I have always cringed when folks would beat up on the younger generations. It's axiomatic that older generations can't believe what a bunch of slackers the youngsters are these days. There have been various quotes made in the times of classical Greece, that may as well have been written today, about how the younger generation is disrespectful, spoiled, etc.
I have some insight into this because during my time in the Navy Reserves, and during my days in Law School, I interact with a lot of 20-somethings and I can only say, hands-down, they're an awesome generation that deserves our respect.
When folks complained that the younger generation was spoiled and entitled, I don't think it was true or fair during my day and I sure don't think it's true, now. Yes, our kids have advantages we could only have dreamed of. But we had advantages our parents didn't have. I didn't grow up during the Great Depression and neither did my Dad.
HOWEVER, that's just one side of the coin. My father's generation had advantages that were long gone by the time my generation rolled around, and those advantages are only to be found in history books for today's generation.
Let's look at what life was like for my grandfather's generation. My grandfather was a fantastic guy. Bright, athletic, hard-working, good-looking. Should have been a success in any era. During his era, he was. Bought a spacious house in the suburbs, raised a family of five kids and departed this world leaving a modest estate that, combined with social security, allowed his widow to live independently for decades after.
He worked in the chemical labs at Goodyear and to this day, you can google "Strebler Adhesion Test" and pull up proof of one of the tests that defined his life's work. Though far from wealthy, he was an accomplished, respected man for his day and age.
He got a job at General Tire during the Great Depression because the company baseball team needed a pitcher. Because it was legal to discriminate against black people, he was able to move ahead of a sizeable chunk of the population, too. The military services wouldn't be intergrated for more than a decade after his career started and the civil rights act of 1964 was a quarter century away.
He also never graduated college. Never needed to. The employment environment was such that for most jobs, it simply wasn't expected or needed. You got into a company and demonstrated accomplishment and aptitude and they trained you and moved you up.
Even when I worked for the Parker Hannafin Corporation at the turn of the 21st Century, we still had a senior corporate executive who didn't have a college degree. However, he was the very last one. That opportunity simply didn't exist in very many places once my Dad's generation started graduating High School.
People like to beat up these kids for going into college before they knew what the heck they should be studying. Then, they beat them up for graduating six-figures in debt. What happened? The world changed. These kids know that the jobs for those with a high school diploma are few and far-between, plus they're usually pretty crappy with little potential for advancement.
In my grandfather's day, you could graduate high school, get a job at a factory (at least towards the end of the depression and beyond... obviously, the depths of the depression were different), marry your sweetheart and start a family by the time you were in your early 20s.
I shudder to think of the likely outcomes for kids who try that today. So, they go to school, because they know that's the general direction their lives need to take if they ever hope to live out on their own.
Also, let's look at the fact that grandpa did this all with a one-income household. Yes, that was a crappy deal if you were a career-minded woman. But it was a hell of a deal if you were a guy who wanted a stay-at-home wife, and it was an awesome deal if you wanted to be a stay-at-home wife. (And in this modern day and age, there are a LOT OF WOMEN who would like to be stay at homes, but the reality of our times says that's just not accesssible for the vast majority of us.)
By the time my Dad graduated High School, factory jobs were plentiful. If there was a factory in your town, it was always hiring. Why? Talk to HR professionals of that day and they'll tell you: even with protective union work rules, they were constantly churning employees. Firing them for cause or the employees would quit.
So... how superior were previous generations? I mean, you only need to do some cursory study of the labor environment in the 60s and 70s to know that workers back then were all-too-frequently unreliable, did shoddy work and shut down the plant with a strike on a frequent basis.
Now, not saying they were bad, just saying they might not want to break their arms patting themselves on the back too hard for how much better they were than today's young people.
My Dad's generation could work at the factory, attend night school (frequently with the company picking up the entire tab) and once they got a BA, their future was set. Only a little more than 10% of the workforce had a bachelor's degree. If you didn't, a career in middle management, or even in a few instances, a career as an executive was well within your grasp.
Today? Again, think of the prospects for a young person without a degree. In my father's generation, it was a nicety and it really differentiated you. These days, without one, you're screwed. You might luck into a good job, but you'll really have to beat the odds to find one, then you'll really need to beat the odds to keep it.
My generation was somewhere in-between. We were pretty well aware that if we wanted to work in an office, we needed a degree. We were also among the first to deal with the reality that managers had to have MBAs. The good factory jobs were already disappearing when I graduated High School in the early 80s. Those who went that route probably did well for a few years, but for the most part, very few made it to this point without having to deal with several layoffs, and maybe a few plant closings and changes of employer in the mean time.
