Millennials under fire

sir – Nick Timothy is right (“Precarious millennials deserve our help, not our constant chastisement”, Comment, December 28).

When I was a teenager, the media scoffed that I was an obese, oversexed “hoodie”. Now, as a millennial, I’m apparently a “snowflake” – self-entitled, over-sensitive and incapable of coping with life.

The “snowflake” insult is based on a caricature. Its message is: stop complaining, stop being offended and get to work. Yet people in earlier generations wanted a lot of the things that millennials want. They wanted to feel accepted, respected and purposeful, because these are innate human desires.

Yes, we are tech-savvy and more free than those who came before us – but we are also living in a time of economic uncertainty, without guaranteed access to affordable housing, free education and well-paid jobs. Anger has been heaped on us for simply holding different opinions and having different challenges to face.

It’s never been unusual to look down on the young, but there’s something particularly nasty about some of the current attitudes. Emilie Lamplough

Trowbridge, Wiltshire

sir – Mr Timothy is wrong to imply that the baby-boomer generation is not helping the young.

Although some may have behaved irresponsibly when they themselves were young, they knuckled down in the Eighties and worked extremely hard to pay mortgages when interest rates were at 15 per cent.

Many of those I know are now setting their children up with houses, bailing them out when their relationships fail and providing free grandchild care, often while still working themselves.

Mr Timothy should beware of stirring up inter-generational warfare. Fiona Wild

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire