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In this way, critics often end up repackaging millennials’ economic desperation as lifestyle choices, leading to a sort of generational gaslighting over what life in the new economy is really like.
Indeed, terms like “preference” and “choice” still dominate media coverage of millennials. But if anything holds this tenuously defined generation together, it is a lack of options. Americans who have lived much of their adult lives in the aftermath of the Great Recession have lower incomes, less mobility, and greater financial dependence on older relatives than any other generation in modern history. Many millennials do not have a lot of choice. They are merely reacting to lost opportunity.
For most Americans under 40, life since 2008 has been a struggle to survive. But it is worth noting that plenty of older Americans share the same struggles as their younger peers. Many older people laid off in the recession were unable to regain good jobs. There are plenty of older people with few retirement savings, with their finances drained from paying for both elderly parents and jobless children. We need to acknowledge the way our struggles are intertwined, instead of allowing the media to stoke manufactured class and generational resentment.
originally posted by: whyamIhere
America will bounce back.
We always have and we always will.
Too bad the very young cannot remember being proud American's.
America will rise again. We just need a leader...
originally posted by: thesungod
a reply to: onequestion
Vicious cycle. Gen X blamed the Boomers. The hippies blamed the depression era. Etc. Etc. Etc.
This is pretty par for the course, just in reverse this time.
ETA- S&F for awareness.
We're to lazy to buy houses, it has nothing to do with the fact that we can't afford them because companies won't pay to train people anymore unless your connected or have the right social network, which most don't.
So, continuing to see the world through the eyes of someone who HAD those opportunities clouds ones vision into think that everyone still has those opportunities and this could not be further from the truth. But human myopia is not limited to one generation alone. It spreads itself out equally among-st us all.
The world is changing faster than ever and people can't keep up. Can't really blame anyone we just need to start owning it and accepting the change and adapting accordingly.
originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
I agree with you one, I am a millennial and work nearly 50 hours a week and still have to rely on food stamps. I'm not lazy, I work my ass off every day and have barely anything to show for it.
The economy is #, millennials inherited it, we didn't create it and people who say that "all" millennials feel entitled based on what the vocal minority say or do are ignorant of the facts. When I joined the work force the economy was already in a downward spiral, that's not my fault and does not reflect my work ethic one bit.
originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: onequestion
I find that article to be pretty true One. Glad you found it and are addressing this issue of generational blame.
From my experience, generational blame is constant. My father regaled me with stories of how his parents would shake their heads at his generation when I was very young and then as I got older, ended up doing the same to my generation. He blamed the people before him and the people after him. I, of course, blamed him. Then I grew up and blamed everyone before that.
Now, though, I hope to be somewhat free of this circular blame game. You are right in that the present generation of young lack the opportunities available to previous generations. But those opportunities were not always available.
The Great Depression (1929 to basically 1941) offered almost no opportunities for work for large segments of society.
WWII came along and everybody went to work for the effort. After the war, every industrial country in the world with a manufacturing base had been bombed to smithereens. This left only the US unscathed. Our manufacturing base continued on without a stutter and there was work for everyone supplying goods not only for the US but for the whole world. Now though, the world is closing that gap and the work available to the last generation or two in no longer there.
So, continuing to see the world through the eyes of someone who HAD those opportunities clouds ones vision into think that everyone still has those opportunities and this could not be further from the truth. But human myopia is not limited to one generation alone. It spreads itself out equally among-st us all.
originally posted by: onequestion
Proper leadership is definitely what we need.
originally posted by: whyamIhere
America will bounce back.
We always have and we always will.
Too bad the very young cannot remember being proud American's.
America will rise again. We just need a leader...