#millenniels

“The current generation will be the death of us all!” – said of every generation by the previous generation.

I keep reading article after article bitching about millennials.  That is, the generation born after mine (Gen X). I’ve concluded, after much consideration, that every article I’ve read is wrong. It’s not millennials that are the problem. It’s just people.

Employers have had the same problems with employees since the dawn of time. Some people are hard workers – others are not. Having been in management for quite some time, I’ve watched employees of all ages work their asses off and take pride in their jobs, while others (of all ages) sit around on their asses and do the absolute minimum to keep from being fired. I’ve seen hard working employees turn into slackers and slackers tighten up their belts and get more serious about their work.

I’ve watched young people start drama in the workplace and I’ve watched older people do it, too. Some people are just histrionic and can’t function in the workplace (or life) without a great deal of drama. Office politics have not changed. There’s still the bitch in administration who’s always trying to get other women fired. There’s still that one asshole who takes credit for other people’s work. There’s always that jerk of a manager who treats his employees like shit. People haven’t changed.

All of this regardless if they ever won trophies just for showing up, and regardless whether their parents beat them or told them they were special.

And let’s take a minute and talk about entitlement. I know people of every age who believe food, water, shelter, and healthcare are basic human rights. I also know people of every age who believe these things should only be available to those who contribute.  I know elders who expect respect just because of their age, and who disagree that respect must be earned. I know a few younger folks with this same mindset.

All of this entitlement crap is just that — crap. Because everyone feels entitled to something whether it be an explanation, respect, special treatment due to their religion, a good education, or a living wage. Just because what you feel entitled to is different from what someone else thinks they’re entitled to doesn’t make them any more or less entitlement minded. Different people have different priorities. And when you’re not walking in someone else’s shoes, it’s not always easy to see where they’re coming from unless you come from the same (or a similar) place. Sure, maybe affordable medical care and a good education aren’t important to you if you were born to an affluent family. Because these are never things you’ve had to want for. But if you were born to a poor or working class family and worked hard to get into college and are in debt up to your eyeballs, and are then told you have a chronic illness you’ll need lifelong care for (and no way to pay for it) — these things matter. It’s not about entitlement – it’s about having our basic needs met in order for all of us to be contributing members of society.

So let’s stop defining people by the generation they were born in.  I know a lot of hard working, creative, and competent millennials who only want what most of us want. Happiness, financial security, and to be surrounded by people who care about them. Those are all human things (not generational things), aren’t they?

My biggest two complaints about this generation are the man-bun and all the excess facial hair (because I think both look ridiculous), but then really – who am I to judge? I come from the generation of big hair, spandex, and leg-warmers. Every generation has its crazy fashion statements. Let them have it. I look forward to seeing what kind of crazy crap their kids come up with to drive all us old people batty. I predict a tattoo ban since many of their parents are covered head to toe with tats (which started with my generation, btw, we can’t blame the tattoo and piercing craze on millennials).

So what say you?  Am I right?

Luther Hicks Sr. and Luther Hicks Jr., driving the family car, a 1956 Chevy Bel Air on vacation in California, Summer 1956.  Dad was 16 and did the driving.

The DIY lifestyle is about being an owner or maker, instead of just consuming everything.  I feel like this has to be a good thing.

A conversation with my dad earlier this year brought my attention to the differences between living in a culture of consumers and “end users” versus one of owners and makers.

Sitting at the kitchen table, he was going over the records and plan for maintenance that he had done for my daughter’s car.  I had asked him to drive it for a few days, take a look at it and help me figure out what all needed to be fixed, before sending it back to school with her.

In three days, he’d done a complete inspection of his own in his garage and pieced together a maintenance log (as best he could, based on the stray receipts found in the glove compartment).  THEN he took it to his preferred, trusted mechanic to run the obligatory diagnostics that spits out everything that needs to be done to a car according to the recommended manufacturers plan or best practices.  (Note:  in Texas we refer to this as “whatever will make the check engine light go off so that you can pass inspection”).  

But when the long list of “to do’s” came out of the printer, he didn’t react with shock or anxiety, as I would have, but instead was able to say “yes, I agree with that”, or “no, that can probably wait.”

