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Article: What's Causing Our Millennials to Fail at Becoming Adults?


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2014 Mar 2, 10:52pm   35,077 views  74 comments

by Rin   ➕follow (8)   💰tip   ignore  

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/career/students/gen-y/whats-causing-our-millennials-fail-becoming-adults?page=1

Excerpt:

--- "Even as economic conditions have improved for some in the population, young people are worse off today than they were 20 years ago," says study co-author Warren Sanderson, an IIASA scholar and professor of economics and history at SUNY Stony Brook.

Failure to thrive syndrome "is most prevalent among those with the least education," says the study, while noting that a college education also doesn't ensure immunity from the syndrome.

This would be the case for 27-year-old Brian. Though he has a bachelor's degree in aviation management, he lives at home with his parents while trying to pay off $230,000 he accrued in student loans. ---

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1   Rin   2014 Mar 2, 11:12pm  

I read the following in this article:

Even though Steve would like to get married and have kids in the not-so-distant future, he feels he will never be able to afford it due to $140,000 in student loan debt (which started as $60,000 but skyrocketed with fees and capitalized interest over the past several years). "My degree hasn't helped me in the slightest to get any reasonably well-paying job, nor was it needed to get the non-union labor and minimum-wage retail jobs I've had to work since graduating," says Steve, who has a degree in media arts and is trying to get his photography business off the ground. "I don't go out to socialize or date because either I can't afford it or I'm embarrassed that I still live with my parents."

---

And all I can think about is the big open lie ... which is public knowledge at this point in time. A college degree, for the most part, simply tells an office that you're *white collar*, in terms of social class. It has almost nothing to do with actual job tasks. Thus, getting a BA in Media Arts, without let's say interning as a graphics designer or as a still photographer for a magazine, equals NO parachute upon graduation. I think ppl knew this, all the way back in the 80s.

Many eons ago, my family, friends, and relatives told me of these facts. And thus, I'd volunteered during frosh summer, I'd gotten CO-OPs/internships during sophomore & junior years, etc, with the idea that I'd have a full resume upon graduation. And then, even 9 mos to a year before graduation, I was contacting recruiters, etc, to be able to have 2nd interviews and possibly offers, lined up before putting on the cap & gown.

Yet, I'm hearing this sort of backwards thinking, coming out of these Yers and that's that college = white collar job placement.

2   Rin   2014 Mar 2, 11:16pm  

Rin says

This would be the case for 27-year-old Brian. Though he has a bachelor's degree in aviation management, he lives at home with his parents while trying to pay off $230,000 he accrued in student loans.

And in this kid's situation, why didn't he apply for the Air Force, if he wanted to get into aviation?

What caused him to borrow up to $200K, for something outside of let's say medical school?

And then, he could have taken economics, via distance learning from Univ of Maryland.

3   Rin   2014 Mar 2, 11:40pm  

jojo says

But the bigger question is why is the educational system like this? Why can't he just declare bankruptcy and get on with his life?

The thing is that everyone knows that the banks have made student loans, non-admissible in bankruptcy court over the decades. So while this isn't a good thing, it's widely known but yet, kids are borrowing in excess for something which everyone knows, is simply a sticker which says 'Office Worker'.

I mean kids today, could become automotive technicians or apprentice electricians, straight out of HS (or GED if they're self-studiers) instead of attending college. And then, sure, take a few courses and perhaps, transition into an office role once the final BA is awarded in let's say 8 years of part-time studies.

4   zzyzzx   2014 Mar 2, 11:41pm  

It's all Obama's fault!!!

5   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2014 Mar 2, 11:58pm  

They have given up on life, because every time they excelled in School, some hairy legged lesbian teacher took their accolades from them and gave them too some baggy pant thug, to make him feel better about him self, for jacking the kid who made the grade's lunch money.

6   New Renter   2014 Mar 3, 12:08am  

CaptainShuddup says

They have given up on life, because every time they excelled in School, some hairy legged lesbian teacher took their accolades from them and gave them too some baggy pant thug, to make him feel better about him self, for jacking the kid who made the grade's lunch money.

You had a rough time in school didn't you?

7   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 12:10am  

jojo says

Rin says

parents while trying to pay off $230,000 he accrued in student loans

The parents should be put in jail for allowing this to happen...

