Helicopter Parents

I think I'd still prefer the standoffishness parents than the kind that are always in my shit.

Since the New York Times never gets tired of running "Kids these days!" stories, I geared myself up for yet another one when I saw the headline "Students, Welcome to College; Parents, Go Home." But this time it was a twist on the usual narrative. Instead, we got a "Parents these days!" article. The article comically addresses the various ways that universities have tried to convince overly clingy parents to leave when they drop their kids off at college, but for once, the kids themselves are portrayed sympathetically.

Most articles I've seen in the past couple of years about "helicopter parents" address the anxious parents of very small children trying to get their kids into the best kindergartens and making sure that their coloring books get them diagnosed as geniuses. Boy, those kids aged faster than the kids on a soap opera, because now we have an article about parents of children 12 or 13 years older. But for all the hyperbole, the writer Trip Gabriel actually paints a touching picture of parents who've just spent the past 18 years making their offspring the center of the lives and now, having to set their cubs free, they don't know what to do with themselves. And so they find excuses to linger, even as the kids are eager to get on with it.

Sympathy for the Little Devils

I've watched very motivated, intelligent, college educated Gen Y'ers come into my company over the last 3 years and get stuck with some really entry level jobs. Basically we have the most overqualified customer service dept I've ever known about. And they're the lucky ones in their early 20's.

When I first read this article in the NY Times Magazine about how 20-somethings are delaying the supposed markers of adulthood---marriage, kids, financial independence---longer than they had in the past, I thought that the main flaw of it was that it didn’t address why financial independence was so hard to achieve. By casting the entire situation as a matter of desire and choice, the author missed the big picture, which is that people delay adulthood because the ability to be an adult requires a certain amount of privilege increasingly unavailable to young people. I tweeted about it at the time, noting the answer to the question, “Why don’t people grow up faster?” is incredibly, stupidly simple---because they are no longer any jobs for people in their early 20s that provide the means to be a full adult. Full stop. I don’t mean that entry level jobs only pay enough for a small apartment or a simple lifestyle. Often, they don’t pay enough to cover the rent on that small apartment---if they can find those jobs in the first place---and that’s why people move back in with their parents.

Which is why I saw red when I read this smarmy, self-righteous screed from some Baby Boomer. It’s a classic example of being born on third and thinking you hit a triple. She assumes that her ability to pay rent with her first job out of college is strictly because she’s so much more fucking awesome than you spoiled kids these days, and her parents were so much more responsible than the softies of today. For a millisecond, she ponders the possibility that things have changed because of financial constraints, but then dismisses that possibility with a handwave. It’s so much more fun to be self-righteous! It’s way more fun to wag your finger at young people and tell them how you lived on Ramen and beans to afford your apartment, never pausing for a moment to wonder if those kids might not be able to afford that apartment even if they lived on dog food.

How do we get mashed together with baby boomers?

Don’t bother me kid. Gen X began surfing the Internet when you were just a batch of vanilla tadpoles in your dad’s testicles.

WHAT is it with today's baby boomers and Generation X and their scepticism of the phenomenon that is the internet - as though it is some kind of extraterrestrial creature that has arrived uninvited in their world with a view to taking their place as the central source of information for their children, or Gen Y as we have come to know them?

Actually azzhole, we're not too picky where we work now.

Easy to tell when an article is written by a baby boomer.

As my story Friday detailed, there has been much concern over a shrinking talent pool within Gen X to replace the baby-boomer generation of city managers.

But the generational problems in the talent pool don't stop with Gen Xers. Generation Y has even less interest in serving their communities through local governments.

Service-mined members of Generation Y would rather work in the profit sector, said Frank Benest, a retired city manager who works with the International City/County Management Association on solutions to the problem.

Gen Y is weird

Oh well, more cars for me then.

Ford Motor Co. sees the trend as well, which is why it has introduced features such as Sync in its cars. "I don't think the car symbolizes freedom to Gen Y to the extent it did baby boomers, or to a lesser extent, Gen X-ers," said Sheryl Connelly, global trends and futuring manager. "Part of it is that there are a lot more toys out there competing for the hard-earned dollars of older teens and young adults."

"The Pukiest, Poopiest, Sexiest Spring Formal Ever"

I've been looking for a place to attend grad school.

On April 9, 2010, Miami University's Pi Beta Phi fraternity for women held a spring formal at the quaint Lake Lyndsay Lodge in Hamilton, Ohio. The sloppy, slutty details of what transpired that boozy enchanted evening are tremendous.

They're still better than the boomers

Which actually doesn't say a lot.

Gen Y workers get a bad rap in the workplace, with many a geezer complaining that their work ethic is less developed than their sense of entitlement. But is that really fair?

Yes, according to new research that’s yielded actual data to back up that notion.

In a series of studies using surveys that measure psychological entitlement and narcissism, University of New Hampshire management professor Paul Harvey found that Gen Y respondents scored 25 percent higher than respondents ages 40 to 60 and a whopping 50 percent higher than those over 61.

Long ass day.

And because I'm pissy here's some annoying hipsters:

Against my better judgement...

....I made a decision earlier that whatever my Gen Y work buddy had playing on his iPod I'd post on my site tonight.

His answer: Drake

I don't know what song he was playing, but after seeing this video I knew I had to use it.



