In the song dubbed “the millennial anthem” by the Atlantic, two 20-something friends sing,
Wish we could turn back time to the good old days
when our mama sang us to sleep
but now we’re stressed out.
That’s “Stressed Out,” the top 10 hit from the duo Twenty One Pilots, a couple of dudes who, in the video for the song, like to ride tricycles, sip from juice pouches and hang out in their boyhood bedrooms.
It’s a succinct introduction to the burdens of Generation Why — as in “Why Everything Gotta Be So Hard?”
Millennials are taking bereavement leave from work to build therapeutic treehouses, they’re bringing Mommy and Daddy to interviews, they’re bringing a snack to (and busting it out in the middle of) business meetings, they have a constant need to be entertained and all of them think that they’re shiny unicorns on top of a flowery lawn.
Almost all of the complaints the olds have about millennials (those born between about 1981 and 1996) have a common denominator: This is the generation that just can’t let go of childhood.
Like children, millennials are natural narcissists; research has found they’re a generation characterized by “having an inflated view of oneself” with thin skins and a tendency to whine if they aren’t lavishly praised (“Younger employees are often very resistant to anything that doesn’t involve praise and rewards”). They have short attention spans and announce the need to let their “inner 5-year-olds” out to play.
Departing the plush, comfy environs of childhood is not easy or fun, which is why it’s best done with one harsh, sudden gesture as cruel as that first kindergarten no-look-back drop-off.
At 17 or 18, members of the greatest generation and the baby boomers were handed a union card, or a rifle. Generation X? A latchkey, then a dreary joint-custody plan.
All of these generations strove to extricate themselves from their moms and dads — who, being unaware that “parent” would ever turn into a verb, were happy to let the little ones go.
Baby boomers thought their parents were squares who didn’t understand rock and sex before marriage. Gen Xers, wounded by the baby boomers’ divorces, said (as Douglas Coupland did in his 1991 novel “Generation X”) “Eat Your Parents.”
Millennials never had their dreams shattered. Their parents not only didn’t split up, they’re in the next room, available to provide loans, job contacts and juice boxes on demand.
In the movie “Metropolitan,” released a few months before Coupland’s novel in 1990, the film’s protagonist, Tom Townsend, a child of divorce rapidly distancing himself from his early hardships, is walking by an apartment building when his new friend Nick spots a box of abandoned toys sitting woefully on the street and says, “The childhood of our whole generation is represented here, and they’re just throwing it out.” Tom realizes to his horror that this isn’t just his generation’s toys — they’re his actual toys, because this is where his estranged father lives, and he carelessly dumped them on the curb.
In the 1994 Gen X film “Reality Bites,” when Winona Ryder’s Lelaina says, “I just don’t understand why things just can’t go back to normal at the end of the half hour like on ‘The Brady Bunch,’ ” Ethan Hawke’s Troy Dyer replies, in a lament for all that is heartbreaking, “Because Mr. Brady died of AIDS.”
Millennials never had their dreams shattered. Their parents not only didn’t split up, they’re in the next room, available to provide loans, job contacts and juice boxes on demand.
Today’s young adults expect the lullabies to continue indefinitely, to be carried on their parents’ health insurance until early middle age and for every job to be entertaining, inspiring, creativity-turbocharged and world-changing. No 25-year-old wants to be a tax accountant anymore, because that’s not a job that a kid dreams of. What a kid wants out of a job is not that it be secure but that it be fun.
As Twenty One Pilots sing, “Out of student loans and treehouse homes we all would take the latter.” (What is it with treehouses, millennials?) The duo goes on, wistfully,
We would build a rocket ship and then we’d fly it far away.
Used to dream of outer space but now they’re laughing at our face
Saying “Wake up, you need to make money.”
There’s your proof: Millennials actually need to be told they need to make money. Moreover, this information causes them stress rather than liberation in the challenge of striking out on their own.
Zeke and Hannah need to learn that the rules of existence didn’t reboot themselves when they turned 18. Learning to unicycle is not going to pay the bills. And someday there won’t be anyone there to wash your cereal bowl for you.
Should Millennials prioritize fun during their job search?
Gimme gimme gimme, which is why Milennials love Bernie so much.
It's really a choice: Either work hard, believe in yourself and succeed or live in poverty and have the government tell you what you'll do and where you'll live next...