The Millennials are a victim of the environment they were raised in. The majority of the issues they are experiencing are the fault of bad parenting skills of their parents....

I don't get it; it's not like my parents told me exactly what to do in life. The advice was basically, study something practical and get a job. And then, when I asked other adults, what percentage of their college know-how was used on the job, many said less than 10%. The ppl who tended to use more were academics. My parents didn't even furnish me with that bit of info, I had to find it on my own.

I wanted to be on my own, starting at 17. I didn't like debt and for the most part, back in those days, borrowing more than $50K for college was not something I'd wanted, as an albatross, upon graduation. So through hard work, I got scholarships and graduated with $1K of loans to payoff, which I did immediately.

If the above wasn't available to me, I would have tried a military route.

8   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 12:39am  

jojo says

Rin says

I don't get it; it's not like my parents told me exactly what to do in life. The advice was basically, study something practical and get a job.

Yes, you are right. The difference is to get that job did not require tens of thousands in debt. So you were free to make mistakes and start over. These kids can't make mistakes. Because if they do they are banished to the basement forever as your article points out.

Yes, however, I think a slew millennials don't seem to understand what the expression ... *making one's own way* means.

The last time I was in IT consulting, now several years ago, I was assigned a millenial, who thought he was innovative, creative, a great programmer, etc, etc. At best, all he ever did was put up web design demos but then complained, that folks were giving him QA tasks and not true coding assignments. I told him clearly that if he really loved coding, that nothing could stop him. I tried to get him to redesign, recode, and port a patch up-upgrade software tool from a unix shell env into a Winsocket, distributed env, so that upgrades could be applied, enterprise wide, from a Windows Remote Desktop in the lab.

Well, he completely decided not to do his job, came up with endless excuses, and instead, posted his hiking stuff on the company intranet. Anyways, he was laid off in one of the rounds. The last I'd heard, he's still in QA and hasn't done a programming assignment in years, despite having good friends at Google.

9   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 12:45am  

jojo says

Rin says

Yes, however, I think a slew millennials don't seem to understand what the expression ... making one's own way means.

I do agree with you on this, up to a point. But let's circle back to:

Complaining About The Generation You Made

http://www.chicagonow.com/lists-that-actually-matter/2013/06/7-reasons-baby-boomers-are-the-worst-generation/#image/5

So do we have a pecking order here ...

WWII and GenX are ok, but Baby Boomers and Millennials are lazy & inept?

10   New Renter   2014 Mar 3, 1:00am  

jojo says

You might be on to something...

Awesomeness and suckiness alternates generations?

11   HydroCabron   2014 Mar 3, 1:15am  

The "Greatest Generation" sucked ass, too. They escaped scrutiny because they spent their entire adult lives in an expanding economy, where one would have to be a doofus not to succeed, so most of them did.

They then spent their old age acting superior to everyone else, as Tom Brokaw sucked up to them.

12   Ceffer   2014 Mar 3, 1:42am  

Welcome to Darwin spoiled nestlings.

Better pucker your trout pout lips and kiss the veiny, wrinkled blue ass of your elders or eat shit forever.

13   Shaman   2014 Mar 3, 1:53am  

Meaningful work makes for responsible adults. Offshore all of that work right before the next generation is about to start and your kids won't have meaningful work. They'll have meaningless low paid work if they have work at all. Still, many younger people are trying hard to create their own businesses, retrain for other fields that still have jobs, and be productive. It's not their fault that they bought the lie they were being sold that college would get them a good job, and that student loan debt didn't matter much. I'm not exactly a dullard, but I was young and callow and woefully uninformed/misinformed once. Why do we expect teenagers to be responsible and discerning enough to see through the lies and salesmanship of guidance counselors, university promotion machines, and financial institutions all begging to be the one who sells them their first loan?
It's unconscionable, and the one-two punch of debt plus offshored jobs makes it criminal.

14   HEY YOU   2014 Mar 3, 2:04am  

Fault lies with everyone else. I'm not responsible for any of my decisions whether I'm 18 or 68. Just because I'm shallow minded & believe all propaganda (you should do this,you should do that) doesn't mean I should suffer any consequences for my actions & I shouldn't have to think for myself. If you need me.
I'll be TEXTING.

15   FortWayne   2014 Mar 3, 2:14am  

They don't have trouble growing up. They have trouble with too many costs and too damn many taxes levied on them, and it isn't just them, it's everyone.

