The following is something I wrote in support of Millenials. I feel it is greatly needed at this time.



It really is both unkind and unethical to propogate the Greatest Generation myth at the expense of the Millenials; the idea that once young Americans were willing to give up everything to serve their country, while today supposedly all the young people care about is their vacation time and their smartphones.

People who form their opinions based on facts supported by physical evidence know that every generation of youth has had its draft dodgers, and responsibility shirkers. In fact, there were many of the Greatest Generation (born between 1910 and 1925) who fit that description.

And just like every other generation, many of them actually answered the call of duty either in the military or in their local communities.

To be frank, the most cherished narratives of how the USA likes to see itself come from World War II, when the Greatest Generation fought the Axis powers including the Nazi menace. When we talk about “making America great again,” that is certainly one of the first stories that comes to mind, is it not?

So in the interest of integrity, honesty, and bridging our differences, perhaps Baby Boomers and older ought to stop propagating untruths that hurt and divide. Perhaps our stories should be more of the kind that show respect for ALL generations including Millenials.

There are plenty of examples of Millenials and younger who are changing the world for the better, right here and right now.

It is my pleasure and great fortune to actually work with Millenials who teach me new things everyday, and I know they also listen to and learn from me.

They will be taking over in a few years, and contrary to what too many of my peers claim, I believe we will be in good hands. The Millenials have the capacity to lead us where we need to go.

Can we, the elders still teach them something? Of course, and we should. More importantly, however, we, the elders, need to show them respect, and support them in their goals. We need to stop concocting heroic history stories to bolster our own opinions of ourselves while at the same time using those stories to belittle younger people.

Let go of the national mythmaking, and the unsubstantiated heroic history. Instead, use your energies to reach out and serve in your community. Link arms with all generations. Be honest about our past. Be a light. Be a guide. And be a helping hand.

That is the best way forward.

Signed,

John, a Baby Boomer

Being the proud parent of Millenials, I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly.

They are the bridge to the future. A mostly educated and enlightened group of young people who are already leading the way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2018 09:35AM by Amyjo.

Thank you :). My husband and I are both millennials, some people act so amazed that we both have full time jobs, live on our own, and support ourselves and our children. My husband is a veteran too. We are not that unusual either, people seem to only see the worst in young people nowadays while remembering only the best about themselves.

I couldn't agree more.

And I would add that history is written by the powerful, in this case the babyboomers. A balanced history of the Greatest Generation and the Babyboomers would acknowledge that they drove up the national debt and entitlement obligations dramatically in order to elevate their living standards even though the burden of that deficit-spending will impoverish the Millenials and the various other "generations" of young people. The older generations behaved very unheroically when they spent their children's inheritance.

In many ways, we can only hope the young do better than their grandparents and great grandparents--in so many ways.

The thing is there are millions and millions of millennials and you have just grouped them together into one group that all seem to be wonderful.

My personal experience is that Millennials are like any other age group because I hire a lot and I let go of nine out of ten before I get a good one. The millennials are no different to any other group. There are great ones, regular ones, and plenty of the ones who are only worried about time off, vacation, and using their cell phones at work whenever they want. This is real from a lot of them. This is only my experience with a few hundred.

It's just that you have painted such a lovely picture of ALL millennials in general that I take issue with.

My hiring and firing lately has paid off and I have now three "millennial" recent hires that are so wonderful and talented and professional that I have hope that I can finally hand off a lot of what I do knowing it is in good hands. But I haven't forgotten the last seven who could not stay off their phones, show up on time, or care about the work. The day off and vacation requests from the first day were ridiculous. When that is their first concern in an interview now they don't get hired. It should at least be the third question.

People. People have run the gamut as individuals with many differences since the dawn of time. I look at the individual. I don't care about a label such as "millennials."

But much of this is in the eye of the beholder.

Oh, wah.

First, the Greatest Generation (of which I am not a part) is not a myth.
Second, it's not being propagated at the expense of Millennials. Life is not a zero sum game. You can say nice things about the Greatest Generation and that does not detract from the Millennials.

