When you're actually from the US as a Millennial or Gen Z'er, it's not hard to see what happened. The previous two generations taught us nothing, but expected us to know everything they did, as though by virtue of being a living human this knowledge is just granted. Our parents never had the time to show us how to budget, care for a home, etc, so we had to learn from the Internet.
But why?
I posit that Boomers and Gen X had such an easy go of it, they assumed we would, too. Born to an economy that was thriving, they had to know relatively little themselves because there was always someone else who could do it. In short, that translates, over time, to less value placed on teaching the next generation to thrive and looking at things like school milages as "my tax dollars not benefiting me directly."
These previous generations also operate under the illusion that they somehow had it harder than we do now. This is perpetuated by the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" attitude that most of them seem to have adopted while having to ask for help operating a smart fridge or iPhone. It's really a failure of self-awareness, if we remove all the fictional swagger they've built their lives around, and it has left us a nation that is crumbling under its own ignorance and stupidity.
Now people my age (late 30's - early 40's) are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to figure out how we can afford to fix the problem so our children can do better than us, and we are utterly failing to find a solution because we are operating in a system that was designed to cater only to the selfishness of our parents and grandparents.
Did this happen because the kids didn’t listen or because the parents were overly protective or some combination of the two? Helicopter parents denied their children the chance to fail safely and so calibrate the good and bad portions of life. By scheduling their kids time and removing all risk they prevented growth.
You never did chores for your spending money? Had to help out with minor repairs or maintenance of a domicile? Never had a part time job? I suspect not, again, as the now revealed as misguided effort to give their kids the best (“better than we had it”) was crippling. It’s not hard to do what is mentioned in the first paragraph.
Look up the shit that went down in 1968 before you repeat that previous generations had it easier. There’s no draft, although the Cold War and risk of nukes are coming back. You have computer and communication resources that exceed st:tos (damn near), uni has toys that were inconceivable in the 70’s, …. Google what opscan forms and #2 pencils were - that’s years of organizing courses and drop/add.
The only thing that really sucks now is that std’s can kill.
> When you're actually from the US as a Millennial or Gen Z'er, it's not hard to see what happened. The previous two generations taught us nothing
> Gen X had such an easy go of it
I was still in college when the dot com bust happened, followed a few years later by the Great Recession. Please tell me more how Gen X had it so much easier than Millenials. Also in a previous comment you claim to be 44. Since I turned 45 this year we’re basically the same age. We both, by most definitions, are Gen X. That being the case maybe you’re making a subtle point that your life was really easy as a result of that fact (not that the generation this and that crap means much anyway though you seem to put some stock in it hence my comment).
But why?
I posit that Boomers and Gen X had such an easy go of it, they assumed we would, too. Born to an economy that was thriving, they had to know relatively little themselves because there was always someone else who could do it. In short, that translates, over time, to less value placed on teaching the next generation to thrive and looking at things like school milages as "my tax dollars not benefiting me directly."
These previous generations also operate under the illusion that they somehow had it harder than we do now. This is perpetuated by the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" attitude that most of them seem to have adopted while having to ask for help operating a smart fridge or iPhone. It's really a failure of self-awareness, if we remove all the fictional swagger they've built their lives around, and it has left us a nation that is crumbling under its own ignorance and stupidity.
Now people my age (late 30's - early 40's) are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to figure out how we can afford to fix the problem so our children can do better than us, and we are utterly failing to find a solution because we are operating in a system that was designed to cater only to the selfishness of our parents and grandparents.