X Lament

So this guy writes an article detailing all the Millennial traits and habits he hates. This fellow is a humor writer, right? He thinks lamenting the younger generation is original and funny? There is nothing of the sort in this piece, I assure you. A sense of entitlement? Wow,  when has that ever happened? Technology rules them? Really, you noticed this all by yourself?

Hey, I admit some Millennial habits annoy me too, the handshake/hug thing or whatever it is they call they're greeting.

I think a lot of this is class. I've been around this generation for more than a decade. I think what the author describes may be true of the over-achieving types. I don't see it where I teach at Raritan Valley Community College Of course we cater to a lot of middle and working class kids, immigrants and vets. Pretty hard to think your student feels entitled when she took a EFP to the head in Iraq.

This is really nothing new.

I'd like to draw the reader to this piece by the late Mike Royko. I read it in 1990 and it stuck with me ever since. There he is, a hard-bitten and aging writer complaining about the next generation. Look at that, he doesn't like those high tech Sony Walkmans these kids listen to. Oh and that goes double for CD players. He bitches about MTV. These kids had it easy and he wants to bring back the draft. That'll show 'em.

Royko was right, we were comfortable. But we knew it. Grandma and Grandpa told us stories about the Depression and World War II. Both my mother's and father's parents met because of the war. Hey, the 80's were a great time to grow up and we knew it. That's the world the Greatest Generation made. Wasn't that the whole point?

But there is the matter of their children.  Our parents couldn't shut up about the goddamn 60's.  We always looked back at 'the 60s' in confusion. The music and clothes were cool, don't get me wrong, but we always wondered what the hell they were complaining about. The 50's looked darn good to us. Especially when one considers that most of our first memories came during the 70's. Happy Days was called Happy Days for a reason.

The Gen Xr has always had a sense that something went terribly wrong. Of course, the Balding Boomer would always say 'you weren't there, you don't understand!' I wasn't in California in 1942 either, but I still understand that the internment of Japanese Americans was wrong.

The Balding Boomer's explanation for 'the 60s' usually follows a pattern; JFK + Vietnam + social unrest =Woodstock!

Sorry, I'm not buying it. Look at the Gen Xr's formative experiences. We too saw a president get shot (Reagan). We had a war (Desert Storm), we saw social unrest (Rodney King riots, crack epidemic, Aids), music controversies (heavy metal and rap), opposed youth culture (MTV). So cry me a river. The difference is we endured crisis without a mass generational freak out. We even had a Woodstock, two as a matter of fact. When it was over we just went back to class.