Being a Millennial is Hard
The other day I was talking to my mom on the phone and we were discussing therapy. I mentioned how I am by no means the only person I know that is in therapy. Not by a long shot. In fact, I'd say I know more people who are in/have gone to therapy than I don't. She asked the question, "what did we do as parents that caused all of you to go to therapy?"
Such a mom thing to say, right? Being a mom myself now, I get why she immediately thought that maybe her generation did something wrong. Not to mention, when you see portrayals of therapy in movies and TV they are always talking about the parents, "daddy issues", and what went wrong from the start. But, while I have talked about my upbringing and childhood, that's not really what therapy is all about.
We got to talking about my generation. The millennials. Let me, just for a moment, remind you of what the media says about us. I did a quick google image search to find a stock photo to add in this blog and look what comes up. A bunch of young people with hipster glasses staring at their cell phones. Wow, what a legacy we are going to leave.
The media makes us out to be self-absorbed, entitled, obsessed with social media, and they love to make fun of us for being "special snowflakes."
Media and Gen X- this is the reason we are all in therapy.
This is what you think of us. We are self-absorbed because we grew up with trophies for simply showing up to the baseball games (yep, I had lots of them). We are entitled because most of us grew up in a time where dads went to work, moms stayed home, we had nice houses, and we thought going to college meant getting a job. However, the generation before us ruined the american dream because of greed and power- causing most of us to have to wait until our late 20's and 30's to even begin to think about starting a family and buying a home. We are not obsessed with social media, we have a HUGE love/hate relationship with it. How would you have liked to grow up in a time where you got to see everyone's highlight reel? You get a chance to see how great everyone else is doing, meanwhile you're working for $9/hr with a college degree and student loan payments due?
We think of ourselves as "special snowflakes" because we are constantly bombarded with perfection and none of us are able to live up to it. We see pinterest birthday parties for kids costing upwards of $1,000. We see photos of family vacations to the Caribbean in 5 star resorts. Then to make matters worse, we open the news only to see how much we are hated by the generation before us.
You'd be in therapy, too.
Our generation is doing the best we can with the crap that was handed to us. We were given an economic depression. We were given a life displayed by social media. We were given the impression that we could do whatever we dreamed- with a reality of low wages and near-impossible-to-get mortgages. There is no "American Dream" for us. Don't get me started on the hand-out discussion, because maybe that has a little something to do with the coaches who insisted on the participation trophies.
However, we're making it work. We are making things our own now. We are the generation that will be paying for Gen X's social security, so maybe you should respect us little snowflakes a little more. We are going to change the world, and for the better. We are all hyper-aware of the problems we have faced growing up - and we're already making changes for our kids, in hopes maybe they won't all need therapy someday.
Don't blame yourself too much, Gen X, but maybe don't hate us so much either.
Such a mom thing to say, right? Being a mom myself now, I get why she immediately thought that maybe her generation did something wrong. Not to mention, when you see portrayals of therapy in movies and TV they are always talking about the parents, "daddy issues", and what went wrong from the start. But, while I have talked about my upbringing and childhood, that's not really what therapy is all about.
We got to talking about my generation. The millennials. Let me, just for a moment, remind you of what the media says about us. I did a quick google image search to find a stock photo to add in this blog and look what comes up. A bunch of young people with hipster glasses staring at their cell phones. Wow, what a legacy we are going to leave.
The media makes us out to be self-absorbed, entitled, obsessed with social media, and they love to make fun of us for being "special snowflakes."
Media and Gen X- this is the reason we are all in therapy.
This is what you think of us. We are self-absorbed because we grew up with trophies for simply showing up to the baseball games (yep, I had lots of them). We are entitled because most of us grew up in a time where dads went to work, moms stayed home, we had nice houses, and we thought going to college meant getting a job. However, the generation before us ruined the american dream because of greed and power- causing most of us to have to wait until our late 20's and 30's to even begin to think about starting a family and buying a home. We are not obsessed with social media, we have a HUGE love/hate relationship with it. How would you have liked to grow up in a time where you got to see everyone's highlight reel? You get a chance to see how great everyone else is doing, meanwhile you're working for $9/hr with a college degree and student loan payments due?
We think of ourselves as "special snowflakes" because we are constantly bombarded with perfection and none of us are able to live up to it. We see pinterest birthday parties for kids costing upwards of $1,000. We see photos of family vacations to the Caribbean in 5 star resorts. Then to make matters worse, we open the news only to see how much we are hated by the generation before us.
You'd be in therapy, too.
Our generation is doing the best we can with the crap that was handed to us. We were given an economic depression. We were given a life displayed by social media. We were given the impression that we could do whatever we dreamed- with a reality of low wages and near-impossible-to-get mortgages. There is no "American Dream" for us. Don't get me started on the hand-out discussion, because maybe that has a little something to do with the coaches who insisted on the participation trophies.
However, we're making it work. We are making things our own now. We are the generation that will be paying for Gen X's social security, so maybe you should respect us little snowflakes a little more. We are going to change the world, and for the better. We are all hyper-aware of the problems we have faced growing up - and we're already making changes for our kids, in hopes maybe they won't all need therapy someday.
Don't blame yourself too much, Gen X, but maybe don't hate us so much either.
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