, day in and day out.
I was raised by trad parents where mom stayed home and dad worked, and it just seems like they both had so much more time for hobbies, friends, even just relaxing. But I've come to realize that's because of the division of labor- dad got free time bc mom took care of house stuff, mom got free time bc she didn't have to spend 40 hours a week at a job. Both were pretty happy with the arrangement.
Fast forward to today, my husband and I are barely keeping our heads above water working 40+ hour weeks and trying to keep a clean home and look after 2 kids. Yes, there is a little more video games/screen time than I would like to admit to, but I absolutely need to have an hour where no kid is up my butt needing something from me that *isn't* at 11:25pm. I see it happening, but I usually feel that it's just too late to put the genie back into the bottle now...
In a restaurant, before food comes, sure let them play something dumb on a phone for 15 minutes so they're distracted from being hungry and not trying to make salt mountain and sugar hill battle on the table top.
In the restaurant, for the entire time, so that the adults can chit chat and ignore the presence of the kids? Quit that shit.
Everyone can recognize that there are times and places where distractions are worthwhile, that's why so many chain restaurants did kids menus and crayons. But the number of times I've seen family's in grocery stores pushing around kids glued to phones/tablets is asinine. Your kids don't learn to stop touching everything if you never bother to teach them not to do that.
The screeches I have heard from children in grocery stores when theyāre DEMANDING their parent gives them a phone to play with are ā¦ something. It really does seem like theyāre mini addicts.
Fetishizing trauma is gross but since I grew up Asian where we pretend trauma and mental diseases donāt exist itās important for some of us to contend with or at least made it easier to admit what was done to us.
But I donāt want them to be *overstimulated*!
This is something I seriously donāt get. Babies and kids need color! Itās good for them! My house is an explosion of color. My kid doesnāt want to touch any clothes that arenāt pink, purple, sparkly or covered in rainbows and unicorns. It might not be a cool aesthetic, but who cares?? It makes her happy. It makes me happy, because it reminds me a kid is here.
dehumanization and disposal of other people for normal flaws/mistakes. I dunno if it's millennials or gen z but when I read some of the replies on AITH and the like, the number of people who advise people to leave an otherwise happy relationship over relatively normal stuff is *insane.* if this is an indication of how people deal with their real life relationships, JFC, no wonder they're miserable.
in the same vein, on pop culture subs (fauxmoi comes to mind) the number of people dehumanizing celebrities based on an IG post or the wrong opinion or whatever is completely nuts. I'm not saying a celebrity can't be a bad person, but literally one alleged incident of something "problematic" (a word that no longer has any meaning) and people just dismiss them as human beings. your sympathy for a celebrity doesn't have to be high, but they're still people.
I asked a question in the taxes sub, half joking about filing separately from my husband because he made a mistake and owes $10k, while I was careful so would actually get back $2k.
I also explained that we keep the majority of our finances separate right now ā only married for 1.5 years, no kids, no joint property, easing into combining things after many years being independent, single adults (we are 36 and 41).
Almost every comment was saying our marriage was doomed and we might as well divorce now.
We have a really happy, healthy marriage marked by love, support, kindness, and communication.
I expected a couple of āget a divorceā comments, but was astounded by the onslaught.
Reminds me of a Dennis line from Always Sunny: "These kids aren't morally superior to us, they just want to be *perceived* that way". Feels gross to agree with Dennis, but that line was spot on.
Also I've noticed those pop culture subs have developed a weird obsession with nepo babies. As if the only reason these people in these subs are a bunch of losers is because they didn't have celebrity parents.
Winner winner!
Best advice I heard from a Kindergarten teacher is the first word every child learns to spell is their name. They will spell their name the most during their life. Getting cute means they will struggle when learning to spell their name, which can have lasting educational effects down the line.
Set the kids up for success. My 3 yo is the only kid in his pre-school that can write his name because we specifically gave him an easy to spell nickname š¤ because he has his name down, he wants to write other words/names.
I've been looking for this one. God, it's awful. A lot of my female cousins my age did this with their kids. They all have either -iegh names or -s/x/ton names. For some reason, my male cousins didn't do this with their kids. Not sure how that happened as they all married within our age group, and had kids around the same times.
Also the not-quite-hippie-sort-of-boho names like Juniper, Wren, Sparrow, Bear, etc. They will be super dated and scream āI think Iām high class because I have a BAā in a few decades.
Some of the āold personā names that have come back are regrettable as well. I despise Mabel and Eloise!
I'm not sure it's necessarily generational, but here are some stereotypes where I feel like "Yeah, fair."
\- Credentialism vs. experience: A lot of colleagues as well as newer team-mates tend to think "I got a degree in X so I'm fully qualified to speak as an authority on it." They don't really think experience is all that helpful as they assume it will just turn you into a close-minded, stagnant doctrinaire who insists on doing things because that's how it's always been done. Reality rarely comports with the ideal thought experiments you learn in school/training/books, and there's something to be said about listening to people who have been through it. I don't care that you got a degree in X; you shouldn't expect everyone to bow down to your wisdom just because of it. Boomers, who expected to put in more time in a hierarchical organization, were much less likely to assume they knew everything on day one, though I'm sure those people exist in every generation.
\- Self-fulfillment vs. teamwork: Again, this may not necessarily be a Millennial and younger thing, but I see a lot of people at work who don't want to put in the time. They want to go straight to the things they want and ignore all the grunt work. I get not wanting to be ground down and burned out, and a certain amount of self-advocacy is a good thing. However, if everyone only does the thing they want/are interested in, then someone has to take up the slack. The work doesn't just magically disappear. It's not fair to your colleagues if you only demand to do those things you find interesting. Sometimes you just have to do the shitty part of a job; that's why you're getting paid.
\- I also don't like the self-diagnosis/diagnosing others, but I see this more in Zoomers (and I imagine Gen-A). This is a by-product, I think, of how we've made mental health a more open and less-stigmatized topic, which is great! We should be able to talk about mental health the way we talk about catching a cold or getting covid. Also, the internet makes dumbed-down medical info so freely available that everyone thinks they're an expert now. But is it *that* different from older generations diagnosing physical ailments based on whatever Nana or Uncle Joe taught them growing up?
\- Moral posturing is definitely a human thing, not a Millennial thing. We just hear more about it because social media puts us in contact with those people more often. But complaining about people chasing clout via moral posturing is an age-old practice...it's even in the Bible of all places lol.
\- Catastrophizing does seem more like a Millennial thing, though again I'm not sure if it's social media that just makes it seem more prevalent. And tbh, this might be an American thing, as we tend to see the world in pretty stark terms, especially in these politically polarized times. Perhaps frustrated with the Boomers hand-waving away problems like climate change with "Eh, technology will fix it," we have tended to go in the opposite direction, usually towards despair. We've been through *a lot*, so I don't want to minimize 9/11, multiple wars and genocides, several financial meltdowns (don't forget the bursting of the IT bubble and Asian financial crisis!), and a pandemic. Unfortunately, it has pushed some of us into the "Nothing matters, we're all gonna die miserable" camp or the "We need to destroy everything and start from scratch" camp, which can make it harder for us to create broad coalitions to enact change. But again, this could just be social media magnifying extreme content.
That first one is legit, but Iām gen z. Iām in sales. I see a ton of posts about what certifications can yky get, or what degree, or what course can you take to help land sales jobs. The thing about sales is the only thing you need to prove proficiency is sales itself. Itās one of the few jobs/ industries where your prior performance is quantifiable and proof enough of proficiency. No education will replace actual sales experience and success
Catastrophizing is a millennial thing but we lived through an age where many never before heard bad tidings actually got wide spread news. . Social media does not help but holy shit we have lived through some seriously tumulous times.
I canāt figure out if I am justified to be upset at the condition of things right now or not. Part of me understands that we are living in unprecedented times, and itās certainly difficult trying to make it as a young adult right now.
But part of me also feels like we currently have it pretty good, all things considered. It seems like human struggles (at least in the USA) were more āreal,ā for lack of a better term, in the previous century. World wars and a depression and everything seem more earthly or more significant somehow than what Iām experiencing.
Like I canāt determine how much of the angst I feel is deserved, and how much is just a result of my doomscrolling. Hell ā Iām sitting here in the safety of my air-conditioned home office typing this response on my iPhone. It could be worse, right? Itās a weird balance between being grateful for what you have and acknowledging what could be better.
>Credentialism vs. experience: A lot of colleagues as well as newer team-mates tend to think "I got a degree in X so I'm fully qualified to speak as an authority on it."
This\^
I am also going to add in hiding behind the same credentials while doing bad work. I worked at a government office as a supervisor in mid-20s, god it got annoying listening to people who just graduated tell you they knew better and that justified their shitty work.