Not only has education become a necessity, versus being a luxury, but the cost of it is astronomically higher now than it was when we were young.
The numbers are easy enough to look up, but let me put it in human terms. During my grandfather's day, if you weren't wealthy enough to go to college straight out of High School (and few were), chances are, you never did. It just didn't matter that much. You could work your way into management and a director or executive level position was always within your grasp.
My father's generation? They could do something called "working your way through college." I remember a couple of years after I finished my bachelor's degree, saying to my Dad, "you know, kids today can't work their way through school."
For my father's generation, it was not uncommon at all to see people who worked their 40 hour a week job (and yes, back then, it really was 40 hours a week... not 50, not 60... more on that later...) They'd leave work, go to school, and finish their degrees at night. If they worked for a big enough company, their company paid for it, too.
However, even with folks who didn't have that sort of setup, every factory worker could tell you about the person or people who worked during the day (or night), doing something like building tires, and then finishing a bachelor's degree in their off-time.
The reality was, during my father's day, it really wasn't that hard to find a job that paid enough that you could sustain yourself, modestly, and also pay for the entire cost of college. Student loans, at the time, were absolutely unheard of. I'm not even sure they existed as a concept.
By the time I graduated High School, it could still be done, but wow, you had to be lucky. It was also becoming increasingly difficult to get through if you weren't getting tuition reimbursement.
Now? Seriously? What High School kid can find a job that pays not only enough that they can live on their own, but also pays enough to cover the cost of tuition? In-state tuition in Ohio, for instance, is about ten grand a year. Most High School grads would be lucky to find a job that paid enough for them to pay their car insurance.
Now, back to work-weeks. My grandfather worked 40 hours a week. Not a minute more. Yours probably did, too. By the time my father's generation came around, the standards was that if you wanted a promotion, you should probably put in an extra hour or two every day.
By the time my generation hit the ground, if you wanted to advance, you really needed to put in a couple extra hours a day and a half day on Saturday. 40 hour work weeks were for people who wanted to be fired.
All of these trends are continuing for the current generation. Grandpa did 40 hours a week and got promotions and job security. Dad did 46 hours a week and got promotions and job security. I did 55 hours a week and got promotions and maybe some job security. Kids today? Probably doing 55 hours a week, but without enhanced promotion opportunity and with NO job security.
Folks wonder why these kids sometimes cop an attitude about their jobs? Well... hell... why wouldn't they. It's unprecedented that employers would ask so much of employees and guarantee so little in return. If they squawk every now and then, that doesn't tell me that they're spoiled and entitled. It tells me they're normal and probably a little worn out.
My father's generation would chain themselves to their desks because they knew it would eventually lead to the executive suite. My generation chained ourselves to our desks because we hoped it might lead to middle management. This generation? Employers expect them to chain themselves to their desks and just be happy they have desks. That might be reality, but it sure isn't pleasant.
As a final note, young kids today really don't remember a lot about the years before we were fighting two wars in a god-forsaken corner of the world. Yes, my Dad's generation had Vietnam. My grandfather's generation had World War II. However, my generation had nothing of the sort.
These kids are taking responsibility for themselves and the entire country and if you ask me, for the entire free world. (Most other countries are perfectly content to mooch off of the contributions of our military, all the while bitching about US foreign policy and force projection overseas. Yes, these young kids are saving their worthless whiney asses, too!)
So, I don't see anything wrong with this generation. I really don't. previous generations, through carelessness or perhaps simply ignorance, raped the world's resources, pillaged the global economy and left things in a shambles. We aren't doing nearly enough help to this younger generation. Basically, the greatest generation built a better world for their kids. Boomers made the world great for themselves. My generation? Honest to god, it's all I can do to try not to be a burden on the next generation. These kids? They're basically on their own.
When folks didn't have jobs when I graduated High School, it's because they were lazy and didn't want to work. However, these days, these kids are six figures in debt, with no jobs to be had. Best of all? Our government (bought and paid for by the scumbags on Wall Street) made sure that they couldn't discharge their student loan debt in bankruptcy. We didn't have to deal with that. That's completely unprecedented and a burden no previous generation has ever had to face.
They've got their challenges and there are a lot of ways their lives are a lot easier than mine was when I was young. But in a lot of ways, it's harder, too. I think they're doing a damned good job all things considered.
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