More fuel for the generation gap fire! (student loan, 2013, buy)

[shaker281]

10 things Generation Y won

From the article:

"But the millennials have grown into adulthood with some personality problems that the boomers lacked, according to psychologists who measure such things, including high rates of narcissism, materialism, unrealistically inflated expectations and a startling lack of independence. American college students scored 30% higher on the 40-item Narcissistic Personality Index in 2006 than they did in 1979, for instance, according to a study led by psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University."

and

"The consequences of such ego-boosting can be seen in the discrepancy between millennials’ opinions of their abilities and their actual achievements: In 2009, 53% more American college students rated themselves “above average” in writing skills than did so in 1966; and 13% more did so for math, according to an analysis of the University of California Los Angeles’ annual survey. Meanwhile, SAT scores decreased 4% over the same period. Furthermore, some psychologists believe millennials’ overconfidence in their own abilities can translate into unrealistic expectations for their careers and their bank accounts. Another University of California study even found that students with enhanced beliefs about their academic prowess were less likely to graduate college."

[baileyvpotter]

Read the article and there are some interesting points and conclusions. Narcissism is not a new phenomenon but I do see
more of it today. I think one important factor which was not mentioned was - beginning in 80's there was this push
for - to be a patriotic American, buy and spend because you deserve it. Unfortunately, some baby boomers bought into
that. Also when baby boomers graduated high school, there were job opportunities that didn't need a college degree.
The economy changed & in order to have a career and a good job a college education became necessity. This resulted
in student loans. Many parents, with good intentions, inflated their childrens ego's and potential. As a former educator,
I experienced this often with the majority of parents saying "you know my child is gifted."
I would agree that there is a sense of entitlement, a dysfunctional concept of a good work ethic, a desire to have the
best of the best now but everyone in generation y? - No.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by baileyvpotter

Read the article and there are some interesting points and conclusions. Narcissism is not a new phenomenon but I do see
more of it today. I think one important factor which was not mentioned was - beginning in 80's there was this push
for - to be a patriotic American, buy and spend because you deserve it. Unfortunately, some baby boomers bought into
that. Also when baby boomers graduated high school, there were job opportunities that didn't need a college degree.
The economy changed & in order to have a career and a good job a college education became necessity. This resulted
in student loans. Many parents, with good intentions, inflated their childrens ego's and potential. As a former educator,
I experienced this often with the majority of parents saying "you know my child is gifted."
I would agree that there is a sense of entitlement, a dysfunctional concept of a good work ethic, a desire to have the
best of the best now but everyone in generation y? - No.

I've come to the conclusion that gifted=average these days.

I agree with your last statement. I'd say more than half of the kids I taught had an over inflated sense of self importance but a significant number don't. I predict those who don't will go farther in life than those who do.

[oaktonite]

To make some attempt at keeping things in perspective, in the early 20th century it was not uncommon for a male to go off to seek his fortune in the world with less than an eighth-grade education, while it was almost unheard of for a female to have graduated from college. We've been extending education -- and hence the dependency of childhood -- ever since, as the triumph of the scientific method has expanded the body of knowledge necessary to be minimally educated, socially functional, and actually employable at ever-increasing rates, just as the capacity and availability of reliable family planning have done the very same thing. These are not generation-specific trends, but advances in the very fabric of society that have affected all members of every generation that has lived with them so far and that will continue to affect all those that live with them in the future. "Kids these days" types of collective condemnation are simply wastes of time that ignore the most basic and evident terms of the equation.

As for the separate matter who it was that supported the 1980's Reaganism that set us totally off course and careening toward the sorts of economic decay and distress that we are surrounded by today, keep in mind that boomers share only birthdays. The people who fell for all that slop in the 1980's were the same people who fell for the Red Scare in the 50's, who thought Vietnam was necessary in the 60's, who believed Nixon was not a crook in the 70's, and who bought into tax cuts for the rich in the 2000's. It isn't birthdays but brain-farts that these people have had in common.

[EmeraldCityWanderer]

Another one of those reports that "puts them damn whipper snappers in their place."

This kind of spew is not new. Gen X got it, Gen Y is getting it now, boomers got it when they were the same age, and their parents got it as well. I have found books on the Gutenburg site from the 12th century detailing the narcissism, materialism, unrealistic expectations and dependance of children in "his" day.

It's taking negative traits of the worst and assigning them to everyone because it feels good to slap around the new kids in some way. Kids do it throughout school, and doing it to new people in life afterwords is the same way. It's how people feel superior because they are older, and have had more time in life to gain experiances through living life.

The better thing to do is stop being a dick to people just because of their age. Let those kids gain the experiances, good and bad, instead of constantly railing against them like some new evil. New generations will be taking over the world when we are gone, so we should treat them with the respect we treat other human beings with. At the least, because they are likely to pick the nursing homes we will eventually be in.

Yeah, kids can be annoying little twerps sometimes...but some people forget that we were like that too at one point as well. I bet it wasn't nice when people assigned to you things you weren't doing, so why are you continuing the tradition?

[texdav]

I think in the western world a lot of things have changed mostly do to a sense of privilege and getting lazier .As the need to struggle to survive has lessened ;so has what people think they deserve by being born. Each thinks they are special in the world some how by what their ancestors achieve and built. Leads to a lot of disappointment for many.