There have been people whining about the upcoming generation for as long as there have been upcoming generations. You should have heard what was being said about Baby Boomers exactly 50 years ago, in 1968.

Millennials will make their own mark. Give them time. I worked mostly with midwestern mostly rural college students. By and large, they were outstanding workers, and are doing very well.

Ka-ching!

I'm sure the younger generation comprises good and bad people. But in some ways they are categorically different.

They are, for instance, bizarrely disconnected from the politics of older generations. They are very strongly pro-gay rights, pro-environment, pro-universal basic income, pro-corporate responsibility, indifferent to religion, etc. The numbers are stunningly different; they are something that will have a huge effect on national politics over the next 20 years.

This is bad news for the LDS church, which is badly positioned to appeal to them; and to both major US policies, whose positions reflect the preferences of older generations (because they have the money). It is very possibly worse news for the GOP, which is largely reacting against the preferences that show up with very high frequency among the young.

So good and bad, yes, but in some ways surprisingly different.

Good points. Millennials are a different demographic, and the differences are mostly in ways I highly approve of. I had these kids as students. I thought they were terrific, and in 25 years, they were going to be kicking serious butt. That why I don't get OP's lamentation.

One example. When Indiana and North Carolina passed some anti-gay laws a few years ago, and corporations and the NCAA came down on those states with both feet. The corporations basically said they wouldn't be able to hire good talent and get them to move to those states if those laws stayed in place, in which case, the corporations would not relocate to those states.

I know Indiana quickly reversed course and repealed the laws. I don't remember if the legislature or courts reversed course on the North Carolina laws. My point is corporations are having to set policy to keep millennials happy because they know they are dead meat if they don't. I'm happy to cheerlead for that.

It is true. The differences in opinion are gradual between previous generations, but Millenials, Xers, and Zers are radically different. Stunningly different.

I am presently working with an organization that is acutely aware of that fact and trying to figure out how to deal with it. Conservative (not necessarily in the political sense) entities like religions and political parties are going to get hit very hard when the younger generations enter the marketplace of ideas.

The differences are at least as big as between the older generation and the 1960s hippies, and much more widespread--meaning that whereas the hippies probably represented 30-40% of their generation, and the younger cohorts today register more like 70-80% on most issues. A real seachange.

I heard what you said...

Here is my issue of late. There comes a time when we need to grow up and mature. We will be a supervisor, co worker, driver... We are all interconnected. We don't take a job to have a supervisor "raise" us, to cut us so much slack over and over hoping that the worker will grow up, show up on time, drive in an adult fashion...

Schedules need to be followed, when you're asked to do something, do it, and do it the way the supervisor wants it done. Show up on time, bring your lunch, don't stand around, actually work. Especially don't stand around AND in my way.

Don't text me a dozen times every day. I'm your supervisor, not your parent or friend. Stop swearing at the job site, playing music with the N word and swear words. Only use the homeowners bathroom if it is an emergency... Don't argue with me, don't have a hissy fit if you don't like me correcting your bad workmanship. Work while you talk. Don't stop working to talk, work while you talk.

Keep the job site clean and safe. Clean up when your done. Over and over my two college co-op students need to have their behavior modified. My first one I had to kick off the job site and he got switched to another crew.

We have to stay on schedule or customers get pissed.

There comes a time to grow up. If your are 18+ you are an adult and to survive, you need to mature. If I could fire employees, I would have fired all 3 co-op students.

Just saying..

I gave up expecting normal behavior, and just hope to influence them to wake up to the reality of having a job. I feel like I'm their parent sometimes.

The USA was founded by violent separatists, who carried out terrorism and insurgency against the legitimate colonial government...

If the north hated slavery that much, why did they have racial segregation in federal institutions like the US military for a century more? Could it be that the northerners craved a large new cheap labor force for their factories?

And why if the USA loves peace so much does it wage constant war?

If the modern USA saw a modern equivalent to the 13 Colonies trying to be an independent entity elsewhere, it would condemn the violence, and possibly even send in troops to support the special relationship with its ally Britain. The USA has been hasty to undermine the non-violent independence movements of Quebec and Scotland.

