An Open Letter to the Previous Generation(s)
So a recent NYT article has been circulating among friends. And it seems yet another attempt by a publication to try to address the malady of this generation. Why is it we've moved back in with our parents? Why are we taking longer to marry? Why have we given ourselves over to wanderlust? All these questions are asked with the curiosity of visitors to a zoo, watching animals behave with particular irresponsibility.
"What is It About 20-Somethings?" the article asks. And, in its entirety, proffers every possible answer except, likely enough, the ones that matter.
An excerpt:
"The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life."
The premier question it poses, once it gets to the meat and potatoes is: "Is emerging adulthood a rich and varied period for self-discovery, as [Dr.] Arnett says it is? Or is it just another term for self-indulgence?"
How 'bout it's a term for cleaning up the mountain of excrement we've been handed?
Let me back up a bit. Righteous outrage took the wheel for a second.
The article posits that this "changing timetable for adulthood" can be laid at the foot of a certain individualism that has gripped us and, when fused with changing social norms (growing acceptance of homosexuals for instance), leads to a lack of coordination as each member "slouches" towards their own milestones (marrying, buying a house, etc.) at their own pace.
Another explanation points to changing neurological development, indicating that "emerging adulthood" is a developmental phase just like adolescence, deserving of its own set of institutions and changing social norms in order to accommodate it. We've stopped the major physical changes, but our minds are still expanding and synapses are still figuring out where the most brain usage is going to happen. So our brains are grown-up, except they're not; the article isn't sure.
Perhaps the article (or, rather, its author) is attempting to be progressive and hip by just glossing over the horrendous state of the economy in general and the job market specifically, as regards these exotic twenty-somethings who, all of a sudden, aren't buying houses and having kids in droves. Maybe the author forgot, I don't know.
But it kinda is the economy, stupid. The college class of 2009 entered the most unstable job market in the past few decades, and it wasn't unstable because we all had Philosophy degrees or because we had shitty GPAs or because we just coasted by. It was an unstable job market because we were in the midst of an economic crisis precipitated by the excessive greed of, guess what, members of the previous generation.
First, there are the tangible effects: decline in job offers, holds in extensions of current positions, having offers revoked, being denied a position in the Peace Corps or in Teach for America (which saw a record number of applicants among 2009 grads), or any combination of the preceding. All of these happened to me and friends of mine who graduated with me.
The effects of these, which have been enumerated in many articles already*, include the fact that graduates entering the job market during tough times will always be behind their peers who enter during times of plenty, in terms of salary, career advancement, retirement age, you name it.
There seems to be a growing perception that this generation's delay in entering the job market is due to us being overly picky about the jobs we want. Go to the comments section of any of the aforementioned article sources and you'll have the inevitable old-timer piping in that back in his** day, you took the job you could even if it was in the mailroom, and you worked your way up the ladder for 30 years like a good American, then you retired.
That's funny, it really is.
Because perhaps what the commenter has failed to realize is that real wages have not at all kept pace with inflation over the past decade. Additionally, that clause in the contract that says you can be fired at will means company loyalty takes a back seat to self-interest, on the behalf of both the employer and the employee.
Then there's the inevitable internships tangent, which is really a non-issue because they're designed (whether intentionally or not) to target those who already have the means to (move and) work for free, often without even a stipend for meals and local transportation. So immediately, you cut out the scholarship kids or those who could only attend their school due to the financial generosity of others, and who can't take their financial aid with them to the company hosting the internship. But, again, besides the point.
But to be perfectly honest, when we say the jobs aren't there, we're not complaining. We're stating an incontrovertible fact.
Case in point: My first job out of college was at a Staples Copy Center. And it took me six months to get that job. Six months of sending out resumes and cover letters and not even an interview. I'd just spent four years getting an Ivy League degree (with distinction in my major in addition to experience abroad), and I was now a proud Sales Associate at a Staples Copy Center.
But enough with the tangibles. Let's go to the much more interesting intangibles.
What the horrible economic situation revealed (and we notice this, we're paying attention) was that the irresponsibility of previous generations extended far beyond what we had earlier imagined. Scandals like Enron and WorldCom were supposed to be one-offs. Those failures of corporate governance were aberrations, right? Especially given the relative prosperity our generation lived under during the Clinton administrations back when gas was $1.12 at the pump. Times of plenty.
Our general conception of the world as a good place didn't start to grow its tarnish when Bush was elected, but we grew up with 9/11 happening to us while we were in high school. And as we formulated more nuanced ideas of the world, we watched our government take all the good will it had accumulated and twist public sentiment into beginning a war that has since been judged as unjust and unnecessary. Another failure of governance.
