None of  my millenial nieces and nephews had jobs before college.  I've been working since I was 15...

Does attributing bad outcomes to the sins of the parents visited upon their young really address the problem of consigning a whole generation to an underclass. If anyone were to say that negroes as a race were lazy or poorly educated or felt entitled to special treatment or that blondes as a class were stupid, or even to recite the Polack jokes that were current when I was young, I expect he would be hounded out of this forum.
 
My parents were members of the "Greatest Generation," and their hippy children were explained as the pernicious result of Benjamin Spock, MD writing a series of books advising parents to use less corporal punishment. By the way, the Nazis were of the same generation as my parents and the result of a more authoritarian child rearing culture, and few people call them the "Greatest" now. Shared social and parenting influences can shape the lives of the young, as can economic and technological factors, but within a given generation there are millions of individuals who do not fit into anything approaching a neat stereotype. Remember that the labeling of age cohorts with catchy names like GenX, Millennial etc. is largely due to the utility it provides to people selling advertising and the social "scientists" who serve them. What possible good does it do you as an individual to see people of a certain age as members of a "generation" subject to ridicule? 

slartabartfast
Does attributing bad outcomes to the sins of the parents visited upon their young really address the problem of consigning a whole generation to an underclass. If anyone were to say that negroes as a race were lazy or poorly educated or felt entitled to special treatment or that blondes as a class were stupid, or even to recite the Polack jokes that were current when I was young, I expect he would be hounded out of this forum.
 
My parents were members of the "Greatest Generation," and their hippy children were explained as the pernicious result of Benjamin Spock, MD writing a series of books advising parents to use less corporal punishment. By the way, the Nazis were of the same generation as my parents and the result of a more authoritarian child rearing culture, and few people call them the "Greatest" now. Shared social and parenting influences can shape the lives of the young, as can economic and technological factors, but within a given generation there are millions of individuals who do not fit into anything approaching a neat stereotype. Remember that the labeling of age cohorts with catchy names like GenX, Millennial etc. is largely due to the utility it provides to people selling advertising and the social "scientists" who serve them. What possible good does it do you as an individual to see people of a certain age as members of a "generation" subject to ridicule? 

Good grief.

slartabartfast
Does attributing bad outcomes to the sins of the parents visited upon their young really address the problem of consigning a whole generation to an underclass. If anyone were to say that negroes as a race were lazy or poorly educated or felt entitled to special treatment or that blondes as a class were stupid, or even to recite the Polack jokes that were current when I was young, I expect he would be hounded out of this forum.
 
My parents were members of the "Greatest Generation," and their hippy children were explained as the pernicious result of Benjamin Spock, MD writing a series of books advising parents to use less corporal punishment. By the way, the Nazis were of the same generation as my parents and the result of a more authoritarian child rearing culture, and few people call them the "Greatest" now. Shared social and parenting influences can shape the lives of the young, as can economic and technological factors, but within a given generation there are millions of individuals who do not fit into anything approaching a neat stereotype. Remember that the labeling of age cohorts with catchy names like GenX, Millennial etc. is largely due to the utility it provides to people selling advertising and the social "scientists" who serve them. What possible good does it do you as an individual to see people of a certain age as members of a "generation" subject to ridicule? 

I think you're reading too much into this. But I sincerely respect and appreciate your input.
 
This thread was meant to be a light-hearted look at certain members of the younger generation, especially in America, and the video in the initial post is just comedy. 
 
No one set anyone on trial or condemned every member of a whole generation as a block. And even if someone did condemn all millennials, well, that would be just that - words, an opinion. No one would be sentenced to labor camps. 
 
To me, people are people, and they're, partially at least, the product of their environment and the age they live in. If I was a "millennial", living in America or in a country with a similar culture, chances are that I'd conform to a few "millennial" stereotypes. 
 