I must say that I am a Gen x'er..I just missed Babyboomer by 1 year, but I have to say this: I have worked at my job for 27 Years, and I am absolutely dumbfounded by the Millennials that interview for a job. They have ZERO communication skills (They look down when they talk to you). They are clueless as to work environment behavior. They come in late, leave early, and when they are working, they are slow and inaccurate. Why they get hired in the first place is beyond me. They major in garbage that is virtually unusable in the job market. I quit expecting a decent Millennial to be hired here. We only look for older people.
The OLD Generation doesnt get it. This article is proof. The milleninel generation my generation has always been told what to do. "Work hard and you will get places" Well guess what that is BS. This generation is uninterested in working for the man getting stuck in the system and living the BS american dream that youve been fed with a house in the suburbs a car a wife and a baby. Not happening! We dont have to do anyting we dont want to and your nobody is going to make us! Here to stay so you better deal with it. Were all about having fun first and making ourselves happy not making someone else rich!
@Shane Stauffer I hope you enjoy being homeless and hungry!
I was born in 1988. I moved out of my parents house when I was 17. I work an office tech job M-F and pay my own bills and save in my 401K. These articles are churned out a dime a dozen to generate clicks, but all it does is make older folks sound bitter, crotchety, and green with envy. Not to mention the fact that the reason for people of any age, race, or gender being useless to society is a direct result of horrid parenting. Look in the mirror before you blame the effect instead of the cause.
I weep for the future.
100% truth. Millennials will be the official end of the once great America
I posted a blog earlier today rebutting these type of "articles"/rants about millennials. Everyone is entitle to their opinion but like I said in my blog, if you don't know any millennials personally you shouldn't bash. Check it out here:
https://virtualrealestateblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/22/will-the-real-millennial-please-stand-up/
I taught and still teach millennials. This article is very accurate.
Funny article - but very stereotypical.
I don't think anyone gives credence to the thought that MANY parents of Millennials do hold a portion of the blame for how irresponsible and immature MANY Millennials act today - yet some of the comments from the same Gen X/Baby Boomers are praising the way their parents raised them - more strict, less spoiling.
Well, I'm here to tell you that, as a millennial, I don't believe I was heavily spoiled as a child, I have a degree and am climbing the corporate ladder, and I give credit for this to my Baby Boomer parents for forcing me get student loans, and for teaching me at an early age that you don't get something for nothing - it laid the expectation that I am to perform well and work as hard as I can at whatever it is I'm doing, and as a result sometimes great things will happen.
This is a valuable lesson, in my opinion, that plenty of scarred Gen X parents didn't teach their own children - Millennials - and a big reason why many Millennials are the way they are today. Of course, this doesn't excuse this sort of Millennial from waking up and maturing on their own.
In essence, the irresponsible/immature millennial issue is a partial result of some spoiled parenting techniques of SOME Gen X/Baby Boomers and should have been addressed in this article.
Stereotypes don't appear out of nowhere. They exist because there is an element of truth to them.
@Troll Troller an element of truth, yes - but that element of truth may not apply to everyone in the group - as I stated in my comment.
A little extreme, but funny! It gets old reading how hard Millennials have it, when I've been working since I was 15, really struggled to find work in 1993 after getting my bachelor's, put myself through grad school, raising a family, doing the whole thing, while still being called a slacker in the media. Plus, I had it good - my folks didn't cut me off until I was 22 and had my degree. Most of my friends were sent off at 18 with a handshake and a good luck.
I also like the comment calling you an old man, because I imagine you sitting back saying, "Damn straight, son. Grab me a can of that ensure." Heck, it beats being a young guy with just a knit cap and a dream.
You stick to your "grown-up" writing. This millennial will stick to programming for Google.
I don't think I can take this author seriously considering that his Twitter account profile picture is that of a Care Bear. Really?
My issue with the whole thing is that way back when a boomer graduated from College...or even HIGH SCHOOL. They could get their first job just by walking into a company and handing over a resume. They were interviewed that day, given a liveable salary and they started work the very next day. They could work hard and in a couple years they would be promoted to the next level up and then a few years of more hard work and they were promoted to the next level after that and so on and so forth.
Now days....you pretty much HAVE to have a college degree. You apply for 50+ postions and MAYBE 2 call you back for interviews. 4 interviews later, you maybe get the job and then your lucky if your new salary pays for just a normal apartment with a roommate and a used car. You work hard for two years...and then another two years and oh, nothing happens. You get a piddly 2% raise each year. No promotions are avaialbe they say......or your co-worker is ahead of you for a promotion they say....you switch jobs for a 5-10K raise for the same job and then the same thing happens for another 4-6 years......but don't forget your healthcare premium has doubled since you started working and your years to have a family and buy a home are dwindling already and you haven't even moved up a level......