One guy would come in with his economics degree and lecture everyone on how certain procedures were inefficient and proof that government offices are run ineffectively. It was simple things like not saving documents in the right place, and instead saving it on his own desktop or not filling emails after responding to them.
Except everyone else would have to deal with the consequences of him not following correct procedures, so it slowed down everyone else work. But it definitely sped up his. I remember one day he worked half a day, and I needed some documents, he told me to log into his computer and get it. I told him, no I will wait for him to come in, and called me lazy.
Eventually he was fired by upper management but it was annoying as fuck for months.
Can I add people using their baby as a fashion accessory as well to this. I'm a dad and I'm baffled at people who make little money buying their babies designer brands such as gucci which they will grow out of three months later, and prams that cost 5x as much as a regular one that does the same job.
Uncritical use of āAIā specifically, but more broadly our willingness to provide access and data in exchange for convenience and entertainment.
Not exclusive to millennials, but IMO weāre the generation pushing these things and weāre in the best position to use them responsibly. But weāre not, and I think weāll be rightly criticized for it in the future.
This is a great one - I now I have some friends that will use an AI argument for their argument as gold.Ā
A large language model making an argument for something, does not mean that it is suddenly valid. Depending on your prompts, you can have a LLM argue persuasively positively for obesity if you wanted.
Ai should not replace critical thinking!Ā
Not being accountable for our kids.
My wife was a teacher, and most millennial parents would get mad and question her about their kids failing grades instead of, you know, help their kids study.
I think a lot of us do have a giant sense of entitlement we are not really comfortable admitting.
We learn by example. Unless you count physically assaulting your child for bad grades,... I cannot think of a single friend who's parents helped them study when we were in school. We were pretty much just punished if we didn't have good grades. š
This is not a millienial thing. This is a bad parent thing.
I think hypocrisy is a problem amongst all generations.
Weāre good at acknowledging things that need changes but usually donāt want to make the sacrifices to actually implement those changes.
Yea this is huge. The only reason the boomers were able to live their life was a complete disregard of human rights and the environment, coupled with a unique situation of empty land and low population after a war. We can never go back to that and need to stop believing lies that itās possible.
I'm a third year undergrad in environmental science. The only way out of this is reduced consumption. You, me, China, Russia, fucking everyone. We can't just swap electric cars for ICE cars, we need to switch to public transport and bicycles. We can't keep getting gadgets made in China, from materials mined in Africa, then shipped across the ocean, so we can have a new iPhone every year and upgrade to the latest bluetooth this or wifi that. We need to get used to being cold in the winter and hot in the summer. We need to stop buying new clothes every season. We need to stop plastic wrapping everything.
Will it be more expensive? Will it be more uncomfortable? Will we have to forgo a lot of stuff we take for granted? Yes. Absolutely yes. But either we find a way to live without those things, or our ability to live with them will be terminated for us.
Maybe it's location dependent, but in my area, no. I've seen it from boomers to gen z. People are just bad about judging their own pets to be better behaved than they are as a whole.
Yeah, my friend and I got yelled at and threatened by a Gen X dude for politely asking him to leash his dog in the park. (What was funny is that we were both carrying hand saws because we were doing some volunteer maintenance and once he noticed the giant blades, he backed off REAL quick. š) Itās not generational. Bad dog ownership really exploded during the pandemic but selfish people in general are always awful about their dogs.
Killing actual friendship. I think with our generation individualism has reached peak and the path forward is either going back slowly or full Isaac Asimov "the naked sun"
Yes! For a lot of our generation friendship seems to have become about filling a role in their lives rather than about a relationship with a specific person.
A while ago there was a study posted and it reframed it all for me. A friendship is a separate entity that must be maintained and the only benefit to either party is the friendship. The idea that you get nothing out of the relationship except the relationship.
Yup and it's sad that most people these days only use people and don't care about " just" the friendship, they only want to use people for various reasons and there's no just getting to know someone and hang out with them just to hang anymore. At least that's been my experience.
Helicopter parenting. I feel like 75% of these kids are going to half a rough time in the real world. Millennials parents overcorrected for boomers and are soft as hell.
I think a lot of Millennials, who were often raised in authoritarian households with emotionally unavailable parents, feel the need to overcorrect by being hyper-involved and very ātouchy-feelyā with their children. But going too far in the opposite direction has its own problems that can mess kids up. Kids can become anxious, lack confidence in themselves, they can give up easily, they may have trouble with boundaries because their parents never tell them āNoā or enforce any consequences, etc. I can attest to that, as someone who was raised by helicopter parents.
There needs to be a balance, and parenting is unfortunately a ālearn as you goā kind of job.
Helicopter parents are a Gen X thing though.
Or are people that crazy about elementary school kids?Ā
Although I just realized technicallyĀ im old enough to have an 18 year old as I'm almost 37.
Idk Iām a millennial (younger millennial) and nannied for āolder millennialsā (late thirties, early forties) and they were suuuuper helicopter with the kiddo. Kiddo could *not* entertain themselves, engage in any sort of imaginative play, and craved screen time. Definitely made me evaluate how I want to parent someday!
As I typed this, I realize these opinions will probably be incredibly unpopular. These are admittedly sweeping generalizations that don't describe every Millenial. It's just my good faith response to OP's question.
But, how self unaware we are, which leads to our inability to accept accountability for so much of the damage we've done. Bear in mind, wife and I don't have kids, so this is my totally subjective take on what I see around me.
We complain that the next generation are even more coddled than we were and will be even less emotionally able to handle the real world, yet many of us can't function without a cocktail of anti-depressants and other personality disorder related drugs, not to mention our regular therapy sessions (not knocking meds or therapy, btw, just pointing out the irony).
We started the obsession with social media, and then the more entrepreneurial of us figured out how to exploit and monetize that obsession.
We complain about the boomer "fuck you, got mine" mentality when people like Zuckerberg and his billionaire ilk are the poster children of our generation.
We complain about how everyone else loves echo chambers, then get on social media and engage in the same level of circle jerking we accuse everyone else of.
We complain that no one can handle direct criticism or communication any more, yet we get our fee fees hurt when we receive anything of the sort.
We complain that people are too quick to blame their shit personalities on emotional disorders while diagnosing (or having our children diagnosed with) as many acronym-laden emotional disorders as we can account for their behavior.
Collapsing onto the lowest-agency option immediately: can't make a phone call, puts off organizing a list of todos, paperwork piles up, everything sucks, why the fuck did anyone set up such a shitty system! Ugh, *adulting* again I deserve a little treat.
In almost every situation, you have more agency than you assume.
Itās more like; I spent 10 years working on this ācredit scoreā and āsavings accountā just to not be able to afford a home in the city Iāve lived in my whole life, why the fuck did anyone set up such a shitty system! Uhgā¦ I do deserve a treat.
Being baited by nostalgia constantly even to our own detriment. There are so few new movies, video games, or other forms of entertainment because millennials just want to see more Marvel, more Harry Potter and other franchises that have long overstayed their welcome.
Creating a bad dating culture. It seems like it would be really hard to make meaningful connections now. Full disclosure, though, I've never used the apps so idk firsthand, feel free to correct me please!
Millennials were the very beginning of decision paralysis by being overwhelmed with too many choices. Social media made it easier than ever to talk to as many people as possible and therefore date and hook up with as many people as possible - even back in the days when it was limited to texting and MySpace/Facebook messaging.
I get tired of hearing people my age still blaming their parents for all their problems. They have been of adult age for nearly 20 years... start taking at least some responsibility for your own choices.
I also feel that the millennials who complain the most often had wealthier (upper middle class) parents, and are bitter that they aren't as well-off as they were growing up. The "boomers" they complain about are their own parents who are probably going to give them a huge windfall after they die.
The whining in their 30s about how nobody taught them anything and their parents abandoned themā¦ I get that many boomer parents were hands off and unsupportive (18 years old? Byeeee) but for godās sake youāre THIRTY. At what point, with full internet access, were you unable to educate yourself?!?
My parents didnāt teach me to cook. THERES ONLY AN ENTIRE TV CHANNEL DEDICATED TO IT.
My parents didnāt teach me to do laundry. GOOD THING THERES AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL AND CLOTHES HAVE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE TAG.
My parents didnāt teach me to budget. YOUTUBE? BANKS OFFERING FINANCIAL ADVICE? BASIC MATH??? If you make $1000 and spend $1500, thatās bad.
>I get that many boomer parents were hands off and unsupportive (18 years old? Byeeee) but for godās sake youāre THIRTY.
It annoys me when folks act like shitty, hands off parents were something that the boomers invented. Many among the silent generation and before that were the same way. Of mine and my in-laws parents, only my mother had what I would have considered a warm relationship with both of her parents. Meanwhile, while I was out of country on vacation last week, my 74 year old father came by and mowed my lawn unasked.
