When did being young become such hard work?

Youth is supposed to be about being reckless and carefree...instead today's young are serious, sober and stressed.

“Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. He would become the chronicler of the Lost Generation; those who survived the First World War, loosened their corsets and morals and embraced the heady Jazz Age. Fitzgerald himself was obsessed with youth; so much so that he mourned turning thirty.

‘Youth is wasted on the young’ so the axiom goes, but does this saying still ring true?  ‘I’m glad I was young when I was’ is what most people over 40 say these days, no doubt relieved that they did not have to endure its modern version of tech overload, social media pressures, financial instability, debt and poor job prospects, to say nothing of formative years disrupted by a pandemic. So what has changed?  The notion of carefree adolescence and early adulthood were invented in the 20th century, but is it disappearing in the 21st?

'The notion of carefree adolescence and early adulthood were invented in the 20th century, but is it disappearing in the 21st?'

A Structured Millennial Childhood

Thinking back, it is depressing how much of my childhood was geared towards being productive; exams of course, but all those extra-curricular activities, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, internships - anything to flesh out that CV. It was all so serious and scheduled and a marked contrast to my Baby Boomer parents. My mother passed the 11-plus but left school at 16, while my father made it to art school but was kicked out, deemed too non-conformist even for the 1960s art school, the Slade.  

Millennials’ economic disadvantages are well known: we are the first generation to be worse off than our parents. But it is actually our frustrations and dashed hopes that define us. We grew up being told by teachers, parents and society that if we worked hard then the rewards would be forthcoming. Instead, our first decades in work have been characterised by poor pay, job insecurity and fewer opportunities than we’d come to expect. Millennial disaffection with housing is nothing compared to our frustrations over what was essentially the mis-selling of a degree as a guaranteed path to prosperity and mobility. And this is a global problem; graduate underemployment is as much of an issue in China and India as it is in the West. Rememeber though, these are the complaints of those who ‘succeeded’ in education; the struggles of those who did not are far, far worse.

Blame it on the Boomers?

I can almost hear the collective groan from older generations as they read this lament. And yet they are a key part of this tale. Our parents, the Baby Boomers were the original architects of modern youth culture: 1968 ’n' all that. The symbols, rituals, behaviours and expectations of youth - even its uniform of jeans and trainers - were popularised and to a large degree invented by the Boomers. They were more affluent and better educated than any generation before them. Their parents’ youth was synonymous with sacrifice during the war and the generation after them were bound by 1950s conformity and silence (so much so they became known as the Silent Generation). Boomers, on the other hand, were associated with rebellion and individualism; leading journalist Tom Wolfe famously dubbed them the 'Me Generation’.

What actually defined this generation though was their clout. The term 'baby boom', first coined in the 1940s, soon came to refer to the economic as well as the demographic windfall associated with this generation. When Boomers were teenagers, the ad men of Madison Avenue fell over themselves to cater to the new adolescent experience. When Boomers were in their twenties, the media and politics clapped to their beat. Boomers were talked about as a collective generation, said to be united by age and time rather than gender, race or class. Boomers’ delayed entry into adulthood was for the most part one of freedom and experimentation. Believe them when they say these were the best days of their lives. 

Sixties nostalgia

Boomer nostalgia and celebration of their youth began pretty much as soon as the party was over. The first decade anniversary of hippy music festival Woodstock was commemorated in 1979, and again in 1989. ‘I don’t want to be singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 40’ Mick Jagger once said - yet today, still touring, he’s lionised rather than ridiculed for it.  In the nineties, Absolutely Fabulous flipped the parent-child dynamic on its head but it was only funny because it mocked the unique Boomer obsession with their youth. Even today the original iconoclasts find it hard to be cast as traditionalists and during this pandemic have struggled to be cast as vulnerable. Joanna Lumley of AbFab fame told a newspaper recently that she refused to consider herself as such.  

But the Boomers transition into adulthood was far from easy and echoed millennial struggles. A self-help industry flowered in the 1970s to ease their growing pains. Works such as What Colour is your Parachute? Your Erroneous Zones and How to be your Own Best Friend dominated the Bestsellers' list; the latter offering advice on ‘how to give up childhood, accept yourself and your own maturity and deal with life on your own two feet’ (sound familiar millennials?)

