A Treatise In Defense of Millennials

This year I have seen many articles, blog posts, posts on social media, and arguments blaming Millennials for the decline of society. Apparently, we are whiners with weak minds and overly inflated senses of self. We need our egos stroked and our fragile emotions coddled. We are either spineless, or have too much spine for the wrong things.

I am tired of being berated and blamed for things that were never in my control to begin with.

Some of my fellow Millennials have begun to strike back. I think this is due in part because we don't need so many of the things we are accused of relying on to cope with life.

One major complaint of those in generations before 1990 is that Millennials all want trophies for participating in whatever activities we are involved with. Every time I hear this, I scream on the inside (and sometimes on the outside.) I don't know if people realize this, but we did not come out of the womb with participation trophies in our hands. We did not wake up one day and collectively say, "Hey, I should be rewarded for showing up and doing the bare minimum that I can get away with." No, no. Just like every other social trend in history, we were created by the generations before.

The higher ups decided we needed to feel special. Our teachers and parents gave us certificates for the most asinine, mundane reasons. Instead of catering to the actual abilities of each student, we were all shoved into over-crowded classrooms and forced to be recognized as equal. Brilliance was snuffed out by curriculum that neither challenged nor met intellectual needs. Those who needed additional help were forced to feel stupid because they couldn't learn and retain at the same rate. And those in the middle were allowed to be just that. No Child Left Behind, although hoping to help everyone succeed, kept all of us down. We didn't create that program, but we were forced to operate within it. American mediocrity was born from the well-meaning of our predecessors wanting to give us the opportunities they had to scrape and save for. Nod if this sounds familiar, "I never want my child to have to (work, suffer, want, worry) the way I had to." We were born into a prosperous time when opportunity was not a dream, but an inevitability.

Then, just as we all were heading off to college on the next step towards opportunity, the economy collapsed. Our parents lost jobs (and sometimes much more). Money for education was scarce. Entry level jobs became almost non-existent. But the direction was set in stone--go to college so you can get a job. So we went. An entire generation led like lambs to slaughter. If we were good with our hands, it didn't matter. Our parents didn't want us to be mechanics or tradesmen. Those are jobs for OTHERS. We are Americans and Americans get an education.

So we all went. We were encouraged to study subjects that would get us hired. Business, engineering, advertising. Med school and law school and MBAs. We did our time in the academic trenches, hoping to come out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to conquer the world. But we flooded the market with our degrees. Since the collapse, adults that had already been in the workforce took jobs that would have been reserved for recent college grads. All of a sudden, entry-level jobs required a degree and five years of relevant experience. That doesn't sound so entry-level to me. Our forefathers left universities and created businesses from the ground up without an ounce of experience to their names and want us to be where they are now instead of where they were then.

Degrees in hand, we struggle to find a spot in the world. Most of us end up back at home--highly employable according to the standards of our parents. We are also in debt up to our eyeballs. Baby boomers and Gen X-ers blame us for wanting a free education. But here are the facts:

The average cost of attendance (tuition, fees, board, books) in 2015 was $24, 061 for public in-state institutions and $47,831 for private. This is the moderate amount, not the upper end. Compare that to the 1970s-1980s. The average cost was $358 for public four-year institutions and $1,561 for four-year private institutions. Tuition has far outpaced inflation over the course of a few decades. I'm sure you could work a part time job and be able to pay for college back in the day, but PLEASE tell me how I am supposed to do that now. PLEASE tell me where I can get a part-time job to pay for my $25k piece of paper. Visit The Delta Cost Project or CollegeData.com if you don't believe me. I am reminded every month when I have to pay off my student loans.

Now we can't get a job to pay for a place to live, so we are back with our parents or other family members. We are realizing that we made huge mistakes in choosing what we wanted to study. Some of us are creators--we want to write poetry or paint or make things with our hands. You older generations celebrate Shakespeare and Lord Byron and Keats and Beethoven and Mozart and Monet and Van Gogh and Elvis and Hendrix and James Dean and Paul Newman and Prince and David Bowie, but God forbid that we are inspired and want to follow in their footsteps. No. That's not allowed. We are called freeloaders. We are called lazy because we don't want to work for capitalism and corporate America.

We gather together to talk about how we feel, to express ourselves, but are whipped from every side because our elders think we need a "safe space." You have told us both that we deserve everything and we deserve nothing. Don't blame us for feeling suppressed, oppressed and beaten into submission and needing to talk about it.

I. Am. Tired.

I am tired of being blamed for a world that I did not help create. I am tired of being told to work harder for something that I might not even want. I am tired of being beaten down by people who should have retired when their parents did, but can't because the systems created by their parents (and also a little them) have failed. I am tired of having the finger pointed at a generation that has no options.

We didn't ask you to give us trophies. Heck, most of us didn't even want them. We are the generation that was force-fed institutionalized psychobabble. We are the generation that has been backed into a corner. No wonder we are anxious and depressed and can't focus.

But I guess I will go find a safe space and just try harder. I will mooch off of my family and go to therapy and ask for hand outs.

Because that is what you expect from Millennials, right? I would hate to disappoint you.