Millennials

Millennials

    It is said that one should only write about what one knows but if that were the case it would stifle imagination and we'd have no Harry Potter or Star Trek; so I have to assume that the premise was meant to apply only to matters of nonfiction or perhaps life in general.  No matter, those of you reading this should know that I am likely the farthest thing from being mistaken for a millennial and for those of you who are millennials (likely a name you hate as much as people my age hated the name "boomers"), my advance apologies...but here's what the big data folk who crunch all the numbers and research have to say about all of this fuss.  Millennials --those generally defined as those 18 to 35-- are now the largest portion of the US. population and workforce, even holding 20% of management jobs (although they tend to stay in the same job for an average of just 3 years); they also hold more college degrees than previous generations, live with their parents longer, carry a higher debt load (primarily student loans), smoke cigarettes far less, exercise more, expect to reach their nineties, save more for both retirement and savings, and generally have a dim expectation that any sort of pension or Social Security will be waiting for them at the end of their long work road (put another way, they expect to work until at least age 70).  Those are the differences from other generations say the researchers.*  To the world of their boomer cohorts this millennial generation can sometimes appears to be a work group that is self-centered and has no loyalty to a company, or one that wants things handed to them and thinks that wealth will appear with no worries.  But jumping again to the data crunchers, they report that when compared side by side the millennials are fairly similar to boomers, at least in spending habits; said a quick piece in Fortune, spending by boomers back in their day was about 101% of their earnings while millennials now spend about 91% of their earnings, 9% was spent on cars back then while 7% is spent on cars now, and 58% was spent on rent in those days while 69% is spent now.  One of the noticeable differences was in that of reading materials, the boomers spending 9% less than the average person back then while millennials now spend 27% less (the statistics don't disclose if electronic reading is included in their polling).

    Another report came from TIME on millennials who are now parents: Until now, members of the millennial generation—those 20- and 30-somethings born from the late ’70s to the late ’90s—have mostly been busy following themselves.  Helicopter-parented, trophy-saturated and abundantly friended, they’ve been hailed by loved ones as “special snowflakes” and cast as the self-centered children of the cosseting boomers who raised them.  Now millennials have a new challenge that has shifted their focus: raising kids of their own...Millennial parents number more than 22 million in the U.S., with about 9,000 babies born to them each day.  This growing cohort of parents is digitally native, ethnically diverse, late-marrying and less bound by traditional gender roles than any generation before it...At the same time, these young adults, having been raised to count individuality and self-expression as the highest values, are attempting to run their families as mini-democracies, seeking consensus from spouses, kids and extended friend circles on even the smallest decisions They’re backing away from the overscheduled days of their youth, preferring a more responsive, less directorial approach to activities...As parents, millennials are still marked by their optimism.  They still have faith in progress, equality and Google.  And they continue to build vast archives of selfies.  Now the rising question for this generation is, How will their beliefs, habits and preoccupations shape the lives of their children?

    So there's that side as crunched by the bean counters.  Here's another.  The other night we were invited to a friend's party...he was turning 30 (we had known his wife since she was a child).  Lots of millennials there, begging the question of what were we doing there (as a consolation, his parents were also there), but here's what I saw.  Lots of bright young people, full of ideas and optimism, having a good time sure, but also ready to reflect on everything from social issues to bearing the cost of paying for utilities.  Some were budding lawyers, some were social workers, some were making their way in the banking world; and others had ridden bikes to the party (and would ride back, complete with lights and helmets or "brain buckets" as they called them) and were quite personally educated in today's world of marijuana (which actually proved fascinating to listen to).  Another was off seeing the world, now in Laos and heading onward to Singapore and New Zealand, waiting tables and doing whatever he could to finance his journey.  It was as the editor of Fortune put it when opening a piece on "40 Under 40:" It's not just the exuberance of youth that makes this group so compelling.  It is the message they send about their generation and our future.  They see no obstacle too big to overcome, no challenge that can't be met.  Granted, this wasn't all just a gathering of success stories, for one of the now-practicing social workers contrasted this by telling me about our state having the highest number of overdoses and teen suicides due to depression (currently, our state is 4th in overall overdose deaths, topped by Rhode Island, New Jersey and Kentucky); but in trying to deal with the aftereffects she was more interested in looking for what was causing the problem, questioning socio-economic roles or rural locations or feelings of being stuck in whatever, from place to family to religion.  But this was a party, a celebration, and certainly there were the keg-stands (where you are flipped upside down and begin drinking from the keg's nozzle for a set number of seconds, in this case 30 as demonstrated by the birthday boy).  It was all in good spirits with my wife (who also accepted the challenge and thus became the oldest --at least at this party-- to do a keg-stand) said "Isn't that cool that he can have a party and drink beer and his parents are right there?" 

    This was a different generation (neither of us could remember our parents even being invited to our 30th birthdays), but there was nobody getting drunk or doing drugs or blasting music.  Everyone was just having a good time, and they were proving a fountain of youth in their energy and optimism.  And it seemed that they were equally open to listening to us old folk.  Some companies have already discovered this, notably NASA who found that retiring engineers were taking away a mental storehouse of knowledge and that the new engineers were wanting to hear them out...lunar landings meets landings on Mars.  Toss in Bank of America and BAE (global defense company), Deloitte and GE.  In a piece in Bloomberg Businessweek, it was reported: "In the next 10 to 15 years, we're going to have the greatest transfer of knowledge that's ever taken place," says Chip Espinoza, director of organization psychology at Concordia University Irvine.  And effective was to handle the shift, he says, is for a company to create relationships between the generations.  

    What I took away from the party was that unlike our Congressional "leaders" showing a pouting display of adult stubbornness, the millennials I've encountered have been encouraging, open, and willing to absorb new ideas however they appear and then make their own decisions.  Fortune's Stanley Bing light-heartedly summed this rather small generation gap this way: Being under 40, although it presents its own challenges, is also quite wonderful compared with other options.  For men, it means that whatever your hair has done so far, it’s not as bad as it’s going to get.  The women in this group are also likely to look and feel pretty good compared with their projected status in a couple of decades.  There’s also the fact that when you are not yet 40, you can still tell yourself a whole lot of nice things about your future prospects and still believe some of it.  If things are going well, you can legitimately think that things are going to get even better.  If they’re not, there’s still time to read a host of inspirational, religious, and/or business books and change your game.  That’s completely different from being under, say, 50, which is not the new 40, no matter what they say.  And forget about being under 60.  That’s over before you know it, with all the pertinent implications...What can we learn from them?  They’re aggressive and make their own ways.  They don’t care a fig about established protocols.  They are rebellious and disruptive right up to the moment there’s a chance that they will be the ones to get disrupted.  And when they get rich, they live as stupidly and hedonistically as possible.  In short, they are just like you and me, only better looking.  Which was pretty much exactly what I found at this party.  Should you receive such an invite in the future, you might want to accept it; you just might learn a thing or two...and be able to sip from that proverbial fountain of youth (and memories). 

*U.S. Census Bureau, Stanford's Sightlines Project, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Marketing & Research Resources 3/15, USB Investor Watch Report, Pew Research Center,  Brookings Institute, Guttmacher Institute, Education Testing Services, National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, Georgetown Public Policy Institute...among others.