As the Boomers turned thirty they faced record inflation (in 1980 in the UK it was 20%), rising youth unemployment and declining wages, notably amongst college graduates. A report by the United States Treasury in 1980 gave a rather dismal projection that the Baby Boomers would never achieve the relative economic success of the generation before or after them. The New York Times wrote of a ‘generational malaise of haunting frustrations, anxiety and depression'.

'The hippies of the sixties became yuppies of the eighties.' 

Then along came Thatcher and Reagan and the hippies of the sixties transformed into the yuppies of the eighties. In the words of one generational biographer, Boomers’ lives became less about ‘improving society, more about improving themselves.’ And, their kids, like their homes, became an extension of this status update.    

Millennials trapped in the Boomer Straitjacket

For their millennial children, however, a late-twentieth-century childhood was a contradictory mix of fear and aspiration. Stranger-danger warnings, the AIDS epidemic and 9/11 punctuated a culture where child-rearing was less about freedom and fun and more about structured play and learning resources.  The latch-key kids of the seventies (so-called because of a carefree upbringing) morphed into helicopter parents of the 1990s. Global literacy levels became as prominent as GDP as signposts of national prowess. Parents began to obsess about school places. Girls, whose mothers had lived through the feminist movement, were encouraged to invest their future in education rather than the marriage market. It worked. They started to outshine boys at school and eventually outnumber them at university.

Blame it on the Boomers has become a common cultural trope but actually their only fault is that there were so many of them. Their priorities have always been society’s priorities as babies, young adults, parents, and now pensioners (er, Triple-Lock anyone?) Their youthful experience defined them, but as parents they oversaw a new era of youth - being young became bloody hard work. And millennials have found it impossible to escape from the straitjacket their parents put them in, the studious path we were told to tread.

As much as we can blame them, millennials' disadvantage also stems from being born in the wrong time. We’re destined to be inbetweeners. Like the Edwardians propping up the Victorian legacy, Millennials have one foot in and one foot out of the twentieth century, hankering after a post-war story of aspiration and opportunity that is no longer a reality for most people. Contrast this with savvy Generation Z who have no such hang-ups or delusions. They already outnumber millennials across the globe and are true twenty-first-century kids on the make. Their derogatory ‘Ok, Boomer’ meme conveys this distance and freedom; it’s a proverbial rolling of the eyes to the last century and all its false promises. 

'Gen Z already outnumber millennials across the globe and are true twenty-first-century kids on the make. Their derogatory ‘Ok, Boomer’ meme conveys this distance and freedom; it’s a proverbial rolling of the eyes to the last century and all its false promises.' 

Tech has robbed Gen Z of the innocence and experimentation of youth

But the Gen Z youth are enslaved by other forces and have been compelled to mature much quicker than previous generations.  The debilitating effects of unregulated technology, a comparative culture, an exam-driven curriculum, fear of social shaming and a reduced attention-span are born out in the mental health crisis amongst this generation. These factors also explain why they are so remarkably well behaved. Gen Z are not the victims of too much sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll rather too much parenting. Generational expert Jean Twenge has analysed how driving licenses, once the first passage into adulthood, have declined amongst Gen Z. Why? Because there is little incentive when their parents are willing chauffeurs.  Not only has it become harder to be young but there also isn’t the same incentives to mature..... and this has got little to do with house prices. 

The new generation of millennial parents those with pre-schoolers now are doing their best to learn from these mistakes.  The popularity of forest nurseries and retro wooden toys suggest a desire to shield their offspring and preserve the wonder and innocence of childhood that was robbed from the iphone generation. Watch as millennial parents over the next decade challenge the exam and degree-driven education system which failed them. 

Today, our youthful experience may last well beyond Fitzgerald’s cut off point of thirty and nor is it the ‘chemical madness’ to which he once referred. Youth, as the Boomers invented it, is no more. A 21st-century youth feels fraught with pressures; an expectation of direction, an expectation that you should be enjoying the ride, an expectation that it will all be in vain. Millennials’ sense of frustration and betrayal is palpable and will only intensify as we hit middle age with greater responsibilities in life, caring for parents as well as our kids. For now, the young play the new puritans, pitting themselves against the bons viveurs Boomers, but they may well be heading for one hell of a mid-life crisis.  

A 21st-century youth feels fraught with pressures; an expectation of direction, an expectation that you should be enjoying the ride, an expectation that it will all be in vain.