You can't get ahead anymore.
There is no more corporate ladder.
Your education ends up being a waste of money and time.
Working hard no longer equals promotions and raises.
@Michelle C ...
That's what happens when the high-school diploma gets dumbed down to the point that college is remedial education exercise.
At 17 or 18, millenials fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"At 17 or 18, members of the greatest generation and the baby boomers were handed a union card, or a rifle. Generation X? A latchkey, then a dreary joint-custody plan."
So baby boomers got a good job right out of high school and Gen x and millenials got nothing. And the younger people are the problem? Such twisted logic.
Fun? Now that is a hoot. Fun. Seriously? Fun? It's called work for a reason.
Or maybe you should stop hiring college graduates
lots of hardworking millennials who never went to college
I do not know what fantasy land you live in, but there are a lot of divorced parents, with the number one cause being money problems, so no loans from mom and dad for us. Gen X is the future, and you sound like you're going to be left behind. Maybe you should grow up.
Job search? There really isn't much to search for nowadays considering all the good jobs got outsourced by the politicians members of the Greatest Generation and the Boomers voted for.....
Boring, contrived, and uninteresting. Your article is nothing but a waste of time, good sir. This irrelevant, "Wahh, millennials are awful and do things that I myself and every generation before me didn't do," is useless. Why do people see a need to lump together people into one group when clearly everyone is different and have different lives and circumstances within those lives. "Wahh, Jerry in accounting is mad because he has to pay for his health insurance, what a baby!" Oh yeah, well what about Beth in I.T., she is a millennial as well and she works hard, appreciates what she has. This is a hypothetical of course, yet you crotchety old people see a need to complain about every generation that comes after yours. It is irrelevant, unneeded, and petty. Grow up and quit your obnoxious complaining, because I guarantee the next generation will be one that people complain about as well; and probably more so. This is click-bait. Nothing more.
30 years old, my parents divorced in an ugly argument when I was 5. My dad raised my mostly by himself. I moved out between 18 and 19 because I got tired of hearing "our house our rules". So I went and got my own place. My dad gave me enough rope to hang myself, and enough help to keep someone else from doing it to me.
Every generation thinks the one before them sucks, and the one after them sucks. I've met PLENTY of entitled hypocritical baby boomers. Get over yourselves.
Yea, yea, yea, yea, yea. . .
Your generation SUCKS!
Sincerely,
The generation that preceded your sorry spoiled one.
Mr. Smith may have left his juice box behind, but he's pretty flippin lazy singing the same old tune the generation prior to mine (I'm Gen X) sang about me.
Okay, I really hope this doesn't get turned into a huge argument. So I will deal with it before it can start. Yes I know that there are most likely grammer and spelling mistakes in this I am also human so I am not perfect. Yes this is the opinion of a "millennial" however this is not me whining, I am content with where I am in my life currently and simply wanted to add some things that I feel should be thought about. This is not an attack towards anyone I agree that a chunk of the age group millennials probably does fit your description however I also want think about us as more than just an age group and look more into the reasons that these people in my age range could be acting this way.
The person using bereavement time to build a treehouse is actually struggling with something causing them great distress, perhaps this is how they wanted to honor the individual they may have lost or perhaps they are coping with a form of abuse and they want to build a place that is safe to them. Perhaps building I just a way to cope for them.
The person who brings snacks into a meeting may need to eat more often or different foods for a medical reason. Maybe they are diabetic or hypoglycemic or have another digestive disorder. They might just not be comfortable sharing medical information in the office.
The person who needs more frequent phrase may have a learning or cognitive disability and have a more difficult time learning.
The person who needs frequent breaks or needs to play may have ADD or Autism and they are unable to focus for long periods of time or the environment is overstimulating and they need a break to calm down and regather themselves.
Not all individuals that behave different are bad, often they are all just doing the best they can at the time. weather that means they need to spend a day building a treehouse to get through a crisis or needing to eat at a slightly impractical time.
For a final note there are many people around my age that are working full time and going to school for degrees in nursing, law, surgery, vet care and even banking. They aren't doing it for the recognition, they are doing it because when they are finally able to they want to be a productive and useful member in society. They aren't living at home with their family they are living in two bedroom apartments with three other housemates.
I gladly respond to anyone who wants to actually discuss this topic however I will not respond to any name calling, attacks on spelling or grammar or any excessive use of foul language.
