I am so sick of seeing major magazines and blogs publishing articles about how millennials are lazy and self obsessed, titling us the “selfie generation”. The authors are preaching as if they’re perfect in every single way possible. Older adults act as if we sit at home all the time doing nothing of importance to them, like we spend all summer sitting in front of a computer or tablet screen on social networking sites. In reality, that is the opposite of what happens. For example, I volunteered from the time I was 13 until I was 16 and got my first paying job at my state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. I may be an anomaly, but I am still an example. I am in my second year of working at the same minimum wage job, and I see many more peers working at the same employer for their last two years of high school and in many cases through college.
Also if you want to pull the “graduation rates are lower and less kids are going to college than when I was your age” card, here are some statistics on that. According to multiple sources, 81% of high school students in the class of 2012 graduated, which is an all time high. About 66.2% of 2012 graduates would go to attend college the fall after graduation, with a higher percentage of females attending. Keep in mind this is happening while the cost of college has risen 400% from 1982 to 2007.
According to Bloomberg, tuition and fees have increased 1,120% since records began in 1978. With this, kids in my generation won’t be paying off our loans until we’re 35. When the authors of these articles were in college, they could easily work their way through college, but since inflation of college prices has skyrocketed there isn’t a chance in hell for us. Until people take the blame for their mistakes, my generation will have the burden of past generations’ mistakes on our shoulders. And everyone is wondering why we aren’t having kids when a kid can cost as much as a house that we will never be able to afford. But I guess that’s a problem for another day.
ainslianity 