Will Millennials Be Left Behind?
Millennials are now parents. Looking at how Millennials are doing can teach us a lot about our own kids and how we should raise them?
Hello Bar-Setters! I just finished listening to a debate on the question: Will Millennials Be Left Behind?
It comes from the phenomenal podcast, Open to Debate, and it was moderated by one of my favorite journalists, Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie.
This is an especially important topic for today’s parents and those who work in youth development, because the majority of us are Millennials (the generation born between 1980 and 1996). Most parents do whatever their parents did and assume that whatever their parents did was fine. Pop Tarts for breakfast? Of course! I had Pop-Tarts for breakfast and I turned out okay. So, why would I deprive my children of that?
Well, here’s why…
We need to know the downstream effects of the youth paradigm that we were raised in. We need to know what youth development norms (behaviors, philosophies, etc.) from our own upbringing have led to poor outcomes, so that we can adjust course.
This Open to Debate debate offers a thought-provoking look at the state of Millennials today.
To the Arguments
Arguing Yes, Millennials will be left behind was Jill Filipovic, a fellow Millennial and the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk. Filipovic’s major claims included:
Millennials are the most educated generation in history and, contrary to the stereotypes, they have been responsible with their money. They’ve followed the “path to success,” but, despite this, they are:
Less wealthy
Have less upward mobility
Are less happy
And Millennials are underrepresented in politics comparable to past generations at the same ages
Why:
As Millennials came into adulthood, the September 11th attacks ended an era of unprecedented geopolitical harmony
The 2008 financial crisis began right as Millennials entered the workforce (or just before or just after)
After the recession passed, Millennials did enjoy an economic boom, but then were hit hard again by Covid-19, which was disproportionately difficult on (mostly Millennial) parents
Arguing No, Millennials will not be left behind was Scott Winship, Director of the Center of Opportunity and Social Mobility at the American Enterprise Institute. Winship’s major claims included that:
The latest data actually show that Millennials have made exceptional economic gains over the past decade and that they are faring better than Gen Xers were at the same ages
Covid-19 and the 2008 financial crisis were tough on all generations, not just Millennials
The trends in home ownership, as well as the relatively low rates of marriage and parenthood among Millennials are mostly the result of Millennial values, NOT economic pressure
The pessimism we see amongst Millennials is part of a broader progressive trend whereby it has become popular to presume that everything is worse than it is. Winship calls the people who are swept up in this trend: Doomers.
My Reaction
I am a Millennial. But I came away unconvinced by Filipovic’s insistence that we Millennials have been dealt a particularly bad hand. In fact, her worldview seemed to embody exactly what most ails the younger American generations right now…
In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff argue that mainstream youth culture is teaching people to see the world through the same cognitive distortions that Cognitive Behavior Therapy (a highly effective treatment for depression and other mental health disorders) seeks to untrain.
Many Millennials and Gen Zers are afflicted by a self-sabotaging worldview. Their minds have been trained to always believe that they have gotten the short end of the stick and then, as if there are no other trade offs to consider, to self-righteously argue that the government or society has a duty to fix these issues for them.
This tendency is probably the result of a number of factors:
Overprotective Parenting: Safetyism and the self-esteem movement convinced the parents of Millennials that they needed to celebrate everything their kids did and protect their kids' feelings at all costs.
Overprovide Parenting: As traditional values waned and entertainment culture expanded, it became common for parents of Millennials to put their kids’ immediate happiness ahead of any other ideals. As Amy Chua and Jeb Rubenfeld write in The Triple Package:
“In the last half of the twentieth century, American culture declared war on both (standards) and impulse control, replacing them with an ever-increasing hunger for self-esteem and immediate gratification”
Entitlement: The Overprovide, Overprotect Parenting Paradigm led many parents to excuse behaviors that would have never have been tolerated in the past and to “spoil” their kids. Millennials had fewer chores, but more money for discretionary spending. Millennials were less likely to work throughout high school or college, but more likely to get expensive first cars, and expect luxury housing and amenities while in college.
Social Media: Millennials are active on social media where outrage and a sense of injustice thrive
These factors help explain why so many Millennials are so eager to adopt the self-sabotaging belief that our generation is being left behind: As Jean Twenge writes in The Myth of the Broke Millennial, contrary to that belief:
…Millennials, as a group, are not broke—they are, in fact, thriving economically. That wasn’t true a decade ago, and prosperity within the generation today is not evenly shared. But since the mid-2010s, Millennials on the whole have made a breathtaking financial comeback.
This is terrific news. And yet it’s not all good news, because the belief that Millennials have been excluded from the implicit promises that America makes to its people—a house for most, middle-class security, a better life than your parents had—remains predominant in society and, to go by surveys and the tenor of social media, among Millennials themselves.
