The New Twenty Somethings

[Tinker]

Perfect Rebuttal to the cynical mal-wishing of narcissistic Me-Generation Op-Eds about the current crop of youth.

http://rebekahmonson.com/2010/09/02/twe ... en-y-work/

[Ibrahim]

[YMix]

No reason why it couldn't happen, but there's a prerequisite to that, one that everybody dreads. We'd have to admit that we are not in a crisis that has a bad influence on the economic prospects of new generations, but that we are past the peak, that the golden age of the 1990s over and that things are not likely to get (that) good again. Then young people will settle for whatever it is got and the dream of upward mobility will be replaced by the dream of stability.

[Colonel Sun]

[AzariLoveIran]

.

Many reports indicate chemicals in food chain .. plastic bottles, hormones in meat, etc etc .. mimic estrogen .. semen count in western men collapsing.

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[Colonel Sun]

[AzariLoveIran]

[Colonel Sun]

Quality rather than quantity.

[Milo]

In times past we had half the population in the workforce. IMO we have never quite figured out what to do with this world in which everyone is supposed to work. This is shown clearly by these articles that speak of the workforce of our grandparents compared to today, without ever once mentioning this massive shift, let alone trying to quantify its effects.

Without accounting for the inclusion of women into the workforce, comparisons between yesteryear and today are specious... at best.

[AzariLoveIran]

[thecontributer]

[Demon of Undoing]

[Tinker]

I am Jack's sense of contempt for boomer narcissism.

[Demon of Undoing]

Nah, I'll grant that the new kids are fucked in novel and completely baffling ways.

And so ain't everybody else, since forever .

[Captain Murphy]

[Captain Murphy]

[Captain Murphy]

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

Damm beatniks, . . . no, I mean hippies, . . . no, I mean punkers, . . . no, I mean slackers, . . . no, I mean hipsters . . .

Oh, never mind.

[crashtech]

Does the part about these kids living with their parents longer say something about the kids, or the parents?

I am not sure that staying at home is conducive to a satisfactory maturation rate. I actively discourage it, though I have a 21 year old son that lives at my ex's home rent free.

Personally, I think getting your ass kicked by the big bad world a few times is a good way to build character (and the skills to avoid future ass kickings), and what better time to get that done than when young and resilient?

[Tinker]

[crashtech]

[Tinker]

Blaming kids or parents is at once over-complicating and over-simplifying. In the Depression parents were as desperate as the kids, so that generation hustled. Today, anyone who is desperate also hustles. It's a tyranny of false expectations. 'I can't take that job, it won't pay my rent or college loans.'. Also it's very real that college grads can't getshit jobs even if they wanted to due to overqualification. Yes your hardship point is valid, but in my experience, hardship breaks people as often as it forges them.

You say my internship point is an excuse, but my wife is on her way to corporate executive in her mid-twenties because she turned an internship into qcareer due to what I describe. On the other hand I missed similar opportunities because I was worried about my next meal. I have friends in both situations. Now I have the freedom again because my wife has an awesome job, thus Haiti.

As you probably have noticed, I do not perceive myself as locked into the humble station from which I came. I think I won't be just comfortable, but rich one day. I totally see a difference between this and if I'd had to struggle in the same way. At the same time, I have lived in true poverty in my life.

[crashtech]

I didn't mean to engage in a blame game (it's not about culpability, but societal norms, expectations, etc), and I certainly did not call anything you said an excuse. I'm going to continue to think about this, and may reply tomorrow, but I did want to make clear that I do not wish for an adversarial dialogue.

[Demon of Undoing]

" I remember , back when we were in our twenties, they used to worry whether we would grow up and assimilate. "


" Yeah , that was funny. More rat ? "