Millennials ready for the future
I was born before the DVD player. My earliest memory of operating any type of technology was manually turning on the television when I was four. I played outside until I was 10. I read from real books, not from iPads and I was frequently told “no.”
I’m a millennial child and I believe that the stereotype that children of the late 20 century and early 21st were coddled, sheltered and always got what they want is completely absurd. Was I given a spoonful of castor oil if I didn’t eat everything on my plate? No. But that doesn’t mean I was not disciplined as a child, despite what previous generations may believe.
A millennial is someone born in between 1984 and 2004 and raised under the influence of technology. In many articles, TedTalks and research done on this generation in attempts to explain millennials, this generation is portrayed as the adult-children of the earth. Unable to accept the word “no,” desperate to find a vegan latte and glutenfree croissant from some local cafe without hearing the phrases “yes, I eat meat,” or “I don’t think I agree with you there.”
But I would like to argue that millennials are helping, not hurting the little blue-green planet we call home and are actually just trying to clean up some of the messes previous generations have left behind.
The word “millennial” has been tossed around since the 1970s. It was first written in an article in the New York Times and has been in use ever since. Millennials are famous for their openness towards gender identity, sexualities, etc. and their “sensitivity” towards pieces of literature and certain words. What I would like to argue is that we are, in a way, quite insensitive in comparison to the people before us.
Older generations refused to sit next people of colour on the bus. They would burn records that had rock music on it. They turned up their noses at the idea of women in the workforce and now get touchy when a topic such as climate change is brought up. Millennials are not scared or sensitive towards change, instead they embrace it.
Many people have always distrusted the generation that follows them. “They’re progressive.” “They’re immoral.” “They’re lazy.” It is not uncommon. People have always been scared of change. When Elvis Presley began making music and gained a large following of teens, people got scared. When young people started growing their hair long in protest of Vietnam, people got scared. It isn’t truly a matter of a generational gap but the difference of opinion on an ever-evolving culture.
I will never know what it is like to grow up in the midst of a great war and or epic economic downfall but it does not mean that this generation doesn’t struggle with their own personal conflicts. Universities require much higher marks from millennials (in 1988, the Trent entrance average was 60 per cent), more colleges and universities require practical experience and not just marks, the price of tuition has gone up 260 per cent since 1979 and the stress to get a part-time job while balancing school work has become tremendous. So no, I have never had to wake up at 4 a.m. to milk a cow or walked three miles to get to school. But what I have done is stayed up until 4 a.m. to finish a school project because I was working late the night before.
Millennials are the future. Individuals can claim that millennials will be unable to handle the responsibilities of our ominous tomorrow because of how sheltered and spoiled they were raised to be. But, I believe that with what they are dealing with already and what they have had to overcome, they’ll do just fine.