 
As for the rest, personally, my motto is hope for the best, expect the worst. On a human relation level, this means that I have very little esteem for the anonymous mass, but on an individual level, I always leave a chance to the person - male or female, young or old, white, green or blue, buddhist, christian or shintoist... Millennial or hippie or beatnik or whatever.
 
Technically, I'm from generation X - but I do find I have very little in common with people my age (or any age for that matter) as I've always been an individualist. I'm a Quebecer, and most often at odds with my fellow Quebecers.  A man, and yet, continually ashamed of my fellow men. 
 
So I know firsthand that not everyone fits the stereotype. But the number of people who do conform to stereotypes is actually pretty impressive, imho. 
 
 

I think the biggest issue with the millennials is that their are very few options for them. The route that is encouraged is to get a college degree and a white collar job. If that fails, they can join the military or flip burgers. The huge industrial option that many of us enjoyed has been almost eliminated in North America. Even with a degree, kids are being asked to intern for free before they get a job offer. The other big change is that cradle to grave employment doesn't exist anymore. I worked at one company for 25 years and had some security. This allowed me to think long term, get a home, mortgage, car, children. I don't know how kids have the courage to take on any responsibility when jobs last 3-5 years on average.
 
I have a 20 yr old girl and even though I have her back, the insecurity in the world is really hard on her. Add to that the fact that most of our young peoples icons of success never worked a real job in their lives. This is the American Idol generation, the generation that grew up watching people make fools out of themselves and calling it reality tv.

I blame myself.

RainWere they, really?
 
Virtually all of my friends worked starting with paper routes or such at 12 or 13, none of us received a trophy for coming in 4th, and there were no graduation parties in grade school. 
 
Oh, and unless there was some serious abuse, our parents usually sided WITH the teachers. The exact opposite of the current standard.

Hard to get paper routes when media has drilled so much fear into everyone that their kids will get stolen that kids aren't permitted to get jobs... then there is that issue of child labour laws... oh, and a lot of the paper route jobs are being taken by adults. Even where I live in a population of 1000 people, kids don't deliver the paper anymore. Mainly because the local newspaper has all but closed it's doors but even when they had subscribers, people were too worried about their precious snowflakes to let their kids get jobs where they would need to be on their own in public spaces for more than 2 minutes. Not the fault of Millennials.
 
Why do all kids receive trophies these days? Oh, right. Because their Gen-X parents don't want their kids to have hurt feels. Those precious little snowflakes should never have to feel defeat like they aren't deserving of being part of something. Everyone is a winner! Again, not the fault of Millennials.
 
The whole straying from corporal punishment in schools started before I even hit highschool. In fact, the whole idea of babying kids started when I was exiting highschool. I am on the older side of the Millennials. I fail to see how it's my generations fault that we've not been properly punished when making a mistake. Oh, forgot, in the mind of Gen-Xers, we should have punished ourselves, right? ;)
 
I'm certainly not saying we're blameless in our own right. Lord knows I despise the way a lot of Millennials are raising their own kids because the trends started by the previous generations are becoming magnified as they are evolving into the way we become parents. But it really pisses me off when older generations want to blame Millennials for a lot of this stuff when it's their own fault this stuff happened. Hell, the majority of Millennials didn't even start having kids till about 8-10 years ago so all those 18+ year old snowflakes like the ones in the video posted? Yah, those are the children of Gen X'ers. Blame yourselves for being crappy parents. :P j/k
 
Edit: Keep in mind, I'm being facetious with a lot of this. No parents or generation has been perfect. I was raised by Baby Boomers who believe that they should give their children everything they didn't have growing up themselves... cause we know that is certainly a good way of doing things, right? :P
 
Just wanted to make sure it's clear that I'm not typing this as an angry post or anything. I find it more comical (and sad) than anything. I've seen the way a lot of my peers raise their kids and I'm constantly facepalming because it's getting worse. One of the most terrorizing realities for me was taking our kid to the circus this past spring. Seeing all these little kids going ballistic and their parents giving in to their every demand to prevent a melt down? The little kids beside me who ate no less than 2 hot dogs, 2 snow cones, 2 cotton candies and about a gallon and a half of soda each while we were there and complaining to mommy when they didn't get it right away? Yah, we exited pretty quick.