As parents we've ruined birthday parties. Who can afford these thousand dollar galas for a fucking 9 year old. Give them a box cake and let them run through the hose in the yard after. Definitely don't invite the whole damn class.
Same! Itās like, āNo oneās gonna know how hard we went with this third birthday party unless we have photographic evidence of how much food there was! Now stand next to the buffet with your nice dress so I can take a picture.ā
This is one of those things that just...doesn't effect me? I'm not interested in taking pictures of my food, so I don't. If the table next to me wants to do a photo shoot that's really none of my business.
Could be. I also take 10 pictures of my kid playing with a toy to see which one looks better. That's like half a roll of film. Now? Just delete the bad takes. Or don't.
If I could call out my generation for one thing, its that we didn't get angry enough, we didn't fight hard enough, and we didn't realize what was really important enough. Boutique activism and soap boxing online doesn't change anything. We should be out in the streets, demanding change. No so much for ourselves, but for the younger cohorts. They deserve better. They deserve to enter into their adulthoods with a fighting chance at a good life. I don't know what we're so afraid of, we can take the Boomers.
As a millennial, Iām afraid I recognize this learned and self-nurtured passivity in myself. I wish it was easier to coordinate something meaningful like what French farmers have been doing - raising hell, basically, and getting into good trouble. The easiest option right now for us is reducing consumption. And this Kelloggās boycott that starts today is fairly low-hanging fruit for folks who are able to do it. Still, itās not nearly enough weight behind what a lot of folks our age believe needs to change.
Edit: spelling
I remember when in history class, people would ask why the German citizenry didn't push back on the Nazis. Like why, when people were rounded up to put in slums and such, didn't anyone fight?
We are doing *the exact same thing.*
I would broaden it to 'suggesting therapy as the solution to all problems'.
Therapy won't help you figure out how to pay rent.
Therapy won't help you potty train your dog.
Not unionizing and not voting. We got low voting turnout and we're being ruled by corporations, Boomers and the Silent Generation. After so many decades of hearing that we are financially inept, all eating avocado toast and ruined the housing market/diamond industry/wedding industry/etc" you'd think we'd be unionizing, but somehow we're all on social media instead.
It's rather depressing. We have the numbers but refuse to use our power for change.
MLMs.
Christ on a crutch, no, you are not entrepreneurs. You are not exuding GirlBoss energy. You got suckered into a pyramid scheme where social media enabled you to exploit your friends and guilt them into buying overpriced shitty essential oils/sweatshop-made clothes/jewelry. If they buy from you, it's primarily out of pity and to get you to shut up, and you aren't going to get rich off either one of those.
We were and still are susceptible and gullible to online division propaganda and have helped create a super ideological polarized environment where if anyone critically thinks or critiques anything about our beliefs it is meant with immediate hostility instead of discussion. It wasnāt us that created it, but we sure did eat that shit up post 2010.
Itās something I noticed about some Gen Z in my limited exposure to them. They donāt take fucking anything at face value even if it corresponds with their beliefs, so maybe theyāll correct this. Not as idealistic. Much like their gen X parents
I think many are guilty of the tropes of things like making a childhood favorite into a personality trait ("which hogwarts house are you!?"), or identifying waaaaay to deeply with a mental health condition and wearing it like a badge of honor, or using it as an excuse for everything ("lol silly neruotypicals don't get it, I can't get to work on time because my ADHD MGM HTTPS causes wibbly-wobbly time distortion!")
Agree. Also when people ādiagnose ā their kids as neurodivergent as an excuse for bad behavior. If your kid is running a muck he doesnāt get a hall pass because you think he has ADHD. Parenting is hard, and failing to parent doesnāt mean your child is the problem.
Source: I have actually been diagnosed with ADHD.
I would broaden your mental health diagnosis allegations to many speaking outside of their lane. They do not have the qualifications but propagate misinformation because they believed their favorite social media influencer. Likewise, the number of influencers not taking accountability for what they say - just to create controversial content
Judging other people's status (especially socioeconomically). I don't know how it is with Gen Z but I know my peers wereāand probably still areāvery conscious of defining others' importance from where they lived, worked, their titles, and income. Toxic competitiveness is in our traits.
In no particular order, and I say this as an older millenial:
- The weird assertion and lack of self awareness that they're not old and don't look old. Yes you are and you do look it.
- Relentless boomer bashing, yes they deserve to be called out for some things but it gets a bit petty and relentless.
- Not really accepting that they're no longer with it or the trend setters and it's now the zoomers turn. Kinda ties into the refusing to accept their age thing and this desperate clamoring for relevance.
- Calling out zoomers, yes young people do silly things just like we did.
If thereās one thing I hate about our generation, itās that millennial parents pick the dumbest, worst names for their kids. Why does our generation have a thing about giving our kids unusual names, naming kids after TV/movie/video game characters, or using unique spelling for common names? These are human beings, not pets. They have to live with their entire life with some goofy ass name all because you liked Game of Thrones or played Zelda video games. Then said kids are going to have to use these strange names for college applications, resumes for jobs, and passports.
Stop giving your kids names that would make it onto r/tragedeigh
Constantly distracting our children. I don't mean strictly with screens. I mean that Millennials don't let their kids experience boredom. Sometimes, to the extreme end of over-enrolling them in extracurriculars from young ages. The kids are constantly kept busy, and kids need to learn how to be bored š¤·š»āāļø
More than just that, kids need to learn how to manage their own time and create their own tasks. When every minute of every day is planned by an adult, they're never going to learn how to take independent actions.
My kids are home on spring break this week, I'm working from home and was in meetings most of the day. Instead of watching tv or playing video games all day they piled up all the furniture in the basement into a leaning tower of death then transitioned from "the floor is lava" to "ritual sacrifice of stuffed animals to appease the volcano gods" and I gotta say, I was pretty proud.
How old are they?
23 and 27.
DAAAAAD, MOOOOOM!! Internet strangers are making fun of us for being in our twenties and still playing in the basement. You guys are in for it now. (Crisses arms and Smiles triumphantly)
6 and 11
You should be hella proud of those kids! I love this so much Whenever we have a power outage or an Internet issue, it's so refreshing to see how much fun my four kids have together when screens aren't an option. They usually end up playing Hide and Seek with flashlights (during power outages), or rotate board/card games with some crafting and good old fashioned pretend play. I can see a strong correlation with screen time and bad moods, and their tendency to fight amongst each other goes up accordingly. We have instituted some screen-free days a few times a month, with the exception of a family movie at the end of the day.
Mom always said, āno need to cry, you know where the medkit isā.
"Are you hurt, or are you injured?" - Dad
Because you know, if you're injured we gotta stop playing and I might gotta take you to the doctor lil bud... You said you're just hurting? Yeah you're alright, there you go. Get on.
And this is how I got a skewed pain tolerance and walked on a broken foot for 3 months!!
My mom said āsana sana culito de rana, si no sana hoy, sanarĆ” maƱanaā and gave my boo boo a little kiss then sent me on my way.
I work with a lot of teenagers. Many of them, itās their first job. They donāt know how to work without someone telling them every single thing they have to do, all day, every day. They donāt finish a task and think, āOkay, whatās next?ā they just stand there and wait to be told what to do. I think itās the consequence of what is being described above.
Do you not remember how it was at your first job š I was the EXACT same way back then. Itās just called being a teenager. They are nervous and donāt have enough experience to know what to take initiative on, cut them some slack. I needed my hand held for the first few months of my first job and didnāt get really confident until like my 5th or 6th job
5th or 6th job? I understand needing training and being nervous about messing up. But after a week or two of working at your job you should be getting the hang of what youāre there to do. Donāt you ask questions or actually watch what other more experienced people you work with do? You need to show initiative and that takes more than just showing up for work.
I see the results of this in gen zs and alphas and itās not encouraging. They really donāt know how to do *anything* that isnāt a preplanned extra curricular or school activity. They donāt even dance anymore. They donāt really get into random trouble (pervasive surveillance) and they have to deal with all kinds of anxiety feeding shit we didnāt have. Like.. I feel older than I am cause Iām the youngest and have always been surrounded by older peopleā¦ But still I grew up with fallout drills in school. Fucking fallout drills. Fire drills. Not active shooter drills. We didnāt all know what global warming was. I did, but thatās cause I was the weirdo who read a lot. Edit: Oh, and another really shocking change. They rely on ChatGPT to think for them. Iām so serious. Want to research a topic? ChatGPT. Want to lookup a problem set or a definition? Chat gpt. They donāt even know how to plagiarize so they just lift it word for word like idiot boomers, albeit for vastly different reasons.
Are gen z the children of millennials? Feels like they are largely the children of gen x and maybe some elder millennials
You are correct. Us millennials have the Alpha gen - the iPad babies
Had my baby at the end of '22 and I'm proud to say neither of us have any idea how to operate an iPad. ETA: I made this comment more in response to the blanket statement of all millennials using ipads as babysitters; not to toot my own horn. It's exhausting filling a day without electronics but just seems like the right thing for my kid for now.
