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They are a new breed, but Millennials will be OK
(The Duncan Banner, Okla. Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 4--It's a new year, which means it's time to gander into the crystal and attempt to discern the future.
No, this isn't predictions-for-the-coming-year columns. It's more a check up on a group that will shape the future of American society long after I'm worm bait.
Demographic trendmeisters, who assign us generational pigeonholes, are mesmerized by the current crop of freshly minted adults, the so-called "Millennials." Born since 1981 to parents who are Baby Boomers or far-end Gen-Xers, Millennials are beneath the social microscope because they're growing up, getting jobs, having families and emerging into adulthood.
Millennials burst upon us an a "mini-boom," which has symmetry, since being part of a population boom is a commonality between Baby Boomers and Millennials. But we are ceaselessly reminded the new group of adults are as different from stodgy ol' Boomers and slacker Gen-Xers as an iPod is from an 8-track.
We who've accumulated more growth rings are told we must study and understand the Millennials; we must adapt to their unique needs.
And what are those needs? Experts continually echo the theme that Millennials are selfish and irresponsible (a generalization that's insulting to them); and the answer to nurturing the new generation of grownups is to understand them better (a solution that's insulting to us).
Every generation of "older folks" has the prerogative to become crotchety and play the sorrowful kids-are-going-to-Hades card. But what's different this time around is that we keep getting told we have to put up with the Millennials and their generational peccadilloes.
See, the underlying foundation of the Millennials is their Baby Boomer and Gen-X parents. Millennials are our creation, and it's pay-back time for parents and doting grandparents who turned Millennials into self-centered praise junkies by hovering and coddling, and by continually boosting their self-esteem.
Having been told "Your pooh has no smell" approximately every 10 minutes of their first 20 years on the planet, a grave "60 Minutes" report this year said Millennials have become, "A generation whose priorities are simple: They come first."
Generational experts tell us we just have to put up with that, because the Millennials are "tech-savvy," and without their superhuman instant-messaging and texting prowess, American society as we know it will grind to a halt. Therefore, we're told, we have to let them wear flip-flops to the office and address us as "doood."
No doubt, there's an element of truth in all this; "generational experts" are, after all, experts for some reason. And cultures evolve, which means people of the same generation tend to share common characteristics.
But I'm not buying this blanket condemnation of everybody born since 1981 as being overindulged, irresponsible, selfish and undisciplined.
Nor do I embrace the popular learn-to-live-with-it solution, which counsels us to compulsively flatter and forgive young folks with tender egos, who can't work weekends or get out of bed before 9 or manage their own bank statements.
C'mon, didn't we all fall on our faces once or twice or thrice in the process of learning how to be a grown-up? Geez, let these young folks discover the knowledge found in failure.
To tell you the truth, I don't think the problem is so much the Millennials as it is us. If we're surrounded by young adults who expect the world to adapt to them, it's because that's what their parents have taught them.
Why? Fear -- and not fear of poverty or oppression or disease. Baby Boomers are the first group in the history of civilization to be motivated by the fear of being uncool.
Fear-of-uncool stalks us, terrifies us, blinds us to reason. And since we equate aging with loss of cool, Baby Boomers are losing ground all the time.
We want to keep on the good side of the young, who are the cultural arbiters of cool. Thus, paying their overdue credit card bills or congratulating them for getting to the office by lunchtime seem small prices to pay for staying cool.
Despite all the smothering, Millennials are described as being more altruistic and less racially biased than their predecessors. They're said to be more team-oriented than Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers, and they discovered some collective power in the '08 election.
Those are traits to which Baby Boomers once aspired. So, maybe our young'uns aren't the lost babes in the woods we sometimes project them to be.
Let's just let them grow up and see what happens. And quit worrying so much about whether they like us or not.
-- Jeff Kaley is editor of the Waurika News-Democrat and a Duncan Banner columnist. He can be reached at 580-228-2316 or e-mailed at jeff.kaley@duncanbanner.com.
To see more of The Duncan Banner, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.duncanbanner.com.
Copyright (c) 2009, The Duncan Banner, Okla.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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