If you are wealthy you have plenty of ways to skirt taxes, but if you are middle class you are paying your share, and share for everyone skirting taxes. While politicians every year promise more and more out of pockets of middle class.

Debate it all you want, but without a thriving economy young adults, or older folks, we are all screwed. So you liberals, tell Obama to focus on economy instead of Gays, Ukraine, stray dogs, Marijuana, or whatever else liberal priorities are these days.

16   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2014 Mar 3, 3:11am  

New Renter says

You had a rough time in school didn't you?

No not at all, I had teachers that told us we could be anything we wanted to be, and never once gave us an "A" for effort.
I was lucky enough to have gone to school back when it was about education, and not political impregnation.

17   NDrLoR   2014 Mar 3, 4:32am  

jojo says

They used to be. Before 1976, all education loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy. That year, the bankruptcy code was altered so loans made by the government or a non-profit college or university could not be discharged during the first five years of repayment.

And I saw the reason for this happen. I remember watching a TV special in the mid-70's about this very thing, it showed a number of recent college graduates, Boomers all, smirking into the camera and saying essentially "I got my degree and then immediately declared bankruptcy! Ya! Ya! Ya!" as though that were the most natural thing in the world to do, turn around and rineg on a legal obligation simply because you could, an attitude that would have horrified their Greatest Generation and Silent Generation parents.

jojo says

We as a society (you and me and everyone else) decide how we will run things. The Greatest Generation knew this.

It's interesting to compare what kind of stewards those born at the beginning of the 20th century as my parents were in 1898 and 1902 and the Greatest Generation were of what they received versus those born mid-20th century. The earlier generations handed off a strong, productive economy to the up-coming generation and about all the younger generation did was plunder it for their own benefit and to hell with everyone in the future.

18   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 4:51am  

I'm also seeing the children of my sister and others around me, as completely unmotivated or uninspired.

Remember, as an Xer, growing up under the aegis of Star Wars, made me want to study the sciences & also write screenplays. Likewise, in the real world, outside of cinema, there was the 'Miracle On Ice' phenomena, which had impressed upon us, the idea that a bunch of diligent and focused American upstarts could beat both the dominant Soviet and Finnish Olympic hockey teams.

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

19   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 5:04am  

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

20   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 5:09am  

Call it Crazy says

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

Chicken!!! You need to suffer through it like we did!!!

Sorry pal, but I'm doing scientific research in my old age, not tending to some 35+ year old kids, sacking out in the living room & attempting to hack into neighbors' computers for kicks.

21   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 5:14am  

Chris Elliott was in this show, "Get A Life", back in the 90s, of a 35 year old, who's still doing the same paper route, as a 12 year old, and never grew up ...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/P-7pgeD__qU

22   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 5:20am  

Call it Crazy says

But who's going to change your Depends and clean up your drool when you're older???

There's a movie on this ...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/FAGxBbuRgqk

23   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 5:47am  

Call it Crazy says

I don't even have a basement here....

No basement? What are you going to do, if a tornado hits?

24   New Renter   2014 Mar 3, 6:22am  

Rin says

Sorry pal, but I'm doing scientific research in my old age, not tending to some 35+ year old kids, sacking out in the living room & attempting to hack into neighbors' computers for kicks.

Get into cloning and you CAN have it all!

25   Shaman   2014 Mar 3, 6:54am  

Rin says

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

Good plan. Leave it to the stupid and unmotivated to create the next generation!

26   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 8:18am  

Gen Z-ers will never understand the following ... Miracle On Ice Lake Placid 1980

http://www.youtube.com/embed/qYscemhnf88

What the above was ... from our p.o.v., is the equivalent of a bunch of high schoolers, getting together, practicing hard, playing focused at all times, and beating Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. And then, two days later, beating Magic Johnson's Lakers.

27   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 8:42am  

jojo says

Yes. I agree. Very inspirational.

So when I told that GenY lazy kid, that if he really loved coding, that nothing (or no one) could stop him, in essence, I gave him the coach Brooks challenge and that was to prove everyone wrong and make something happen in his life/career.

Well ... end result, he whined and did nothing. And even today, he's in QA and can't advance to writing code.