ampfixerI think the biggest issue with the millennials is that their are very few options for them. The route that is encouraged is to get a college degree and a white collar job. If that fails, they can join the military or flip burgers. The huge industrial option that many of us enjoyed has been almost eliminated in North America. Even with a degree, kids are being asked to intern for free before they get a job offer. The other big change is that cradle to grave employment doesn't exist anymore. I worked at one company for 25 years and had some security. This allowed me to think long term, get a home, mortgage, car, children. I don't know how kids have the courage to take on any responsibility when jobs last 3-5 years on average.

Another thing to consider is that the retirement age is going up AND many people are getting jobs after retirement because the money they were supposed to be living on isn't enough and so they end up taking jobs that were typically employed by teenagers 20 years ago.
 
The workforce is also getting smaller. It's not uncommon for a company to downsize and then give the extra workload that was once done by multiple people to a single person. That person usually does it because they are just happy to still have a job. I've especially seen this a lot in the tech field which is why I made my exit from it a long time ago because, to quote Ace of Base, "I saw the sign".

TerraSin

RainWere they, really?
 
Virtually all of my friends worked starting with paper routes or such at 12 or 13, none of us received a trophy for coming in 4th, and there were no graduation parties in grade school. 
 
Oh, and unless there was some serious abuse, our parents usually sided WITH the teachers. The exact opposite of the current standard.

 
Why do all kids receive trophies these days? Oh, right. Because their Gen-X parents don't want their kids to have hurt feels. Those precious little snowflakes should never have to feel defeat like they aren't deserving of being part of something. Everyone is a winner! Again, not the fault of Millennials.
 

If you refer to my other posts, you'll see that we actually agree - for the most part, I think. The millennials are the way they are for a reason - same with my generation and the one before. 
 
Maybe because I've always been an individualist but I've always preferred to dissociate myself from groups, mostly. I never had a problem with people criticizing the flaws of my generation or those of my fellow Quebecers and/or Canadians, or any other such generalities. To me, they're just that - generalities.  
 
Unless someone is so prejudiced that they refuse to even consider that individuals should be judged, well, individually, it's not a problem. To me, it's a given that every individual is free to rise above the stereotypes and clichés. 
 
As such, it is a given that many people who are technically millennials conform in no way with the stereotypes. And some people from my generation would probably be exemplary specimens of millennials.
 
I think that, as long as people keep an open mind and don't lose their sense of humour, generalities don't hurt anyone. I don't mind people making fun of French Canadians - heck, I'm the first one to make jokes about that all the time. As long as there is a fundamental respect for the individual...
 
 

TerraSin

ampfixerI think the biggest issue with the millennials is that their are very few options for them. The route that is encouraged is to get a college degree and a white collar job. If that fails, they can join the military or flip burgers. The huge industrial option that many of us enjoyed has been almost eliminated in North America. Even with a degree, kids are being asked to intern for free before they get a job offer. The other big change is that cradle to grave employment doesn't exist anymore. I worked at one company for 25 years and had some security. This allowed me to think long term, get a home, mortgage, car, children. I don't know how kids have the courage to take on any responsibility when jobs last 3-5 years on average.

Another thing to consider is that the retirement age is going up AND many people are getting jobs after retirement because the money they were supposed to be living on isn't enough and so they end up taking jobs that were typically employed by teenagers 20 years ago.
 
The workforce is also getting smaller. It's not uncommon for a company to downsize and then give the extra workload that was once done by multiple people to a single person. That person usually does it because they are just happy to still have a job. I've especially seen this a lot in the tech field which is why I made my exit from it a long time ago because, to quote Ace of Base, "I saw the sign".

Ace of Base are white supremacists....I heard.