By 'Millennial' I mean the generation shortly before the turn of the millennium in 2000. There are many characteristics of this generation that our predecessors enjoy criticizing, but the world for Millennials is completely different than what once existed for older generations and we have adapted extremely well.
However, everyone can agree that we have created a world suspended in motion; constantly changing before we can adjust to our environment and culture. It's extremely fast paced and complicated. As 25 years old I should be in the middle of this chaos, but I find myself sidelined (figuratively) and extremely confused.
It really sucks to be me, or a Millennial. Our culture has slowly developed a very complicated hierarchy that my parents' generation perfected: women have children and work full time and manage to stay perfectly energetic for all kinds of things. My generation is not amused. After having Spongebob and Micky Mouse as a babysitter, I believe we're trying to rectify this idea, but the economy adjusted better to a two income society than we should have liked, making it very difficult to downsize.
Let's contemplate the debt crisis Millennials are subject to. It's nothing new - we all hear about it in the news - student loan debt it out of control. I owe over $30,000 in loans for a mere community college, which turns out to have a less than 25% graduation rate. My undergraduate degree is another $50,000. I'm considering a master's degree on top of everything else. Without a master's degree I owe $1200 a month in student loans, but I currently make only $1800 a month in wages after taxes. Need I make this dilemma any clearer? Somehow I feel better knowing I'm not the only person in this situation, but at the same time this is an alarming trend.
There are very few jobs to choose from, especially for livable wages. I have a bachelor's degree, yet I'm working as an assistant and far from my area of study. I get paid much better than the average assistant salary, but it's still not a livable wage. This can be arguably the fault of working wages not increasing since the 1970's, but the prices of necessary items have dramatically increased over the last few decades, especially college tuition. In 2012 Jimmy Carter said something similar to what we consider poverty today is not what poverty was when he was president. It's a completely different world.
An increasingly sinister number of obstacles are waiting for Millennials at the changing of the guard, and we can see few arrangements are being made to ease the blow. This is the Doom Generation, but not for the reasons you think. The 'doom' torch has been passed from one impoverished generation to another, and then to the Millennial generation with terms and conditions attached.
It makes me grumpy
~Chelsea
However, everyone can agree that we have created a world suspended in motion; constantly changing before we can adjust to our environment and culture. It's extremely fast paced and complicated. As 25 years old I should be in the middle of this chaos, but I find myself sidelined (figuratively) and extremely confused.
It really sucks to be me, or a Millennial. Our culture has slowly developed a very complicated hierarchy that my parents' generation perfected: women have children and work full time and manage to stay perfectly energetic for all kinds of things. My generation is not amused. After having Spongebob and Micky Mouse as a babysitter, I believe we're trying to rectify this idea, but the economy adjusted better to a two income society than we should have liked, making it very difficult to downsize.
Let's contemplate the debt crisis Millennials are subject to. It's nothing new - we all hear about it in the news - student loan debt it out of control. I owe over $30,000 in loans for a mere community college, which turns out to have a less than 25% graduation rate. My undergraduate degree is another $50,000. I'm considering a master's degree on top of everything else. Without a master's degree I owe $1200 a month in student loans, but I currently make only $1800 a month in wages after taxes. Need I make this dilemma any clearer? Somehow I feel better knowing I'm not the only person in this situation, but at the same time this is an alarming trend.
There are very few jobs to choose from, especially for livable wages. I have a bachelor's degree, yet I'm working as an assistant and far from my area of study. I get paid much better than the average assistant salary, but it's still not a livable wage. This can be arguably the fault of working wages not increasing since the 1970's, but the prices of necessary items have dramatically increased over the last few decades, especially college tuition. In 2012 Jimmy Carter said something similar to what we consider poverty today is not what poverty was when he was president. It's a completely different world.
An increasingly sinister number of obstacles are waiting for Millennials at the changing of the guard, and we can see few arrangements are being made to ease the blow. This is the Doom Generation, but not for the reasons you think. The 'doom' torch has been passed from one impoverished generation to another, and then to the Millennial generation with terms and conditions attached.
It makes me grumpy
~Chelsea
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