That prompts a question with implications for the cultural and political future of the United States, a country premised, to a large extent, on the idea of material progress: What if the American dream is still alive, but no one believes it to be?
The biggest disadvantage that most Millennials face is their own sense of entitlement and unrealistic expectations.
Generally speaking, Millennials had such comfortable, lavish, and insulated upbringings (in comparison to past generations) that we’ve been lulled into unrealistic expectations about how comfortable and how certain life should be. We think our kids shouldn’t have to slum it on the bus because many of us didn’t. We think our kids should be allowed to stare at screens all day rather than play outside because many of us were allowed to. We think that college should feature luxury amenities because we had them, but that college should also be free.
As I argued in This is Life: Putting Chaos into Context, much of what distorts our expectations is the unprecedented period of prosperity, stability, and safety that Americans have enjoyed since World War II. Every generation beginning with the Baby Boomers has been substantially more affluent, entertained, and insulated from hardship than the one before it. 80 years of this has dramatically distorted our expectations about how life should work.
And this leads to the ways in which I really do believe us Millennials are more disadvantaged than the past few generations.
Where Millennials Have Gotten the Short End of the Stick
Filipovic was right in saying that we can no longer rely on the traditional path to success. Millennials were indoctrinated in the merits of this path. We were all led to believe that all we had to do to be successful was to follow the path. You know…
… go to college…
… which will get you access to a stable career with good benefits…
… which will lead to marriage and kids…
… which will lead you to buy a house…
… which, along with your ample career benefits, will ensure that you retire wealthy.
The default path to success that we were told to follow is no longer such a sure thing. It worked for our parents and their parents before them, but it’s no longer so certain.
How is the Default Path Now Dead?
College: College is now exponentially more expensive than it was a few decades ago and a college degree gets you far less. As the means of learning expand, it prompts the question: is going to college at 18 the best route for most kids?
Work: As we accelerate into the age of AI, we have no idea what the future of work will look like or how durable any career will be. As Bari Weiss wrote yesterday:
We are on the cusp of a profound technological leap that will destabilize every facet of our society. It could be more transformative than the Industrial Revolution. It could be more transformative than electricity. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai has said that its impact will be more profound than the discovery of fire.
Most Millennials get the sense that they cannot rely on company loyalty (or Social Security) and that they’ll need to be ready to adapt often in their careers.
Buying a House: Buying a house in today’s market is hell. When my wife and I bought our house seven years ago, I was assured that we were overspending and that it would not appraise for what we had offered. Today, it would sell for twice what we paid. We got lucky. The youngest Millennial couples I know have struggled mightily to purchase their first house—the one which would allow them to begin accruing wealth and trading up.
Corruption: Corruption abounds as never before. Can we trust doctors, the CDC, the pharmaceutical industry, politicians, insurance companies, anyone????
Social Capital: The biggest disadvantage today’s Millennials face is that we have come to age at a time when social capital is lower than ever. Good families have always depended upon the community to help raise their children. American communities are devolving fast.
Public schools are becoming less and less acceptable.
Youth sports are becoming a more and more toxic environment.
Our politics and mainstream news are increasingly toxic.
And there are no kids running around the neighborhood for our kids to play with. They’re all kept inside.
More on Social Capital
The social capital that we depend upon for connection and support is drying up, making it far more difficult and expensive to figure out how to navigate this novel world. As Matthew Crawford explains in The World Beyond Your Head:
… social capital seems to be more tied up with money capital than ever before. Maybe one reason for this is the social jigs once relied on by the middle class have been widely dismantled, in the name of personal autonomy… The costs and benefits of such autonomy don’t always accrue to the same parts of society, and I think that is because the disciplinary functions of culture have in fact not been dissolved so much as privatized. They are located less in a shared order of meaning, such as Protestant thrift, parental authority, or injunctions against gluttony, and more in the professional nagging services provided by financial planners, tutors, and personal trainers.
Many Millennials have a warranted sense that as the social fabric deteriorates, we are having to spend a lot more money just to keep from falling way behind.
Going Forward
In conclusion:
Millennials are doing pretty well economically.
But many Millennials are understandably anxious as the default path to success crumbles around them.
And if you think these issues are bad for Millennials, just wait until Gen Z (iGen) hits full-on adulthood. If you think Millennials are being left behind, just wait for Gen Z. It’s going to be up to us Millennials to adapt now so that our kids, the Generation after Gen Z (Gen Alpha), has a more solid footing.
What’s the solution? Well, that’s the question of our time. There are no easy answers, but the goal of Setting the Bar is to help clarify a better path. Starting in August, I’ll be doubling down on more frequent, short and practical newsletters. For now, I’ll leave you with two phenomenal articles:
Everything is Broken (And how to fix it), by Alana Newhouse
Get Serious About Purpose, by Katherine Boyle
Thank you so much for reading and sharing!
Have a wonderful week and, as always, carry the fire!
Shane