This is great!


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> The USA was founded by violent separatists, who
> carried out terrorism and insurgency against the
> legitimate colonial government...


"Legitimate colonial government?" You need to make up your mind.




-----------------------
> If the north hated slavery that much, why did they
> have racial segregation in federal institutions
> like the US military for a century more? Could it
> be that the northerners craved a large new cheap
> labor force for their factories?


You have the economics backwards. The South with its plantations wanted to preserve slavery; the North with its factories didn't need slave labor, which made it easier for the North to oppose that evil system.



---------------
> And why if the USA loves peace so much does it
> wage constant war?


A uniquely good question.



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> USA has been hasty to undermine the non-violent
> independence movements of Quebec and Scotland.

Scotland??

Don't cry for me, Glascow.

Great questions. I found studying the history of Germany and then Spain helped me to better understand and contextualize the history of the USA.

Like many Mormon statements of "fact" this one is made meaningless by its repetition every ten years.

If there really is a Greatest Generation then surely there must be an "Insignificant Generation?"

For over 50 years I looked up to my grandfather as an example of dignity and honesty. He was born in the late 1800s.

Recently I learned he spent some of his younger years riding the outlaw trail. I was devastated.

50 years of delusion.

Finally I came to terms with it, but never looked at him the same.

Every generation has it's strengths. Baby boomers were good about getting to work on time, dressing professional and following the rules. I am genX, and my generation is good at looking at things practically and getting real measurable progress. I linked the production and product testing databases together in my first week at work, and automated my tasks so that I could get a week's amount of work done in a day. I then started redesigning the products based on what parts most commonly failed testing. Now I mentor millennials. I like how balanced their lives are, they are confident and happy. I see them as the ideal balance between baby boomers and genX.
The world has never been in better hands.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2018 12:58AM by chipace.

If there is any generation that could walk away from the TSCC, it is the millennials. GenX only tried to fix it, but the millennials are smarter in that they can just walk away. Baby boomers stay out of loyalty, but the smartest generation will be the ones to walk away. I am so pissed at my generation for having as many kids as the baby boomers, and planting that new crop of church zombies. My generation made no progress as far as leaving the TSCC.

Yes, the smartest and ones with the most courage and integrity are those who walk away.

Living balanced lives is huge.

Where’s that thread about generalizations?

Exactly.

Some generalizations are highly useful, especially when based on serious data and analysis and indicating clear differences.

The generational divide and its political and policy implications deserve serious notice.

Two Pew reports, the first on a number of different social indicia, the second on political affiliation. Ignore at your own peril, Dems and GOP.

http://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in-american-politics/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-partisan-and-ideological-gap-between-younger-older-generations/

Yesterday I saw a guy riding a skateboard pushing a baby carriage. Is this what our country has come to ?

I did that in 1973, only my two girls were in a stroller! This was on the gentle downhill slope of the southbound Vermont sidewalk, from Los Feliz to Kingswell!

The extolling of the virtues of the Boomers, upthread, is pretty amusing. In 1964, the Beatles haircuts were totally scandalizing. It was treated like it was only a half step away from going transgender. The male hair, beard, moustache standards still in effect at BYU was a direct push-back against the Boomers.

The primary subtext LDS Inc used in the 1970s was basically that they will protect your children from going hippie. Instead, your kids will be like Donny and Marie. It was an extremely successful message. More than a few people here grew up in families that were sucked into Mormonism during that period.

Eventually, as the Boomers aged into being the generation in charge, the fear subsided, and the Mormons lost their "we will save your kids from the hippies" selling point.

Now the Boomers are aging out of the "in charge" generation, and they are being portrayed as the responsible elder statesmen of society. I came of age in the Sixties, and I full well remember the cultural fear of dem hippies. Grousing about Millennials and their cell phones is mild in comparison.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2018 12:21PM by Brother Of Jerry.

I think the Millennials' values and aspirations are healthier than we've seen in many generations, including the naively self-indulgent hippies.