The response to Hurricane Katrina as well as a host of other factors, judging from conversations with my peers (across socioeconomic lines, don't worry), show a growing skepticism not towards forms of governance but towards the governors themselves. We didn't resent the office of the Presidency, we perhaps resented what was being done with it. It may not have been that we resented economic corporations themselves but rather that we resented the greed of those at the top of those pyramids. We didn't resent factories, but now we were being saddled with carrying the burden of climate change. It's now our children who will pay for the current damage being done.
So when older generations look at our current position and the idea of us moving at a different pace or taking a different path, they proffer every possible explanation that lays the blame on us. We're lazy. We're indulgent victims of wanderlust. We're scared of commitment.
Not to say that we are immune to those things, but how about taking some credit, okay?
Aside from the obvious "you raised us," it's not like we caused the housing bubble to burst, precipitating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It's not like we stole your money in a series of pyramid schemes. And it's not like we are the reason the country has a record national deficit.
But now these are our problems.
And when we go off to start our own companies and fight climate change (high school friend) or when we start our own production companies (college friend) or when we continue our education with graduate and professional degrees (many, many high school/college friends), we're lazy. We're indulgent. We're afraid of starting a family.
We're expected to buy houses we can't afford***. We're expected to bring children into this world when we're not sure we'll be able to hold onto a job in the midst of a recession. And we're expected to stay with a company forever when it's more likely we'll be turned down at the interview in favor of the late-30's layoff who's moving sideways into the job from a parallel post he was fired from due to downsizing.
Oh, and let's not forget all that business about saving the planet and upholding the increasingly false notion of the American Dream that anybody can make it if you work hard and play by the rules.
The Titan's shifting, I get it.
Job market's changing irreversibly and there will be positions (not just jobs) that exist in five, ten years that are inconceivable now. Just as jobs that exist now will be unfathomable five, ten years from now.
And the battle over the Constitution and legislation that pushes us towards a more equal and free society predates us and will continue on into perpetuity as long as Americans have that sometimes alchemic, often destructive combination of voice and audience.
But stop talking about us like this is all somehow our fault.
You gave us this mess whether you believe it or not and it's the gift that just keeps on giving. And you've tasked us with cleaning it up for you.****
The least you can do, if you're not going to help with the cleanup, is at least claim your fair share of the responsibility.
Signed,
Your Friendly Myopic Twenty-Something
*just check the archives of Yahoo! Finance, the New York Times, or the actually really good BaselineScenario.com
**not hers
***Aside from the token "low-income" example in the NYT article, everyone who was surveyed was talked about as though they were layabouts either sponging off their parents' income (were single parent households mentioned at all?) or trust-fund children traveling the world on an inheritance.
****Let's not even get started about social security.
Note: And if the NYT can't be bothered to cite its sources when throwing out numbers and statistics, I guess I can't be bothered either.
"What is It About 20-Somethings?" the article asks. And, in its entirety, proffers every possible answer except, likely enough, the ones that matter.
An excerpt:
"The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life."
The premier question it poses, once it gets to the meat and potatoes is: "Is emerging adulthood a rich and varied period for self-discovery, as [Dr.] Arnett says it is? Or is it just another term for self-indulgence?"
How 'bout it's a term for cleaning up the mountain of excrement we've been handed?
Let me back up a bit. Righteous outrage took the wheel for a second.
The article posits that this "changing timetable for adulthood" can be laid at the foot of a certain individualism that has gripped us and, when fused with changing social norms (growing acceptance of homosexuals for instance), leads to a lack of coordination as each member "slouches" towards their own milestones (marrying, buying a house, etc.) at their own pace.
Another explanation points to changing neurological development, indicating that "emerging adulthood" is a developmental phase just like adolescence, deserving of its own set of institutions and changing social norms in order to accommodate it. We've stopped the major physical changes, but our minds are still expanding and synapses are still figuring out where the most brain usage is going to happen. So our brains are grown-up, except they're not; the article isn't sure.
Perhaps the article (or, rather, its author) is attempting to be progressive and hip by just glossing over the horrendous state of the economy in general and the job market specifically, as regards these exotic twenty-somethings who, all of a sudden, aren't buying houses and having kids in droves. Maybe the author forgot, I don't know.
But it kinda is the economy, stupid. The college class of 2009 entered the most unstable job market in the past few decades, and it wasn't unstable because we all had Philosophy degrees or because we had shitty GPAs or because we just coasted by. It was an unstable job market because we were in the midst of an economic crisis precipitated by the excessive greed of, guess what, members of the previous generation.
First, there are the tangible effects: decline in job offers, holds in extensions of current positions, having offers revoked, being denied a position in the Peace Corps or in Teach for America (which saw a record number of applicants among 2009 grads), or any combination of the preceding. All of these happened to me and friends of mine who graduated with me.
The effects of these, which have been enumerated in many articles already*, include the fact that graduates entering the job market during tough times will always be behind their peers who enter during times of plenty, in terms of salary, career advancement, retirement age, you name it.