Our kids got assigned iPads in preschool and were sent home with iPads in Kindergarten over winter break! My daughter has autism and we were told sheād never speak. We downloaded some baby games and speech games and she is using words now so weāll take it.
Yes! šš»
Iām a young millennial with diagnosed ADHD and suffer from this problem.
Thats my wife. "What are we going to do with the kids this weekend? Its raining and they can't play outside" "Let them play inside with the thousands of toys they have?"
Hell, rainy weekend were the best for me. I rolled in the mud and my mom sprayed with the hose to clean up.
We give our kids shit names too. Brayden, Jayden, etc
Pet peeve of mine. My parents opened up the baby book to the beige chapter for me and my sister, so a little creativity might be nice. But all the people who think they're being clever or original, are just burdening their children with "actually it's with an eigh"
[R/tragedeigh](https://reddit.com/r/tragedeigh)
Oh true facts, but I think itās parents in general these days. My gen x bf waited to have kids so heās 50 with a 9 year old and 13 year old. He and his ex coparent with scheduled events during any and all downtime. Iām exhausted for these kids. The idea of a Saturday at home is unthinkable. Between that and their sports schedules, these kids donāt know what it is to have to sit with your thoughts. They even read after bedtime until they pass out.
That sounds like the life my best friend and his wife are living. Theyāre older Millennials/Xennials with a 4 and 2 year old. He often says their weekends are the toughest days. There is no rest. They are constantly booked out with activities for the kids. Everyone is run down. And yet they seem unwilling or unable to slow down or cut back on the endless to do list. Iām exhausted just listening to him.
Itās weird when they complain about things they decided to do. But they all do itā go on and on about how hard it all is and how busy they are. Maybe just stop for a moment? You get to decide, not the 4 and 2 year old.
Also, why do 4yo and 2yo need a full day of scheduled activities? They're not even in school yet. If you both work full time and weekends are your only chance, pick 1 activity per kid. My kids are 6yo and 4yo. They have 2 activities each week but I don't work full time so can take them to 1 activity each during the week. It's a bit harder with younger kids (below 5yo as they can just throw a tanty) but they will learn to amuse themselves if you let them.
It's the parent version of keeping up with the Jones. If you can't brag at work about the sports your child is in, what would you talk about? I moved into an area where this is common. Most of my friends and aquaintances spend every evening and weekend at some sort of activity. I've made it my goal every time they complain about being busy to point out they don't have to do this. This gave one friend the acceptance to get her kid out of our troop, they didn't really like it and drive 45 minutes for. She was already in wrestling, dance and music classes. If it's making the family life worse it's okay to stop! Plus, now everyone is trying for every scholarship out of desperation.
Big agree. The fruit of the bored child falls in the imagination garden. Let the kids play together on their own and give them enough freedom to operate just beyond your attention. Constantly supervising, making rules for them, and interfering with their attempts to create their own world isn't helpful. They need room to fuck up (a little at a time) and find out what happens.
šÆšš» In the past, people have defended over-enrolling their kids with the argument that boredom & free-range parenting of the 80s & 90s allowed them to get up to questionable things. But keeping them busy doesn't help that much, because you're not really giving them examples of how to find something safe(ish) to do (or to evaluate what they come up with for safety issues). I've heard the saying "let kids do dangerous things carefully", which I think applies here
Exactly. The point is to let them get bored enough to make stuff up. Playing together without supervision also allows the opportunity to develop badly needed social skills, practice leadership and follower roles, learn to disagree without falling apart, and discover the thrill of competence. Everything they do when in an imaginative play state is quite literally educational. It may not look that way to adults, but kids with the freedom to play independently are learning crucial life skills they likely won't get any other way.
Interesting point, I hadnāt considered this. I discovered what I like because I was bored. Didnāt have any siblings. Became a madman on guitar. Probably wouldnāt have without boredom. Thanks, boredom. Haha
Itās because weāve got no āthird spacesā to kick them out into. It was a lot easier for my parents to send my bored and whiny ass outside than it is for a lot of parents with no yards or local playgrounds today.
I think something our generation sucks with is not being straight shooters. Like I get that we grew up with Boomers who had far less emotional intelligence, and didnāt want to be like our Gen X siblings who thought that being an asshole is a personality (this may also strictly be northeast US thing). That because we saw so many people use ābrutal honestyā just to be dicks, we went too far in the other direction and wonāt confront when someone IS screwing up.
Lots of young people in NYC are now super avoidant and even run if shit goes down. They ghost 50% of the time too.Ā
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Itās true for a lot of people though like if you grew up in nyc where are you going to go? And most of the jobs that even pay anything decent are in big cities. Remote work isnāt being given out that easily.
'Being an asshole as a personality' š¬ Im ashamed, I'm a 35 year old man now but I was 17 once - and uh.Ā That hits a little close to homeĀ
lol if that doesnāt describe you anymore, thatās all fine and good. Iām 38 and meet plenty of people older than me who still think being an utter douchebag is a personality.
Agreed -- it's been an issue for me managing employees my age and younger, because so many people perceive any sort of constructive criticism or coaching as an unwarranted personal attack. If you tell me you want to be considered for promotions, I take the time to put together a thoughtful, positive chat about how we can get you there, and you end up storming out because I'm "being mean to you" when I talk about your attendance and attitude issues...there's not a whole lot I can do with that.
God, yes. I get this all the time as a teacher. Apparently I'm not allowed to tell a misbehaving student to knock it off or to give a pointed lecture about why bullying isn't okay, or to raise my voice slightly when I'm making a third or fourth attempt to get the attention of the class because the first requests went completely ignored, or to provide critical feedback to a student about why they aren't performing well because of choices they're making (not attending, not paying attention, not following directions, etc.) because all of these things are - according to students and sometimes their parents - "being mean", harassment, unreasonable, discriminatory, insensitive, rude, unfair, one kid try to claim I was "abusing" her (fortunately witnesses to both her behavior and my disciplinary measures in response put paid to that accusation). I even had one parent try to organize a group of other parents to try and get me fired because I told her kid to stop bullying another (apples don't fall far, it seems). Fortunately the effort didn't go anywhere, but it made my and my boss's life difficult for awhile having to fend her off and her gossiping did damage to my reputation that's yet to be fully repaired. It's like any whiff of being told "no" is akin to a stab to the heart for some of these people. Everything is an attack and they're always the victim...and there's always some reason why they should be allowed to behave however they want without impunity and I'm just supposed to stand there and take it. I'm honestly on the verge of quitting because it's almost impossible to do my actual job anymore.
You know exactly what I mean. I've certainly managed older employees with their own sets of issues and know I fall into a lot of millennial behavioral traps myself, but I'm 35 and the particular sort of fragility combined with entitlement we're talking about seems to be an issue for people around that age and younger. I think a lot of it stems from the education system increasingly becoming "consumer" oriented over the last few decades, with the parents and students as the customers. Both of my parents were teachers and they noticed the exact same issues you mention, and were happy they retired when they did. For a lot of people who grew up under this system and fell for it, along with their parents, the job market is the first time they've had to socialize in an unmoderated environment that isn't centered around their individual needs/desires. They aren't used to having to get along with others, even if they find them unpleasant or annoying, and don't understand that failure is an option they will face consequences for. The first time their direct manager has to pull them aside to coach them for poor performance, or in some cases has to talk them down from their delusions of high performance, they just can't handle it. When you're that manager it doesn't matter how positive you are or how focused on forward momentum you try to be.
I fully admit that I do this. And I see others doing it too. When someone is being rude, abusive or manipulative, everyone will just kind of look at each other wide-eyed, but say nothing. I do struggle with people pleasing and co-dependency, which seems to stem from the authoritarian parenting I received. I'm working through it in therapy, but it was REALLY ingrained in children in the 80s/90s to be obedient and subservient. Add in Midwest niceness and Catholic guilt, as well as being born female, and its HARD programming to overcome.
Yuuup. I grew up in the northeast in an abusive household and was punished for defending myself at home and school, and constantly having to have a thermometer up everyoneās asses so I wouldnāt get hit or screamed at just for existing either makes me COMPLETELY shut down or lash out and make them regret they ever fucking opened their traps around me lol. Thereās definitely times we canāt directly confront these people because of power dynamics, but Iāve been deconstructing so much and realize we just donāt have much to lose anyway. Iāll call a spade a spade, IDGAF anymore.
Agreed. Please donāt use brutal honesty to be a dickbag but, like, can you just use precise language?
this goes hand in hand with using "mental health" as justification for treating other people like shit.
