Mum plagued with doubts after raising a millennial
Something my 19-year-old daughter Nell said last week stopped me in my tracks and made me question nearly three decades of motherhood. I was giving her the third lift of the day — she’s wrecked her car, we live out in the country in Somerset, and the bus takes about an hour to cover three miles. Neither of us is especially pleased by the current arrangement. Not me, because it’s knocked my weekend lie-ins on the head, not to mention the option of sinking half a bottle of Merlot with my dinner; not her, because now there is no escape from my thricedaily homilies. Lifts and life-coaching, in one handy Mum package.
As with 99 per cent of our conversations, Nell was talking absorbedly about Nell. Specifically, about the cost of a replacement car, the prohibitive rise in her insurance, and — the bit I was waiting for — the fact that I needed to cough up some cash pronto. “I can’t afford the insurance, AND go travelling this year, AND pay Honey’s livery,” she said.
I emergency-braked, pulled over and stared at her. “You are 19!” I said. “At your age, I was supporting myself on less than the cost of your phone contract! I didn’t have a car or a holiday until I was in my late twenties and had a full-time job! I never asked my parents for money! I am a single mother on a modest income! I have never had a pony! I am not Lady Grantham!”
More than half of millennials agree they’re self-absorbed, and nearly as many admit to being greedy. But do we only have ourselves to blame?
To be fair, she earned that pony through grafting at the local trekking centre from the age of 13. She rises at 7.30am every morning to muck out the animal’s stable, though no bribe or threat on this earth would induce her to tidy her own room. And she’s working at the local pub to fund her travels, so she’s not a leech. She’s just a millennial. A millenniNell.
Like her older brothers (Tom 26 and Ben 27) she is a sweet-natured and capable kid. So why is she so thoughtless, selfish and juvenile when it comes to her dealings with me? I work full-time; we share our home. Yet I seem to be the only one who ever cleans, cooks dinner or washes laundry. I’d accuse her of treating the house like a hotel, if she ever paid any rent.
Other friends in their fifties cite similar scenarios. Charlotte’s tribe “expect everything but do nothing.” Liv’s have no patience: “Whatever they want — cars, clothes, phones, food, holidays — they want it now.” More than half of millennials themselves agree they’re self-absorbed, and nearly as many admit to being greedy, according to a 2015 Pew Research survey. But do we only have ourselves to blame?
In the old days
Back in the Sixties, my mother didn’t have a washing machine, let alone a dishwasher, so finding the time to worry about my psychological well-being would have seemed laughable. We were left to cry, smacked if we were naughty, expected to amuse ourselves and — from an early age — to help our parents around the house. And yes, I do realise that this is hardly Angela’s Ashes — but do you know any child raised like that today?
By contrast, mine was the most enlightened parenting generation of all time — we devoured child psychology books, exhausted ourselves fitting around our infants’ sleep patterns and spent every waking hour obsessing over their happiness. We were by their cot at the first kitten-like mewl.
Toddler tantrums were analysed rather than sensibly dealt with. Our pint-sized tyrants only had to raise their pudgy fists and we were sprint- ing to the fridge for fromage frais with a speed that would shame Mo Farrah. Instant gratification was the name of the game.
Speaking of games, remember Pass the Parcel? Not the brutal, nailbiting version of my youth, where just one gift was buried under the final layer of wrapping, but the puny Nineties one, when every parcel had to contain a gift for everyone. Heaven help the father operating the Fisher Price tape player, if he failed to stop the music track for every single tiny guest.
in case she runs out.