Stop Blaming Millennials

These rants from Baby Boomers about how entitled Millennials are, or how we need to grow up, or how we must work harder are getting annoying. I’ve seen them pop up occasionally over the last year or two, and frankly I’m sick of it.

Baby Boomers complain that we Millennials are spoiled because we all got participation trophies. But wait, who gave us those trophies? THE PARENTS. Boomers can hardly be upset when they crafted the environments that produced the current Millennial generation.

Do you know why we’re devastated about the election results? Because America just elected a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, troglodyte who will put a screeching halt to all the progress we’ve made in the last eight years.

We’re upset because we believed America was better than this.

We value diversity. We value taking care of the poor. We value the environment. We look forward to building a great future, rather than looking back, longing for the good ol’ days where white, rural Americans had it made in the shade.

We’re disillusioned with politics because of the poor manner in which Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers have run things for the last thirty years. Things have been broken far longer than we’ve been around.

In my experience, these characterizations of Millennials are wildly inaccurate. I will grant that we have our fair share of stupid, lazy, incompetent people. Every generation does. That’s just how humanity works.

But the world is much different than it was for previous generations. Baby Boomers were able to get through college debt free by working part time. Now, tuition has skyrocketed to the point where it’s literally burdening my generation with debt for decades. Who was in charge the entire time these costs ballooned out of control? Hm… Not the Millennials! So how can you blame us?

We came of age during the Great Recession. A recession, mind you, that was brought on by Boomers and Gen X-ers engaging in selfish, bubble-bursting behaviors.

We’re not angry because we think we’re entitled. We’re angry because our parents screwed us over. Baby Boomers got ahead because they were the ones that broke all the rules. They broke the economy, polluted the planet, discriminated against anyone who wasn’t a white middle class Protestant, and they started us down the path to the political polarization we’re now seeing.

Older generations will always complain. It used to be “kids these days spend all day in front of the radio”, then the television, the computer, and now cell phones. I’m sure Millennials will someday complain about kids spending too much time in virtual reality.

I know it’s anecdotal, but all the Millennials I know are smart, hard working people who are doing great things even with all the disadvantages we’ve been handed. We are an amazing generation that will do amazing things. We’ll stop climate change. We’ll bring equal opportunity to all. Hell, we’ll probably be the ones that finally get humanity to Mars.

We will solve the toughest problems the world has ever faced.

History will one day look back at the Millennial generation as the ones who saved the world. Because, as it stands now, the Baby Boomers are the ones that ruined it.

Don’t count us out, because we’re charging forward, no matter what disillusioned Baby Boomers say.