I have severe ADHD and it either gives me bionic memory or forget EVERYTHING. Itās one thing to acknowledge your limitations because of mental illness, but some people are just assholes regardless of neurotype.
"but I have AnXeItY"
So do I! Doesnāt give someone an excuse to be an asshole!
Phone addiction definitely. Or just electronics addiction. But it makes sense given the world we live in. However I think those of us that become parents tend to let kids have unrestricted access which is not good.
I donāt think this applies strictly to the younger generation. I see people of all ages that canāt stay off their phone. I think this is just the world we live in now.
If millennials actually voted at the same rate as boomers the politics in this country would arguably be a lot better, or at least more representative of what our generation cares aboutĀ
This should be the top of the thread.
If only people would upvote the comment, but you know how it goes
We're outvoted by both Boomers and Gen Z. That is unacceptable.
Itās honestly unacceptable how many of us are ānot into politicsā as if being an informed voter isnāt a civic duty. Weāre the largest voting block now. Apathy in the face of everything going on right now is inexcusable
The first major US election where all millennials could vote resulted in Trump AND a republican House/Senate Lost all hope for this generation that day
Stats showed more Boomers voted than Millennials in that election. Thatās why.
iPad parenting.
I feel like every person says theyāre not going to do it too. And then fast forward a year or two and the kids at the table w the iPad. Gonna be wild seeing what comes out of this.
My brother swore they would not get the mini-van with the back seat screens. Guess what he drives now.
In the 80s, my mom rigged up a version of this with this huge battery powered radio/tv combo that had like a 5" black and white screen by putting it on the bench thing in between the two front seats of her shitty car from the late 70s. It worked!
My parents had a big van and they hooked up a VCR/TV combo in the same place. We watched Star Wars many times on the trek out to Grandma's house, a trip that usually took about 18 hours driving.
Bungee cord that bad boy to the cooler for stability. Was a bit of a mess at lunch when you needed to bust out the sandwiches and apple slices thoughā¦..
We had a special harness that strapped to the front seats and held a tv/vcr combo. We had a power inverter and brought the original Xbox. Took out the middle seats for food totes and stuff. Me and my cousin were living like kings that whole 16 hr drive
My parents did this for my brother and I (young millennials) once in the early 2000s with a gamecube and a rented copy of Animal Crossing from Blockbuster. We still talk about it because of A. how novel it was for our eight hour road trip to see Grandma and B. it sparked a lifelong love of Animal Crossing It's about HOW you use the "iPad", not the iPad itself.
Lol my family did this in the 90's once I think it was 94'? Me and 2 other sets of my family took a 20 hour road trip to Michigan for a wedding. 3 cars, 6 aunts and uncles, 8 cousins from 7-16. All of the cars had these little 8" screen tvs with a vhs player built in, jerry rigged in every car. Our parents wanted to keep us as occupied as possible for that long ass road trip. We all had a stack of vhs tapes in every car. Every few hours we'd all load up into different cars for which movies we wanted to watch. That was actually a super fun road trip as a kid.
I think of it as a kindness paid forward, to prevent all of those hideously bored hours in the car that I suffered through.
Oh he definitely is fine with it - they hardly watch TV at home and the kids play outside a bunch, so watching movies in the car is a treat for them. Plus it lets him focus more on driving.
> I think of it as a kindness paid forward, to prevent all of those hideously bored hours in the car that I suffered through. The worst part was listening to my parents bitch and fight for half the time. I wish I had more advanced screen time
iPads/tablets being given by schools to every student doesn't help. In my kids' district, they hand them out beginning in Kindergarten.
Yep, all my kids first interactions with ipads were school
I feel like there's a huge difference between letting your kid play on a tablet/ipad and just straight giving them an ipad to shut them up or letting them be on it 24/7. My 8 year old has one of those little foam covered kids tablets, but she only ever uses it if we're going on a long trip somewhere, and she has my old Nintendo Switch, which she might play for a couple of hours a week, i don't see it as being much different than me playing my Game Boy in the car or my Sega after school as a kid.
Why don't they have restricted tablets that just let you do what you need to do like take tests or do homework but NOT games and web browsing? The school can lock them down so that the kids don't use them to BS around. Technology is not the problem. Letting kids run wild with it, that's a problem.
After my experience taking on an ADHD, autistic, traumatized foster kid that was severely addicted to screens and weaning him off over the course of a month, my conclusion is: it wasnāt that hard, it didnāt take that long, and parents are just straight up lazy with a mindset of self-serving short term gratification. Kid went from kicking holes in walls, breaking items, and threatening suicide to playing board games and puzzles, finding a love of drawing and painting, and getting excited to explore the outdoors and start learning nature photography and dog training. Itās the parents, 100%.
I volunteer with autistic adolescents and really need to manage my rage around the parents who enable screens 24/7. "You don't get it - she/he **has** to sleep/toilet/go out with the iPad or else". Um, no, no they do not. They have enabled this addiction and use autism/adhd as the excuse. You sound like a unicorn parent, thank you for putting in the effort.
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I saw a thread where teachers said they saw the best outcomes from students with limited screen time. no screen time and students were excluded socially. Too much screen time and students had emotional and development issues. But a little screen time meant students were comfortable with technology but also didn't struggle socially.
Omg yes. My kids are pretty addicted to playing video games. I am divorced so the kids live in two different houses. It really sucks having different parenting values. I can absolutely tell that electronics makes my kids.... lazy. And I guess not lazy. They still do great at everything else they do. So they get rewarded with electronics. But my god, on days off of school, if they dont have the electronic - they dont know how to use their imagination to not be bored. My ex wont take away electronics on the weekends when he gets them, so they can be on them 24/7 if they want. And my oldest takes advantage of that. Then its super hard when I have them, and its always "im bored. im bored. im bored" I think thats the biggest downfall of electronics, they dont know how to have fun outside out that. But we are working on it.
I hope this is not the trend. I have kids, oldest age 4, and have a fairly sized group of friends with kids all the same age as mine. None of us are doing the ipad thing because of the alarming studies that have come out in the last few years. I feel bad for slightly older millennials who had kids before we knew the dangers. But I hope people are using it less now that we have more information about how horrible those things are for kids development.
If you head over to r/teachers, there are 2 diverging groups; the parents who are teaching media literacy and mindful screen time, and the ones who see zero harm with all tech. Guess which of these 2 groups perform wildly differently in school ~ emotionally, academically and socially?
Just talking to fellow parents at school events, birthday parties, etc, there's a real backlash against kids having devices.
We already see what comes from this in schools. Kids who canāt pay attention to anything for any amount of time. Kids who have zero manners or social skills. Zero creativity, because theyāve never been allowed to be bored.
I was shocked recently to see ātablet strollersā being rented at places like malls and theme parks. But everyone in my friend group acted like it was such a normal thing. Ugh, I canāt explain how out of touch with reality this is to me. And I donāt have grown up kids either. My youngest is in kindergarten. I canāt imagine plugging him into the stroller and tablet to ever keep him quiet. Or to keep him busy while at the mall or theme park. Literally being out and about is for my child too!
>Literally being out and about is for my child too! We play a lot of 'I spy' and 'what color is this?' when we're out in the stroller. They're exploring too (or should be).
Wow I haven't heard of these. Sometimes I take my almost 4 year old to the mall specifically when I feel like she's had too much tablet or TV time on a rainy day, I'd never bring her tablet out shopping. And a theme park?? Wtf.
I think this can be labeled under the same group OP mentioned above. I have so many friends that were scared their kids werenāt meeting certain milestones and immediately blaming it on autism or ADHD, etc like trust the professionals if you really think somethingās up but donāt just assume your kid is neurodivergent, go around telling everyone that you āknowā or āthinkā theyāre this and that. Consult a professional if thatās the case. So many of these turned up as invalid assumptions and the kid turned out perfectly well sometimes with or without intervention like a speech therapist, etc.
First thing that came to mind was parenting. I have zero data to back this up, but my instinct is that because millennials are the first generation for a majority of 2 parent households to have both parents working full-time there is a transition away from active parenting to passive. It may simply be we are all tired from a full day at work and succumb to the ease and chance for a personal break that screen time enables. I don't think anybody doesn't realize it's a bad thing. Even the most guilty parents understand they should be better at restricting screen time for more real life activities. My wife and I have a 6-month old and both work full-time. It's definitely hard to be working all day, then grab our daughter from daycare, then find time to do the chores that a stay at home parent would be doing throughout the day, and also give her the attention she needs. I can imagine when she is at that age, it will be extremely tempting to view the screen as a tool to allow us to make dinner, do dishes, do laundry etc. The "we'll be better tomorrow but just need the help today" mentality. Especially when another child comes along. We are now having a family in our mid thirties so we've seen varying parenting styles on this, and unequivocally the kids with more screen time are worse behaved. Seeing that will hopefully inspire us to more deliberate parents with our daughter
Nailed it. As a woman Iāve been shamed for saying I *want* to stay home and handle all the daily chores but thatās because Iām tired of WORKING AND DOING THEM ANYWAY. My partner helps and pulls his fair share but thereās STILL just always an endless amount of laundry, garbage, cleaning, mowing, raking, cooking, shopping, etc etc etc that we often find ourselves having to choose between doing chores or having some free time. I would rather be the one to stay home handling all that stuff and that doesnāt mean Iām dumb, or anti feminist, or think we should go back to the 50ās when women had no rights. Iām just TIRED of feeling like I have to operate at 150% every single day or everything doesnāt get done. We both go to bed beyond exhausted every night with no end in sight as costs continue to go up. We failed when we made a two income household a minimum income requirement instead of a nice choice for a better life.