28   hrhjuliet   2014 Mar 3, 8:59am  

jojo says

We as a society (you and me and everyone else) decide how we will run things. The Greatest Generation knew this. It wasn't the bankers who did this. WE did this. And WE can change it.

Yes, but wait, if you really were in charge of smashing the middle-class or robbing the next two generations. How would you do it? What if it was your job to do it? Where would you start if you wanted to screw someone? Hmmm...
Well, I'd start with ruining their childhood, always a good start; ruin the foundation:
1. I would make sure the enemy grows up without any real community and let the TV raise them while they eat crap food and stare slack jaw at the screen.
2. Destroy their family life. Make sure the parents both work late hours and hopefully divorce. Divorce really screws with kids. Better yet, step parents. They should feel no real connections to anyone. Isolation is key on destroying a person.
3. Encourage them to go to stressful and competitive universities for years. Make sure that all that stress was actually for nil. The degree will not get them a job. Ha, ha, ha.
4. Once in the job market (Now this is where we can really do our work) No benefits for our little work slaves. We don't need some whiny advocate for health benefits, safe work spaces and retirement. Kill the unions. Also, if we want them to really be stressed we need to make them feel absolutely no sense of job permanence. We need hopeless and depressed work slaves. We will create slogans and propaganda that drill into every worker that all abuse is fair game in business. Business is above morality, or even God. Yes! Business has no heart, they will be our bees, we are Queen! This is awesome.
5. Make shelter so high that their entire wage after groceries and taxes goes to rent or a mortgage. That's what they do in China. It's not slavery you see if you pay the worker, just make sure that rice bowl and closet they live in costs exactly the wage we give them. Then I will be a job maker, and not a slave owner! Cool. Oh, I am good at this oppressive thing. Let me see, my home cost twice my income, the workers should be, I don't know ten times as much? They should take out loans, from me of course.
6. Make it impossible to build a home. We should create a department that taxes our enemy every time they change anything on their home. We can't have them building their own stuff. We will claim that the thousands we collect are for their own safety. Oh, my gosh I am good at this.
7. No benefits and no pensions should be the norm. There must be some way to turnover that silly law about overtime and work safety. How is a valient job maker like myself supposed to survive with red tape like this?
8. Tax the heck out of them, just make sure my group doesn't get taxed too much. We are above that, we are job makers. Snicker, Snicket.
9. We really need to take spouses off the medical free lunch. We can't have them staying home or running their own business. See step 1#. Better yet, take the little free loading children off of medical. The only person who needs to stay healthy is my little worker bee.
10. Make all necessities expensive as heck, and all wants/desires cheap as heck.
11. Take away any form of retaliation. No more allowing protests. No free speech and no petitioning for a redress of grievances. We need police kicking the whiny worker bees in the teeth. No weapons for our workers, only we have the weapons.
12. Should keep tabs on them. No privacy. Privacy is a luxury for the deserving, meaning: ME!
13. We should create an act that takes away their right to a fair trial. Make sure taxes and laws are far too complicated for anyone to understand, and then just do what we please. No one will know if it's illegal or not!
14. They should spend at least two hours in their car each day, hopefully listening to some of my propaganda.

Oh there must be more we could do to screw this generation over and make them feel hopeless. I know I am missing a few things. Any ideas? There has to be a way to demoralize this generation further? If you are going to accomplish something, one must be thorough. Help me out, I am tired today and can't think. My maid was sick, my nail appointment was canceled, my golfing buddies are busy with landlord duties, my pension is late, my stay at home spouse is upset because Pilates was canceled (stupid teacher had sick kids, selfish lazy generation x as usual) and my cruise was postponed because of some lazy union people striking, again.

29   Entitlemented   2014 Mar 3, 9:34am  

Hint: Marijuana is more popular than Tomatoes, Broccolli and even Mangos............

30   hrhjuliet   2014 Mar 3, 10:12am  

I completly agree Jojo! At the very least, we can make choices that help the next generation. Everyone believed that the generation of the Enlightenment Age could never accomplish any of the goals they set, but they did. There were plenty of people during the time of the constitutional framers that believed the people of the revolution to be crazy dreamers. They thought the framers lived in a fantasy world if they believed they could create a democratic republic. They created the impossible, and we are their inheritors, and I believe we can create something just as "impossible" or at the very least, we could become the generation to clean up the mess and restore the republic.