He had equipped himself with his own evaluation and 60 years of experience of owning vehicles, not just driving them.  His was the second generation of people to have automobiles.  They did most of the work on their cars themselves, out of both necessity and enthusiasm. They wouldn’t have thought of paying someone else to do something as simple as changing oil and spark plugs.  

We all experience emotional benefits from different things, and those emotional benefits help us ladder up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  When we do something on our own, we get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment. It’s why people sometimes pursue the mastery of things they’re passionate about, like cooking or karate.  Another emotional benefit from doing things yourself is the feeling of being in control.  YOU get to decide what goes in your food and drinks or what kind of oil really goes in your car.  And unfortunately that control is what we give up sometimes when we allow ourselves to be just consumers instead of owners or makers.  

But this new generation of owners and makers are sort of juiced up versions of their grandparents and great grandparents. Their sense of frugality drives enthusiasm for DIY videos, recipes and hacks for this or that.  But also, they have uniquely grown up with global access to all people, places and things, which has boosted their creativity and sense of adventure.  And finally, their command of accessing information and using technology feeds their self-confidence and their desire to be in control. 

I would say this group feels comfortable in the driver seat, whether it’s for actual driving, hacking the Chick-fil-A recipe, brewing beer, or making pallet furniture.

http://www.elle.com/culture/travel-food/news/a31648/meg-gill-golden-road-brewing-founder-interview/

Still thoroughly in shock about the Brexit vote, not because it won, but because of its consequences every single person in the UK. I am thinking of the effects whether a person voted for leave or stay, or because they are under the voting age and had no ability to vote for their future. Those under 18, and those in their twenties and thirties (many of whom did not cast a vote as did their elders) will be the ones to live and struggle with this legacy.

As a historian, I have been thinking of the global reach of individual choices--how this decision influences Putin and how it has tickled Marie Le Pen and how in more complicated ways it will change events as they unfold in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and so many other places.

But out of everything I have read in the last few days, Nicholas Barrett's comment in The Financial Times has begun to haunt me because as a historian I work on the very local, personal, and minute, and because I am a human being with a heart:

"The younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors."

This reminds me of what the mathematician and chaos theorist Edward Lorenz called "The Butterfly Effect." This is the verifiable fact that a local, personal, minute, even imperceptible change can cause enormous change. As a history professor, I like to use the concept in my classes to work out the extraordinary ramifications of seemingly small or innocuous events. I could list several cataclysmic results that arose out of this or that royal birth (e.g. James 10 June 1688), this or that wrong turn (Princip's Bridge, Sarajevo 28 June 1914), etc.

Instead I want to return to the poignant "lost opportunities, friendships, marriages" that Nicholas Barrett reminds us will not happen. Love and relationships and marriages that now will not be. Children that will not come into the world. Yes, of course, Britons will still love, marry, and have children even if they never travel abroad again, but Barrett's point, my point is: every single young person's future has been altered in the most personal and particular way. The individuals that they love, couple with, and reproduce with has been changed. It has been changed because even if only five or ten percent of young Britons work in the EU, fallen in love, married, and had children, a small percentage nonetheless alters all the possibilities for every other person in all these systems, in the UK, in the EU, and everywhere else.

Sure, young Britons will find love and happiness, but their ability to have more opportunities for love and happiness has been taken away. Think, those of you who are filled with gratitude for the good fortune that brought you together with your most precious friends and if you are truly lucky your beloved partner. In my case, I think of the serendipitous and entirely unlikely way that my husband and I were brought together--there were so many tiny factors that were required for us to meet. Yes, we both had loved before, yes we both would have otherwise married and probably had children, but I often feel queasy (still 22 years later almost to the day) if we somehow had not been brought together because I cannot imagine anybody I could have loved more and who could love me more. It was travel, adventures, multiple cross-country and international friendships and opportunities that led us to each other, and nothing else. Think, those of you who are looking, who have not found your great friendship, your great life-changing adventure, your great love of your life, how it feels that your world of possibilities has been diminished by political isolationism with very real, very material consequences. Yes, love and marriage and reproduction will carry on. But unless you find the love of your life, you will always have to ask how might it have been different.