Way too clubby for moi, but I'm applying for the assistant coach job for his team.

A quick, obvious answer to Gen Y question

Paris Hilton. Next question.

It really makes me wonder who is going to be the voice of “Generation Y.”

I'm too lazy to argue with them

Very upsetting how Gen Y view themselves as more lazy than us. I've worked hard at doing very little and now they're taking away our title.

I am still mining a lengthy Pew Research Center report on the millennial generation -- those now mostly in their 20s -- especially a finding that says millennials are the first generation not to cite work ethic as one of their top defining characteristics. I am working on a story that will feature older employers and young people trading their observations about these conclusions, but I need your help: Which companies or industries in the Washington region should I be reaching out to?

The Pew report shows how generations regard themselves. For instance, what were the top five things that millennials felt made them "unique?" According to the report, 24 percent said technology; 11 percent noted the music and pop culture they grew up on; seven percent pointed to their liberal politics and "tolerance" of others; four percent said they were "smarter"; and five percent picked out fashion. For comparison, here are the top five defining qualities Generation X-ers picked out for themselves: Technology, work ethic, conservative or traditional values; their superior intellect; and being respectful.

Gen Y = Gen X?

Well, no. But it makes me happy to know they've become cynical. Because I'm not happy unless they're not happy!

In a scientific analysis of nearly a half-million high-school seniors spread over three decades, MSU’s Brent Donnellan and Kali Trzesniewski of the University of Western Ontario argue teens today are no more egotistical — and just as happy and satisfied — as previous generations.

“We concluded that, more often than not, kids these days are about the same as they were back in the mid-1970s,” said Donnellan, associate professor of psychology.

A non-douchey Millenial? No way?

So kind of him to slum for us.

At 24, Roland Pemberton is a generation Y kind of guy. So does that make him ahead of his time, or behind it, by defending Generation X in CBC's annual book battle?

Edmonton's poet laureate, a hiphop artist known professionally as Cadence Weapon, says Douglas Coupland's iconic novel speaks to every generation, and that's why he chose it for Canada Reads 2010.

Dear MTV, it seems like you managed to piss off all Xsters

Not that MTV cares but it'd be just swell if there ever comes a day when they ask for our viewership back and we tell them to jam a badger up their ass.

And I really can't wait for the Jersey Shore 'actors' to show up on a Where are they now? show as a bunch of fat, bald, 11-time pregnant, Walmart stock room employees.

MTV Networks president Van Toffler reportedly said as much, though more poetically, at a Hollywood Radio & Television Society luncheon earlier this week. The future — and evidently the future of advertising is with millennials.

Not that that’s a surprise to anyone. It’s always out with the aging, in with the new, and it’s up to last year’s (or generation’s) model to reinvent itself. As a proud Gen Xer I’m struggling with the idea that my 20th high school reunion is rapidly approaching. But while we post-Boomers are making our peace with gray hair, anti-aging/acne prevention, and being old enough (biologically, anyway) to have kids who could shop at Urban Outfitters, we’re not exactly down for the count yet.

Gen X knows when we're not wanted

This really isn't a secret. MTV made it clear a decade ago they don't want our viewership even though we're the ones responsible for their success. But since they're assholes about it, based on principles alone, I'll avoid purchasing anything their sponsors pimp.

Tidbit from the HRTS rubber-chicken luncheon over in sterile Century City: MTV Networks president Van Toffler reiterated the network's devotion to millennials (a.k.a Generation Y), but also made it clear that Generation X shouldn't let the door hit them on the way out.

"We're pushing Generation X out," Toffler said. "We're slaves to our different audiences, for MTV that's millennials, who are vastly different than Generation X; they're definitely less cynical -- they're more civic minded."

What the kiddies listen to

I think this sounds weak, but I don't think it sucks. Perhaps hope still may exist for Gen Y offering some creativity.

This article may be a little late.......

...because Gen Y has been getting their house-of-cards-confidence kicked out of them.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky, aging Gen-Xer, whatever happened to taking pride in not doing your job? These kids today, with their optimism and ambition, make me sick. As journalist Katrina Onstad noted in a May 2009 Toronto Life article about the surfeit of confidence Millennials have exuded during the economic downturn, "Generation X's expectations out of university ranged from low to zilch, and we were right, met by an early '90s recession and several years of humbling McJobs."

The Geeks shall inherit the Earth

Ha! The youngin's don't even know how to "copy and paste".

Tech savvy is one of the most frequently used terms to describe Gen Y, but
according to a recent Wells Fargo survey, Gen X is actually more tech savvy than Gen Y.

I hate award shows. Especially the one ESPN hosts.

For some reason Kanye West is being called out as though he represents all that is Gen X entertainment.

The 2010 Grammys will probably show that Taylor Swift and her generation are making over American music as triumphantly as they did politics with the election of President Obama.

Disregard what I said in my previous post. I hate Gen Y as much as the boomers again.

Has 'Stockholm Syndrome' set in?

When I began this site I had as much disdain for Gen Y as I did the baby boomers. Somewhere I've gained a grain of sympathy for them since they're getting the hose by the Woodstockers as badly as Gen X.

Australia faces a generational lifestyle crash with the children of Baby Boomers on track to earn about $16,000 a year less than their parents when they hit their 50s and 60s.