Have Older Generations Lost The Plot On How Hard It Is For Modern Youth?
Here is a rather amazing article in The New York Times about the challenges of being a youth (let’s say 20-something) economically today. Let’s just contrast two quotes from this article. First up is a $40,000-per-year social worker in Fort Wayne, Indiana:
“I feel like the older generation is constantly pushing you to do stuff like they did when they were in their 20s, but it’s not even comparable to when they were in their 20s,” Ms. German-Tanner said.
Indeed. Now look further down the article:
Zach Teutsch, a certified financial planner and managing partner at Values Added Financial, suggested that young people focus on big spending choices instead of small luxuries like coffee or a subscription.
“Big decisions matter a whole lot more than small decisions,” Mr. Teutsch said. “Contrary to some of the advice out there, most 20-somethings should worry more about jobs, housing, transportation and less about lattes and Netflix.”
Teutsch graduated from college in 2001, two years prior to me, so he’s probably mid-40s. Not quite a Boomer, no. But do you see how crazy this is? Up top, a lady is saying “Things are hard and others don’t understand.” A few paragraphs later, someone is going collectivist on an entire generation and bringing up lattes. The hell?
Reminds me of the bigger picture of work at some level — the top dogs are often completely out of touch about core things like “how work gets done” and “what customers are asking about” and “why it’s so hard for these peons to make ends meet, I mean we pay them don’t we? Sheesh!”
Now, obviously this has been going on for 100+ years. Old generations always distrust the young (ironically, the young are often their direct children) and think they’re being morons and making poor life decisions. You can probably take this back 28 generations, which is far back as you take inequality. But if you don’t want to go that far back, you can just watch a few episodes of All in the Family and you’ll be right there.
It might be a little bit different right now because of the sheer pace at which the world seems to change. Just since 2000, we’ve had:
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It is also true that if you born in 1900 and lived to be 100, i.e. died in 2000, you would have lived through two World Wars (probably fought in WW1), Vietnam, social upheaval, would have been early-30s during the Depression, etc. Everyone has it hard in their own way.
It does feel sometimes like Americans lack a collective moment anymore, which COVID could have been but GODDAMN, we went in the other direction. Without a collective moment, what we’ve created is collectivism, where we assign people into broad buckets (“Avocado toast” | “Rapist, profit-seeking Boomer”) and make assumptions and decisions from there.
All these attitudes and assumptions come back to these core themes:
Our solution set would be:
We spend a lot of time assuming and subsequently bitching these days about how different generations (and ideologies) are going about their life.
What if we just listened and tried to help and acted like human beings and friends?
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3 个月Ponder outside norms. Empathize earnestly. Guide objectively.
“Knowledge synthesizer” Solutions Developed as a SME for Renewables Substations, Collector Systems and Transmission Line Parts and Pieces Most notably equals in a supply chain challenged world;
3 个月So Ted I read this as a 67 year old WFH Electrical Engineer who works with a large group of Engineers and Techs across the country and at the company I work for. Yes I have empathy for them and yes I know their upbringing was different than I and yes I know maybe their parents and families and schools let them down. I’m surprised at how many want to work hard and want to learn and grow but they just don’t have the soft skill sets to do so without undo pain and trauma. Almost all don’t know how to become organized at their work demands. When I show them how I organize email folders to capture what I do they are amazed that no one along the way ever showed them how to do that. Then when I explain to them how to take a challenge and work outside the box on the solutions they are amazed. No one ever taught them that approach also. They ask how I’ve learned to do all this. And I say when you’ve done some things 1000s of times and when you’ve had to work in a non internet connected world like I you develop skills because you have too. Most youngins don’t even know how to properly search on Google for stuff and background. They don’t understand that the more one searches on Google the more the Google algorithm helps you.