There seems to be a growing perception that this generation's delay in entering the job market is due to us being overly picky about the jobs we want. Go to the comments section of any of the aforementioned article sources and you'll have the inevitable old-timer piping in that back in his** day, you took the job you could even if it was in the mailroom, and you worked your way up the ladder for 30 years like a good American, then you retired.
That's funny, it really is.
Because perhaps what the commenter has failed to realize is that real wages have not at all kept pace with inflation over the past decade. Additionally, that clause in the contract that says you can be fired at will means company loyalty takes a back seat to self-interest, on the behalf of both the employer and the employee.
Then there's the inevitable internships tangent, which is really a non-issue because they're designed (whether intentionally or not) to target those who already have the means to (move and) work for free, often without even a stipend for meals and local transportation. So immediately, you cut out the scholarship kids or those who could only attend their school due to the financial generosity of others, and who can't take their financial aid with them to the company hosting the internship. But, again, besides the point.
But to be perfectly honest, when we say the jobs aren't there, we're not complaining. We're stating an incontrovertible fact.
Case in point: My first job out of college was at a Staples Copy Center. And it took me six months to get that job. Six months of sending out resumes and cover letters and not even an interview. I'd just spent four years getting an Ivy League degree (with distinction in my major in addition to experience abroad), and I was now a proud Sales Associate at a Staples Copy Center.
But enough with the tangibles. Let's go to the much more interesting intangibles.
What the horrible economic situation revealed (and we notice this, we're paying attention) was that the irresponsibility of previous generations extended far beyond what we had earlier imagined. Scandals like Enron and WorldCom were supposed to be one-offs. Those failures of corporate governance were aberrations, right? Especially given the relative prosperity our generation lived under during the Clinton administrations back when gas was $1.12 at the pump. Times of plenty.
Our general conception of the world as a good place didn't start to grow its tarnish when Bush was elected, but we grew up with 9/11 happening to us while we were in high school. And as we formulated more nuanced ideas of the world, we watched our government take all the good will it had accumulated and twist public sentiment into beginning a war that has since been judged as unjust and unnecessary. Another failure of governance.
The response to Hurricane Katrina as well as a host of other factors, judging from conversations with my peers (across socioeconomic lines, don't worry), show a growing skepticism not towards forms of governance but towards the governors themselves. We didn't resent the office of the Presidency, we perhaps resented what was being done with it. It may not have been that we resented economic corporations themselves but rather that we resented the greed of those at the top of those pyramids. We didn't resent factories, but now we were being saddled with carrying the burden of climate change. It's now our children who will pay for the current damage being done.
So when older generations look at our current position and the idea of us moving at a different pace or taking a different path, they proffer every possible explanation that lays the blame on us. We're lazy. We're indulgent victims of wanderlust. We're scared of commitment.
Not to say that we are immune to those things, but how about taking some credit, okay?
Aside from the obvious "you raised us," it's not like we caused the housing bubble to burst, precipitating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It's not like we stole your money in a series of pyramid schemes. And it's not like we are the reason the country has a record national deficit.
But now these are our problems.
And when we go off to start our own companies and fight climate change (high school friend) or when we start our own production companies (college friend) or when we continue our education with graduate and professional degrees (many, many high school/college friends), we're lazy. We're indulgent. We're afraid of starting a family.
We're expected to buy houses we can't afford***. We're expected to bring children into this world when we're not sure we'll be able to hold onto a job in the midst of a recession. And we're expected to stay with a company forever when it's more likely we'll be turned down at the interview in favor of the late-30's layoff who's moving sideways into the job from a parallel post he was fired from due to downsizing.
Oh, and let's not forget all that business about saving the planet and upholding the increasingly false notion of the American Dream that anybody can make it if you work hard and play by the rules.
The Titan's shifting, I get it.
Job market's changing irreversibly and there will be positions (not just jobs) that exist in five, ten years that are inconceivable now. Just as jobs that exist now will be unfathomable five, ten years from now.
And the battle over the Constitution and legislation that pushes us towards a more equal and free society predates us and will continue on into perpetuity as long as Americans have that sometimes alchemic, often destructive combination of voice and audience.
But stop talking about us like this is all somehow our fault.
You gave us this mess whether you believe it or not and it's the gift that just keeps on giving. And you've tasked us with cleaning it up for you.****
The least you can do, if you're not going to help with the cleanup, is at least claim your fair share of the responsibility.
Signed,
Your Friendly Myopic Twenty-Something
*just check the archives of Yahoo! Finance, the New York Times, or the actually really good BaselineScenario.com
**not hers
***Aside from the token "low-income" example in the NYT article, everyone who was surveyed was talked about as though they were layabouts either sponging off their parents' income (were single parent households mentioned at all?) or trust-fund children traveling the world on an inheritance.
****Let's not even get started about social security.
Note: And if the NYT can't be bothered to cite its sources when throwing out numbers and statistics, I guess I can't be bothered either.