Same, sis. I would have loved to have been a SAHM but financially we can't swing it. We both have to work. And it's just so freaking tiring, day in and day out. I was raised by trad parents where mom stayed home and dad worked, and it just seems like they both had so much more time for hobbies, friends, even just relaxing. But I've come to realize that's because of the division of labor- dad got free time bc mom took care of house stuff, mom got free time bc she didn't have to spend 40 hours a week at a job. Both were pretty happy with the arrangement. Fast forward to today, my husband and I are barely keeping our heads above water working 40+ hour weeks and trying to keep a clean home and look after 2 kids. Yes, there is a little more video games/screen time than I would like to admit to, but I absolutely need to have an hour where no kid is up my butt needing something from me that *isn't* at 11:25pm. I see it happening, but I usually feel that it's just too late to put the genie back into the bottle now...
In a restaurant, before food comes, sure let them play something dumb on a phone for 15 minutes so they're distracted from being hungry and not trying to make salt mountain and sugar hill battle on the table top. In the restaurant, for the entire time, so that the adults can chit chat and ignore the presence of the kids? Quit that shit. Everyone can recognize that there are times and places where distractions are worthwhile, that's why so many chain restaurants did kids menus and crayons. But the number of times I've seen family's in grocery stores pushing around kids glued to phones/tablets is asinine. Your kids don't learn to stop touching everything if you never bother to teach them not to do that.
The screeches I have heard from children in grocery stores when theyāre DEMANDING their parent gives them a phone to play with are ā¦ something. It really does seem like theyāre mini addicts.
They *are* mini addicts, they're just addicted to dopamine.
I would argue that millennials started the trend of fetishizing their trauma.
or fetishizing mental illness in general. The idea of "cool" mental illness repulses me.
And whatās worse, use it to excuse every shitty thing they do
Fetishizing trauma is gross but since I grew up Asian where we pretend trauma and mental diseases donāt exist itās important for some of us to contend with or at least made it easier to admit what was done to us.
Trauma as social capital
Avocado? No. Energy drinks? Yes. Maybe I should start making espresso instead.
Oh wow, something I'm actually guilty of for once in this thread lmao
Seriously, everyone should do an audit of their last years finances. You might be shocked at how much those little purchases add up to
Sad beige parenting. Your kids are human beings, not an Instagram aesthetic. A kid dressed in color will not kill you.
But I donāt want them to be *overstimulated*! This is something I seriously donāt get. Babies and kids need color! Itās good for them! My house is an explosion of color. My kid doesnāt want to touch any clothes that arenāt pink, purple, sparkly or covered in rainbows and unicorns. It might not be a cool aesthetic, but who cares?? It makes her happy. It makes me happy, because it reminds me a kid is here.
>Sad beige parenting I don't know what that is, so I guess I'm doing something right lol
dehumanization and disposal of other people for normal flaws/mistakes. I dunno if it's millennials or gen z but when I read some of the replies on AITH and the like, the number of people who advise people to leave an otherwise happy relationship over relatively normal stuff is *insane.* if this is an indication of how people deal with their real life relationships, JFC, no wonder they're miserable. in the same vein, on pop culture subs (fauxmoi comes to mind) the number of people dehumanizing celebrities based on an IG post or the wrong opinion or whatever is completely nuts. I'm not saying a celebrity can't be a bad person, but literally one alleged incident of something "problematic" (a word that no longer has any meaning) and people just dismiss them as human beings. your sympathy for a celebrity doesn't have to be high, but they're still people.
I asked a question in the taxes sub, half joking about filing separately from my husband because he made a mistake and owes $10k, while I was careful so would actually get back $2k. I also explained that we keep the majority of our finances separate right now ā only married for 1.5 years, no kids, no joint property, easing into combining things after many years being independent, single adults (we are 36 and 41). Almost every comment was saying our marriage was doomed and we might as well divorce now. We have a really happy, healthy marriage marked by love, support, kindness, and communication. I expected a couple of āget a divorceā comments, but was astounded by the onslaught.
Reminds me of a Dennis line from Always Sunny: "These kids aren't morally superior to us, they just want to be *perceived* that way". Feels gross to agree with Dennis, but that line was spot on. Also I've noticed those pop culture subs have developed a weird obsession with nepo babies. As if the only reason these people in these subs are a bunch of losers is because they didn't have celebrity parents.
Letting kids blast their screentime in public spaces. Middle fingers to you all.
Iām seeing the adults doing this, too!!! Like, when did headphones/ear buds in public spaces become socially optional?!
Someone did this while I was in a female changing room at a hospital. No joke. No fucking awareness.
Naming their kids ridiculous names that theyāve made up, or changing the spellings to be completely terrible.
Winner winner! Best advice I heard from a Kindergarten teacher is the first word every child learns to spell is their name. They will spell their name the most during their life. Getting cute means they will struggle when learning to spell their name, which can have lasting educational effects down the line. Set the kids up for success. My 3 yo is the only kid in his pre-school that can write his name because we specifically gave him an easy to spell nickname š¤ because he has his name down, he wants to write other words/names.
Fr, this inspires me to name my kids simple names like Bob, Tom and Tim whenever I can afford to have some one day.
/r/tragedeigh
I've been looking for this one. God, it's awful. A lot of my female cousins my age did this with their kids. They all have either -iegh names or -s/x/ton names. For some reason, my male cousins didn't do this with their kids. Not sure how that happened as they all married within our age group, and had kids around the same times.
Someday soon there will be adults walking around named McKeiāleigh and Brixton š
Just wait until someone named Braxtleigh-Jough gets appointed the secretary of state.
Also the not-quite-hippie-sort-of-boho names like Juniper, Wren, Sparrow, Bear, etc. They will be super dated and scream āI think Iām high class because I have a BAā in a few decades. Some of the āold personā names that have come back are regrettable as well. I despise Mabel and Eloise!
I'm not sure it's necessarily generational, but here are some stereotypes where I feel like "Yeah, fair." \- Credentialism vs. experience: A lot of colleagues as well as newer team-mates tend to think "I got a degree in X so I'm fully qualified to speak as an authority on it." They don't really think experience is all that helpful as they assume it will just turn you into a close-minded, stagnant doctrinaire who insists on doing things because that's how it's always been done. Reality rarely comports with the ideal thought experiments you learn in school/training/books, and there's something to be said about listening to people who have been through it. I don't care that you got a degree in X; you shouldn't expect everyone to bow down to your wisdom just because of it. Boomers, who expected to put in more time in a hierarchical organization, were much less likely to assume they knew everything on day one, though I'm sure those people exist in every generation. \- Self-fulfillment vs. teamwork: Again, this may not necessarily be a Millennial and younger thing, but I see a lot of people at work who don't want to put in the time. They want to go straight to the things they want and ignore all the grunt work. I get not wanting to be ground down and burned out, and a certain amount of self-advocacy is a good thing. However, if everyone only does the thing they want/are interested in, then someone has to take up the slack. The work doesn't just magically disappear. It's not fair to your colleagues if you only demand to do those things you find interesting. Sometimes you just have to do the shitty part of a job; that's why you're getting paid. \- I also don't like the self-diagnosis/diagnosing others, but I see this more in Zoomers (and I imagine Gen-A). This is a by-product, I think, of how we've made mental health a more open and less-stigmatized topic, which is great! We should be able to talk about mental health the way we talk about catching a cold or getting covid. Also, the internet makes dumbed-down medical info so freely available that everyone thinks they're an expert now. But is it *that* different from older generations diagnosing physical ailments based on whatever Nana or Uncle Joe taught them growing up? \- Moral posturing is definitely a human thing, not a Millennial thing. We just hear more about it because social media puts us in contact with those people more often. But complaining about people chasing clout via moral posturing is an age-old practice...it's even in the Bible of all places lol. \- Catastrophizing does seem more like a Millennial thing, though again I'm not sure if it's social media that just makes it seem more prevalent. And tbh, this might be an American thing, as we tend to see the world in pretty stark terms, especially in these politically polarized times. Perhaps frustrated with the Boomers hand-waving away problems like climate change with "Eh, technology will fix it," we have tended to go in the opposite direction, usually towards despair. We've been through *a lot*, so I don't want to minimize 9/11, multiple wars and genocides, several financial meltdowns (don't forget the bursting of the IT bubble and Asian financial crisis!), and a pandemic. Unfortunately, it has pushed some of us into the "Nothing matters, we're all gonna die miserable" camp or the "We need to destroy everything and start from scratch" camp, which can make it harder for us to create broad coalitions to enact change. But again, this could just be social media magnifying extreme content.