31   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 10:45am  

jojo says

I gave him the coach Brooks challenge and that was to prove everyone wrong and make something happen in his life/career.

Well ... end result, he whined and did nothing. And even today, he's in QA and can't advance to writing code.

It is admirable that you tried to help him. Once of the big problems that i see is Gen Y is terrified of failure and embarrassment. That may explain part of his reluctance to try.

I think it's a little more than that.

In essence, I gave a simple assignment ... basically, convert an *apply patch* shell script, into a more robust windows console app, using Java, Python, or C#. It was his choice on how he did it.

What I think he was most afraid of, is that at best, he'd basically do the equivalent of a code conversion tool, like awk to C, and that would show to others that he's got no creative potential in the area of computer programming.

Realize, he's a dreamer a/o pretender. He likes to show off Web demos and other widgets, but doesn't like to delve further, as it would either one, expose his lack of knowledge, or two, show that he can't innovate out of a box.

32   Rin   2014 Mar 3, 11:02am  

jojo says

Agreed, his strategy is to not fail by not trying. He probably learned this from dealing with his helicopter parents.

In fact, although he's still got a QA job, even today, he's boomerang-ed back to his parent's house. He says that it's to save money but I have a sneaky suspicion that some of his other semi-professional former housemates, have outgrown living around a permanent kid and he doesn't fit in with ppl in their late 20s & thus, has to go back to the nest to belong. Basically, he's 18 for life, despite turning ~28.

33   Blurtman   2014 Mar 3, 11:17pm  

Do we really need, intentionally or unintentionally, to ramp up a system of selecting the best competitors, erecting a system that weeds out more and more people? Or furthers the unlevel playing field in the USA? To what end?

34   justme   2014 Mar 3, 11:28pm  

What appears to be lacking from this thread is a reasonable discussion of what "to fail at becoming adults" means.

The original article states

"studies suggest millennials are having a harder time becoming self-sufficient than any other generation in recent history"

"More are still living at home with their parents and unable to get long-term, full-time employment."

Those are some possible definitions, I would agree. But what is the reason for the inability to get long-term, full-time employment? Is it not to a large extent that THERE ARE NO JOBS AVAILABLE due to the great recession of 2008? The serial boom/busts cycles caused by the bubble-blowing of the Federal Reserve is not exactly a well-kept secret anymore.

35   New Renter   2014 Mar 4, 12:55am  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

ASSHOLES! failed to swim to China to get a job! Whining fucks! don't deserve all the Free food they pull from the dumpster!

Flash back to 20 years ago or so with Chinese and Indian versions of AF berating their local unemployed graduates:

ASSHOLES! failed to swim to America to get a job! Whining fucks! don't deserve all the Free food they pull from the mouths of dumpster rats!

36   NDrLoR   2014 Mar 4, 1:17am  

justme says

THERE ARE NO JOBS AVAILABLE

What a concept! It's always presented that people who loose their jobs or can't find a job are doing something wrong when in fact the fault is not theirs. It would be like saying all the people in those lines in the black and white photos of 1931-1933 are just a bunch of lazy loafers who aren't doing enough to get a job.

37   Rin   2014 Mar 4, 1:42am  

Quigley says

Rin says

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

Good plan. Leave it to the stupid and unmotivated to create the next generation!

BTW, even President John Adams had disowned his alcoholic son, Charles ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Adams_%281770%E2%80%931800%29

Thus, one can have a productive life and not be saddled with lazy Gen Z-ers.

38   Shaman   2014 Mar 4, 2:55am  

Genetics plays a major role in determining intelligence and personality traits. But the kids get genes from both parents, so if you want smart, capable children, marry a smart capable spouse. I did, and while living with such a woman isn't always easy, our three kids are amazing, and totally worth the hassle. The fact that she and they are also beautiful is just a bonus. I wouldn't have picked a woman simply for her looks.

39   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2014 Mar 4, 3:36am  

Then how do you explain smart people who were raised by third world immigrants with only a 6th grade education education, they got back home in the missionary school?

Either raised by these people as a parent that managed to get here and have kids, or are the Nanny for people who are well off. But never home enough to say they raised the kid.

40   Rin   2014 Mar 4, 3:43am  

BTW, Ben Franklin had also disowned his Tory/Loyalist son.

If the founding fathers can do it, then why can't we?

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