[andywire]

I'm gen y (gen whine). I have noticed many of the flaws mentioned while working with others my age. Many expect to get a job and start out doing work above their skillset. Many dislike doing tasks they deem beneath their alleged skill level. If it involves breaking a sweat, expect effort to drop dramatically. For many, it's demoralizing. That whole "work your way up" strategy seems lost on many. What's worse is many are starting their first career jobs later in life. Nothing is worse than being in your mid-late 20's and starting at a position designed for a teenager or early 20 year old.

What many are learning the hard way is the world does not conform to their dreams and aspirations. It's still the same challenging environment that the boomers waded through until they got their break. Just like before, not everyone ends up a winner as well.

I think the boomer parents did their kids a great disservice by not challenging them and telling them how the real world works. Trophies for loosing? Do companies award raises for quarterly losses? What's worse is the world is a much more competitive place today. We're no longer competing with businesses around the country. It's a global economy, and their are smart people all over the world who are just as capable.

[HappyTexan]

10+ years of NCLB with "Everyone is a winner" did it's job didn't it ?

[oaktonite]

Originally Posted by andywire

I think the boomer parents did their kids a great disservice by not challenging them and telling them how the real world works.

Not challenging them? When the boomers themselves were kids they had scads of unstructured play time to invest in whatever activity they enjoyed or could think up for themselves. They didn't have a wall-to-wall agenda of soccer, lacrosse, cross-country, ballet, and public service commitments to meet at the old age home. They didn't have science or basketball camps to take up an entire summer. The kids of the boomers have in fact been saddled with more new challenges, expectations, and obligations than are probably good for them.

Originally Posted by andywire

Trophies for loosing?

I still think you are a good person despite your garish spelling.

Originally Posted by andywire

Do companies award raises for quarterly losses?

They do if you are an upper level executive who made the bad decisions that led to those losses to begin with.

Originally Posted by andywire

What's worse is the world is a much more competitive place today. We're no longer competing with businesses around the country. It's a global economy, and their are smart people all over the world who are just as capable.

This whole notion is widely misapplied and misunderstood. No one is going to commute from India to North Carolina to work at an entry-level job at anything. There is zero global competition at that sort of level.

What globalization means is that companies in North Carolina may well have likenesses in India that may or may not be competitors, and that people whose backgrounds include having lived in India for some period of time are apt to be living now in North Carolina where once they were not. Competition for jobs -- perhaps particularly in an economy where 80% of jobs are service-related -- is affected much more by the fact that the US population has just about doubled in 60 years (taking the cities and towns of North Carolina along with it), the fact that mobility has advanced to the point where a person can relocate without a second thought, and the fact that a much larger portion of the potential workforce has something between some and a whole lot of post-secondary education than was the case in the 1950's. More and better qualfied people are looking for jobs while one small person is still just one small person.

But let's consider the fact that the US population had also doubled between 1900 and 1950, that almost everyone by the 1950's was earning a high school diploma and many were even going on to college, that technology had exploded and productivity with it, that agricultural and military jobs had plummted sending hordes of new seekers into urban job markets, and that a vast network of railroads and now even these airplane things were turning what had once been local and regional economies into a scary national economy. Same song, slightly different words. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by andywire

I'm gen y (gen whine). I have noticed many of the flaws mentioned while working with others my age. Many expect to get a job and start out doing work above their skillset. Many dislike doing tasks they deem beneath their alleged skill level. If it involves breaking a sweat, expect effort to drop dramatically. For many, it's demoralizing. That whole "work your way up" strategy seems lost on many. What's worse is many are starting their first career jobs later in life. Nothing is worse than being in your mid-late 20's and starting at a position designed for a teenager or early 20 year old.

What many are learning the hard way is the world does not conform to their dreams and aspirations. It's still the same challenging environment that the boomers waded through until they got their break. Just like before, not everyone ends up a winner as well.

I think the boomer parents did their kids a great disservice by not challenging them and telling them how the real world works. Trophies for loosing? Do companies award raises for quarterly losses? What's worse is the world is a much more competitive place today. We're no longer competing with businesses around the country. It's a global economy, and their are smart people all over the world who are just as capable.

There is an element of "whining" in there no doubt, but the expectations were set by the better economy we grew up in as well as parents, academic professionals, and the media telling us things would be okay when they weren't.

It's not just that people don't want to start on the bottom and work their way up - it's that the "ceiling" often seems to be placed right above the bottom with no clear path forward. Many entry level positions that would have previously led into more senior positions are now virtually dead end. Companies now want only senior level employees for good positions and those in junior positions find their way to senior positions blocked.

Even as recently as ten years ago, a job might have exposed you to different things, and as you "put in your dues," you might be able to develop new skills even if it didn't directly relate to your job function, allowing you to advance into higher level positions. Nowadays companies won't take that risk - the junior level person is left strictly doing nothing but their job role and cannot break out of that mold to enhance their skill set. Meanwhile, there are usually enough senior level personnel out of work that companies can take their pick and pay them junior level wages.

Of course there was plenty of coddling going on. I don't know of anyone who disputes that. However, the "real world" hasn't been as harsh for as long as with as little hope for improvement as it is today since the Great Depression and World War II. I remember watching the massive stock swoons in 2008 and being absolutely terrified. That was five years ago, and while we've made some moderate progress forward, we're not out of this yet and won't be for the foreseeable future.

Much of the frustration coming from the younger generations is understandable. There are serious structural economic issues working against us, and for many, simply picking themselves up by the bootstraps and working hard won't be adequate.