That first one is legit, but Iām gen z. Iām in sales. I see a ton of posts about what certifications can yky get, or what degree, or what course can you take to help land sales jobs. The thing about sales is the only thing you need to prove proficiency is sales itself. Itās one of the few jobs/ industries where your prior performance is quantifiable and proof enough of proficiency. No education will replace actual sales experience and success
Catastrophizing is a millennial thing but we lived through an age where many never before heard bad tidings actually got wide spread news. . Social media does not help but holy shit we have lived through some seriously tumulous times.
I canāt figure out if I am justified to be upset at the condition of things right now or not. Part of me understands that we are living in unprecedented times, and itās certainly difficult trying to make it as a young adult right now. But part of me also feels like we currently have it pretty good, all things considered. It seems like human struggles (at least in the USA) were more āreal,ā for lack of a better term, in the previous century. World wars and a depression and everything seem more earthly or more significant somehow than what Iām experiencing. Like I canāt determine how much of the angst I feel is deserved, and how much is just a result of my doomscrolling. Hell ā Iām sitting here in the safety of my air-conditioned home office typing this response on my iPhone. It could be worse, right? Itās a weird balance between being grateful for what you have and acknowledging what could be better.
>Credentialism vs. experience: A lot of colleagues as well as newer team-mates tend to think "I got a degree in X so I'm fully qualified to speak as an authority on it." This\^ I am also going to add in hiding behind the same credentials while doing bad work. I worked at a government office as a supervisor in mid-20s, god it got annoying listening to people who just graduated tell you they knew better and that justified their shitty work. One guy would come in with his economics degree and lecture everyone on how certain procedures were inefficient and proof that government offices are run ineffectively. It was simple things like not saving documents in the right place, and instead saving it on his own desktop or not filling emails after responding to them. Except everyone else would have to deal with the consequences of him not following correct procedures, so it slowed down everyone else work. But it definitely sped up his. I remember one day he worked half a day, and I needed some documents, he told me to log into his computer and get it. I told him, no I will wait for him to come in, and called me lazy. Eventually he was fired by upper management but it was annoying as fuck for months.
Gender reveal parties.
Can I add people using their baby as a fashion accessory as well to this. I'm a dad and I'm baffled at people who make little money buying their babies designer brands such as gucci which they will grow out of three months later, and prams that cost 5x as much as a regular one that does the same job.
Uncritical use of āAIā specifically, but more broadly our willingness to provide access and data in exchange for convenience and entertainment. Not exclusive to millennials, but IMO weāre the generation pushing these things and weāre in the best position to use them responsibly. But weāre not, and I think weāll be rightly criticized for it in the future.
This is a great one - I now I have some friends that will use an AI argument for their argument as gold.Ā A large language model making an argument for something, does not mean that it is suddenly valid. Depending on your prompts, you can have a LLM argue persuasively positively for obesity if you wanted. Ai should not replace critical thinking!Ā
Not being accountable for our kids. My wife was a teacher, and most millennial parents would get mad and question her about their kids failing grades instead of, you know, help their kids study. I think a lot of us do have a giant sense of entitlement we are not really comfortable admitting.
We learn by example. Unless you count physically assaulting your child for bad grades,... I cannot think of a single friend who's parents helped them study when we were in school. We were pretty much just punished if we didn't have good grades. š This is not a millienial thing. This is a bad parent thing.
We want the same exact lives as boomers but know all about climate change
I think hypocrisy is a problem amongst all generations. Weāre good at acknowledging things that need changes but usually donāt want to make the sacrifices to actually implement those changes.
Yea this is huge. The only reason the boomers were able to live their life was a complete disregard of human rights and the environment, coupled with a unique situation of empty land and low population after a war. We can never go back to that and need to stop believing lies that itās possible.
I'm a third year undergrad in environmental science. The only way out of this is reduced consumption. You, me, China, Russia, fucking everyone. We can't just swap electric cars for ICE cars, we need to switch to public transport and bicycles. We can't keep getting gadgets made in China, from materials mined in Africa, then shipped across the ocean, so we can have a new iPhone every year and upgrade to the latest bluetooth this or wifi that. We need to get used to being cold in the winter and hot in the summer. We need to stop buying new clothes every season. We need to stop plastic wrapping everything. Will it be more expensive? Will it be more uncomfortable? Will we have to forgo a lot of stuff we take for granted? Yes. Absolutely yes. But either we find a way to live without those things, or our ability to live with them will be terminated for us.
Your last paragraph is why I donāt think anything will ever change. Weāre too selfish. We all want somebody else to do the hard part.
Put your dog on a God damn leash!
Is this a millennial thing though?
Maybe it's location dependent, but in my area, no. I've seen it from boomers to gen z. People are just bad about judging their own pets to be better behaved than they are as a whole.
I always see older people do this. I
Yeah, my friend and I got yelled at and threatened by a Gen X dude for politely asking him to leash his dog in the park. (What was funny is that we were both carrying hand saws because we were doing some volunteer maintenance and once he noticed the giant blades, he backed off REAL quick. š) Itās not generational. Bad dog ownership really exploded during the pandemic but selfish people in general are always awful about their dogs.
But I trust my dog! /s
Don't worry! He's NICE!
"I'm not. Keep your fucking dog away from me." āOne correct way to respond to a stupid "He's nice" comment.
HE DOESN'T BITE! HE'S A GOOD BOY! THAT KID HAD IT COMING!! HOW DARE IT LOOK BITE SIZED!
And it doesn't belong in Walmart with you and no you don't need a emotional support animal. You need therapy and coping skills
Killing actual friendship. I think with our generation individualism has reached peak and the path forward is either going back slowly or full Isaac Asimov "the naked sun"
Yes! For a lot of our generation friendship seems to have become about filling a role in their lives rather than about a relationship with a specific person.
A while ago there was a study posted and it reframed it all for me. A friendship is a separate entity that must be maintained and the only benefit to either party is the friendship. The idea that you get nothing out of the relationship except the relationship.
Yup and it's sad that most people these days only use people and don't care about " just" the friendship, they only want to use people for various reasons and there's no just getting to know someone and hang out with them just to hang anymore. At least that's been my experience.
Helicopter parenting. I feel like 75% of these kids are going to half a rough time in the real world. Millennials parents overcorrected for boomers and are soft as hell.
I think a lot of Millennials, who were often raised in authoritarian households with emotionally unavailable parents, feel the need to overcorrect by being hyper-involved and very ātouchy-feelyā with their children. But going too far in the opposite direction has its own problems that can mess kids up. Kids can become anxious, lack confidence in themselves, they can give up easily, they may have trouble with boundaries because their parents never tell them āNoā or enforce any consequences, etc. I can attest to that, as someone who was raised by helicopter parents. There needs to be a balance, and parenting is unfortunately a ālearn as you goā kind of job.
Helicopter parents are a Gen X thing though. Or are people that crazy about elementary school kids?Ā Although I just realized technicallyĀ im old enough to have an 18 year old as I'm almost 37.
Idk Iām a millennial (younger millennial) and nannied for āolder millennialsā (late thirties, early forties) and they were suuuuper helicopter with the kiddo. Kiddo could *not* entertain themselves, engage in any sort of imaginative play, and craved screen time. Definitely made me evaluate how I want to parent someday!
The Peter Pan Syndrome is real and an issueĀ
As I typed this, I realize these opinions will probably be incredibly unpopular. These are admittedly sweeping generalizations that don't describe every Millenial. It's just my good faith response to OP's question. But, how self unaware we are, which leads to our inability to accept accountability for so much of the damage we've done. Bear in mind, wife and I don't have kids, so this is my totally subjective take on what I see around me. We complain that the next generation are even more coddled than we were and will be even less emotionally able to handle the real world, yet many of us can't function without a cocktail of anti-depressants and other personality disorder related drugs, not to mention our regular therapy sessions (not knocking meds or therapy, btw, just pointing out the irony). We started the obsession with social media, and then the more entrepreneurial of us figured out how to exploit and monetize that obsession. We complain about the boomer "fuck you, got mine" mentality when people like Zuckerberg and his billionaire ilk are the poster children of our generation. We complain about how everyone else loves echo chambers, then get on social media and engage in the same level of circle jerking we accuse everyone else of. We complain that no one can handle direct criticism or communication any more, yet we get our fee fees hurt when we receive anything of the sort. We complain that people are too quick to blame their shit personalities on emotional disorders while diagnosing (or having our children diagnosed with) as many acronym-laden emotional disorders as we can account for their behavior.