@iamciril @Jessica Whitcomb You are entitled to your opion and it probably is poorly worded mostly I am stating do not judge all of an age range by the actions of some.
@Jessica Whitcomb,
Okay, I think the column is garbage but what you posted is horse-crap.
Grow a set, will ya?
Judging by his profile pic, Kyle is probably homosexual, yet here he is preaching and stereotyping and trying to make people (not generations) feel bad about themselves for the NY Post no less. A wonderful organization that always makes a great contribution to society, hehehe. Besides being a catchy song in any age, the Twenty One pilots song is in no way an anthem for millennials, it is actually a remarkably ingenious song which anyone of any age in their right mind could relate to since it actually sheds light on the pitiful state of the world, and the true meaning of the song being that life is not solely about making money, and that the people who say "wake up you need to make money" are the ones who are sound asleep while listening to everything societal institutions proclaim. The line that says “Out of student loans and treehouse homes we all would take the latter" it says "we all" meaning everyone would take the latter. It in no way implicates "millennials". Why? Because you'd have to be out of your mind to accept the former! The cost of education being both unreasonable, irresponsible, unrealistic and practically unrecoverable. Guess which generation I am? What is this generational blame about anyway? Which generation hasn't screwed up? If we're going to talk debts or flaws, then there are no good generations, there are only individuals. Individuals should take the actions they need to for themselves and stop listening to mindless institutions that blow with the wind.
"Like children, millennials are natural narcissists (research has found they’re a generation characterized by “having an inflated view of oneself” with thin skins and a tendency to whine if they aren’t lavishly praised" sums up all the comments below!
@daniel havenar Hey. Wait. I know what's going on here. You're actually Kyle Smith, and you made a fake account with a fake name. That's pretty cowardly dude. Don't be mad cause you wrote a stupid article
@F U @daniel havenar Hahaha! Wow
@daniel havenar Wow is right. You so stupid man, stop writing, you don't do it good
@F U @daniel havenar Well, you are very smart and I'm sure Kyle Smith would agree, but I doubt he would want you attributing his article to me. Hey at least he has a job and is published. So you should probably go to bed and get ready for a busy day of pushing carts back in from the parking lot.
@daniel havenar @F U Don't deny it man. HEY EVERYBODY I FOUND KYLE SMITH HE'S OVR HERE
@daniel havenar What's an "inflated view of oneself"? I guarantee that you have an inflated view of yourself.
Many of the apps you want people to follow you and share this article on were made by those pesky lazy self centered entitled millennials you're so riled up about. Maybe you should resign your position as a "writer" as a form of silent protest against them.
Dear Kyle Smith,
You're an absolute, spell it with me, j o k e. A bad one.
If you use the term millennial chances are you're a brain dead, can't think for yourself, moron that's trying to jump on the ridiculous categorization that all youth today are lazy, spoiled, good for nothings brats. The population of people who are under the age of 30 in the United States is so diverse, that diversity is really the only thing you could categorize them as. To make any other generalization is an egregious display of ignorance to what's actually going on in the United Sates. It's you who doesn't live in reality, not this imaginary group of people you'd like to think exist.
By the way, you using some random song's lyrics as "proof" to how an entire generation behaves is one of the most stupid things I've read on the internet in a good few months. Congratulations on that, you absolute hack.
Hey, thanks bud
@F U really "most stupid" nice grammar!
@F U You're welcome, now wipe your nose and go to bed.
@daniel havenar Seriously, shut up and grow up. You violate more grammar rules than F U does.
You're just roasting me right now dude, I don't know how I'll be able to sleep
@Niels Marienlund @daniel havenar I imagine you know all about violation.
@F U I'm sure it will be easy, right after you are tucked in.
Shut up old man
@Byron Burke aaaaahhh did it hurt hims feelings
On top of the fact that there's nothing being said here that wasn't said about every previous generation...
You guys understand that the millennials in the workplace you're complaining about are the small percentage that had the parental support to be able to work unpaid internships or be privileged enough for their family to have provided them with the business connections to start their career, right? You can't actually think every Millennial comes from a loving, supportive, intact, and wealthy home. That's nonsense.
I would agree that there's a subset of very privileged Millennials who have become incompetent because they've never been tested in their entire lives. I think that's been true of every previous generation as well, and the ability of those people to fail is one of the last semblances of a meritocracy we have in this country.
Simply put, if you don't like the Millennials you're hiring, maybe you need to start looking for young workers in different places.