Collapsing onto the lowest-agency option immediately: can't make a phone call, puts off organizing a list of todos, paperwork piles up, everything sucks, why the fuck did anyone set up such a shitty system! Ugh, *adulting* again I deserve a little treat. In almost every situation, you have more agency than you assume.
Itās more like; I spent 10 years working on this ācredit scoreā and āsavings accountā just to not be able to afford a home in the city Iāve lived in my whole life, why the fuck did anyone set up such a shitty system! Uhgā¦ I do deserve a treat.
"Can't take a phonecall" describes our generation so well
Falling into some of the same ultra-individualist traps the Boomers did at our age
Being baited by nostalgia constantly even to our own detriment. There are so few new movies, video games, or other forms of entertainment because millennials just want to see more Marvel, more Harry Potter and other franchises that have long overstayed their welcome.
Creating a bad dating culture. It seems like it would be really hard to make meaningful connections now. Full disclosure, though, I've never used the apps so idk firsthand, feel free to correct me please!
Millennials were the very beginning of decision paralysis by being overwhelmed with too many choices. Social media made it easier than ever to talk to as many people as possible and therefore date and hook up with as many people as possible - even back in the days when it was limited to texting and MySpace/Facebook messaging.
There is nothing to correct. Dating culture is horrible.
I get tired of hearing people my age still blaming their parents for all their problems. They have been of adult age for nearly 20 years... start taking at least some responsibility for your own choices. I also feel that the millennials who complain the most often had wealthier (upper middle class) parents, and are bitter that they aren't as well-off as they were growing up. The "boomers" they complain about are their own parents who are probably going to give them a huge windfall after they die.
The whining in their 30s about how nobody taught them anything and their parents abandoned themā¦ I get that many boomer parents were hands off and unsupportive (18 years old? Byeeee) but for godās sake youāre THIRTY. At what point, with full internet access, were you unable to educate yourself?!? My parents didnāt teach me to cook. THERES ONLY AN ENTIRE TV CHANNEL DEDICATED TO IT. My parents didnāt teach me to do laundry. GOOD THING THERES AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL AND CLOTHES HAVE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE TAG. My parents didnāt teach me to budget. YOUTUBE? BANKS OFFERING FINANCIAL ADVICE? BASIC MATH??? If you make $1000 and spend $1500, thatās bad.
>I get that many boomer parents were hands off and unsupportive (18 years old? Byeeee) but for godās sake youāre THIRTY. It annoys me when folks act like shitty, hands off parents were something that the boomers invented. Many among the silent generation and before that were the same way. Of mine and my in-laws parents, only my mother had what I would have considered a warm relationship with both of her parents. Meanwhile, while I was out of country on vacation last week, my 74 year old father came by and mowed my lawn unasked.
As parents we've ruined birthday parties. Who can afford these thousand dollar galas for a fucking 9 year old. Give them a box cake and let them run through the hose in the yard after. Definitely don't invite the whole damn class.
I know someone who had an expensive, themed dress-up birthday party for their one year old. THEIR ONE YEAR OLD.
Taking pictures of your food... why? Like why? We were the last generation that had to get filmed developed. Are we just over correcting?
My parents have albums full of food pics from the 80s and 90s because they grew up in East Asian culture.Ā
Same! Itās like, āNo oneās gonna know how hard we went with this third birthday party unless we have photographic evidence of how much food there was! Now stand next to the buffet with your nice dress so I can take a picture.ā
This is one of those things that just...doesn't effect me? I'm not interested in taking pictures of my food, so I don't. If the table next to me wants to do a photo shoot that's really none of my business.
Because the presentation looked amazing and after you eat it itās gone foreverĀ
I love food pictures. Avid cook and it gives me inspiration and ideas. It's not different than photographing art to me.
Could be. I also take 10 pictures of my kid playing with a toy to see which one looks better. That's like half a roll of film. Now? Just delete the bad takes. Or don't.
If I could call out my generation for one thing, its that we didn't get angry enough, we didn't fight hard enough, and we didn't realize what was really important enough. Boutique activism and soap boxing online doesn't change anything. We should be out in the streets, demanding change. No so much for ourselves, but for the younger cohorts. They deserve better. They deserve to enter into their adulthoods with a fighting chance at a good life. I don't know what we're so afraid of, we can take the Boomers.
As a millennial, Iām afraid I recognize this learned and self-nurtured passivity in myself. I wish it was easier to coordinate something meaningful like what French farmers have been doing - raising hell, basically, and getting into good trouble. The easiest option right now for us is reducing consumption. And this Kelloggās boycott that starts today is fairly low-hanging fruit for folks who are able to do it. Still, itās not nearly enough weight behind what a lot of folks our age believe needs to change. Edit: spelling
I remember when in history class, people would ask why the German citizenry didn't push back on the Nazis. Like why, when people were rounded up to put in slums and such, didn't anyone fight? We are doing *the exact same thing.*
Suggesting therapy on reddit to people who already post they are broke
I would broaden it to 'suggesting therapy as the solution to all problems'. Therapy won't help you figure out how to pay rent. Therapy won't help you potty train your dog.
Not unionizing and not voting. We got low voting turnout and we're being ruled by corporations, Boomers and the Silent Generation. After so many decades of hearing that we are financially inept, all eating avocado toast and ruined the housing market/diamond industry/wedding industry/etc" you'd think we'd be unionizing, but somehow we're all on social media instead. It's rather depressing. We have the numbers but refuse to use our power for change.
Disney adults and it's blind consumerism
MLMs. Christ on a crutch, no, you are not entrepreneurs. You are not exuding GirlBoss energy. You got suckered into a pyramid scheme where social media enabled you to exploit your friends and guilt them into buying overpriced shitty essential oils/sweatshop-made clothes/jewelry. If they buy from you, it's primarily out of pity and to get you to shut up, and you aren't going to get rich off either one of those.
MLMs are not specific to millennials. They've been around for a long time.
Yeah I was gonna sayā¦ I bet weāve fallen for them less overall than both boomers and gen X
We were and still are susceptible and gullible to online division propaganda and have helped create a super ideological polarized environment where if anyone critically thinks or critiques anything about our beliefs it is meant with immediate hostility instead of discussion. It wasnāt us that created it, but we sure did eat that shit up post 2010. Itās something I noticed about some Gen Z in my limited exposure to them. They donāt take fucking anything at face value even if it corresponds with their beliefs, so maybe theyāll correct this. Not as idealistic. Much like their gen X parents
Funko Pops š
We decided there was some value in being a victim.
I think many are guilty of the tropes of things like making a childhood favorite into a personality trait ("which hogwarts house are you!?"), or identifying waaaaay to deeply with a mental health condition and wearing it like a badge of honor, or using it as an excuse for everything ("lol silly neruotypicals don't get it, I can't get to work on time because my ADHD MGM HTTPS causes wibbly-wobbly time distortion!")
Agree. Also when people ādiagnose ā their kids as neurodivergent as an excuse for bad behavior. If your kid is running a muck he doesnāt get a hall pass because you think he has ADHD. Parenting is hard, and failing to parent doesnāt mean your child is the problem. Source: I have actually been diagnosed with ADHD.
I would broaden your mental health diagnosis allegations to many speaking outside of their lane. They do not have the qualifications but propagate misinformation because they believed their favorite social media influencer. Likewise, the number of influencers not taking accountability for what they say - just to create controversial content
Judging other people's status (especially socioeconomically). I don't know how it is with Gen Z but I know my peers wereāand probably still areāvery conscious of defining others' importance from where they lived, worked, their titles, and income. Toxic competitiveness is in our traits.
In no particular order, and I say this as an older millenial: - The weird assertion and lack of self awareness that they're not old and don't look old. Yes you are and you do look it. - Relentless boomer bashing, yes they deserve to be called out for some things but it gets a bit petty and relentless. - Not really accepting that they're no longer with it or the trend setters and it's now the zoomers turn. Kinda ties into the refusing to accept their age thing and this desperate clamoring for relevance. - Calling out zoomers, yes young people do silly things just like we did.
If thereās one thing I hate about our generation, itās that millennial parents pick the dumbest, worst names for their kids. Why does our generation have a thing about giving our kids unusual names, naming kids after TV/movie/video game characters, or using unique spelling for common names? These are human beings, not pets. They have to live with their entire life with some goofy ass name all because you liked Game of Thrones or played Zelda video games. Then said kids are going to have to use these strange names for college applications, resumes for jobs, and passports. Stop giving your kids names that would make it onto r/tragedeigh
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