<story><title>Young people &apos;feel they have nothing to live for&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25559089</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vacri</author><text>The thing is that the current young ones are still of the belief that no-one has had it hard before; that it was cruisy and easy for everyone before (repeating the pattern of this thought - this isn&amp;#x27;t unique to gen Y, but to young gens). One gen Y person in my office repeated the mantra to me that &amp;quot;jobs were handed out like candy for the boomers&amp;quot;... yeah, if you were male... and liked working in a factory or other menial jobs. If you were female there was a stigma to working, options were pretty limited, and usually it was legal to be explicitly paid a lower hourly rate.&lt;p&gt;The Western world we live in is safer in most regards than previously, whether it&amp;#x27;s food or medical or military. Ten years of war in the middle east killed only a tenth of the US soldiers killed in Vietnam, and there was &lt;i&gt;no conscription&lt;/i&gt;. Before the downfall of the USSR, there was a very palpable fear of nuclear war in the West (justified or not) or a sizeable military invasion. Civil and social rights for minorities and women were far, far behind where they are now. In the consumer world, shit is cheaper and more disposable than ever before. Much less need to put effort into maintaining things, just get another one.  Hell, even going to the dentist is far easier today with improvements in pain control. What about support services for victims of domestic abuse? Or rape? At least now there are some systems in place where people can get support sometimes (if not always) and it&amp;#x27;s a recognised problem, rather than in the boomer&amp;#x27;s youth, when it was a taboo subject and there were no services.&lt;p&gt;So sure, complain about the current situation of Gen Y folks, but when people complain about how &amp;#x27;easy&amp;#x27; previous generations had it, these kinds of things are why it sounds like self-indulgent whining - because they only focus on the good things the boomers had and never recognise the bad things. Not to mention the things that the Boomers did build and give to us.&lt;p&gt;Gen Y does have hurdles to face, but those hurdles don&amp;#x27;t have to be defined in &lt;i&gt;how much worse it is than previous generations had it&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>whbk</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a couple years out of college and can&amp;#x27;t overstate how real this is (in America, though I know the article is focused on the UK). Last summer I flew back to my Midwestern hometown for a concert, and I still remember being introduced to a friend of a friend. She was a college graduate one year removed, vastly &amp;#x27;underemployed&amp;#x27; [1], and living in her parents basement.&lt;p&gt;When my friend mentioned that I was just in town from SF for the weekend, she asked what I did and after telling her, her reaction was something along the lines of &amp;#x27;oh you&amp;#x27;re like a real grown up!&amp;#x27; Her tone was one of embarrassment and a begrudging acceptance of where she was, and it&amp;#x27;s one I&amp;#x27;ve seen a fair bit despite going to a pretty solid school. Not Ivy League, mind you, but a reasonably high-ranked state school.&lt;p&gt;I really have no idea what the solution is, but I&amp;#x27;ve thought a fair bit about the as of yet unrealized ripple effects: Many of these people are in debt up to their eyeballs. Given that, they&amp;#x27;re going to be much less likely to (or at least will significantly delay) purchases of cars and real estate. Dating is a lot harder when you&amp;#x27;re living at your parents&amp;#x27;, and I&amp;#x27;m sure we&amp;#x27;ll see an impact in the ratio of singles&amp;#x2F;families among my generation as a result. Then there&amp;#x27;s the whole psychological impact of feeling they have nothing going for them that the article focuses on. Pretty dismal scene.&lt;p&gt;[1] Honestly, I hate this term. It shouldn&amp;#x27;t be any surprise to us that when we promote an &amp;#x27;everyone goes to college!&amp;#x27; culture a la &amp;#x27;everyone&amp;#x27;s a home owner!&amp;#x27;, coupled with an insidious lowering of standards in our education system starting in the lower rungs of K-12, we&amp;#x27;ll have a mass of college-educated individuals who can&amp;#x27;t find gainful employment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tomp</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m from Gen Y. I don&amp;#x27;t think that previous generations &lt;i&gt;had&lt;/i&gt; it easier than we do, but I think it&amp;#x27;s an undeniable fact that you &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; it easier.&lt;p&gt;Except for the past few years, the world has been constantly improving all your life; USSR, Berlin Wall, computers, internet, technology, ... In contrast, most of my adult life has been nothing but shit (objectively; things have been quite good for me, but I&amp;#x27;m a programmer, so...): financial crisis, terrorism, low employment, home foreclosures, high tuition. It doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be improving for the average person. Furthermore, things have turned to shit almost &lt;i&gt;exactly&lt;/i&gt; when we became adults; when we were children, we were brought up in a time of abundance, when life was easy, and hopes for the future were high. Now, life is hard, especially for people with no homes and no jobs and no work experience, and there is nothing to look forward to, except global warming.</text></comment>
<story><title>Young people &apos;feel they have nothing to live for&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25559089</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vacri</author><text>The thing is that the current young ones are still of the belief that no-one has had it hard before; that it was cruisy and easy for everyone before (repeating the pattern of this thought - this isn&amp;#x27;t unique to gen Y, but to young gens). One gen Y person in my office repeated the mantra to me that &amp;quot;jobs were handed out like candy for the boomers&amp;quot;... yeah, if you were male... and liked working in a factory or other menial jobs. If you were female there was a stigma to working, options were pretty limited, and usually it was legal to be explicitly paid a lower hourly rate.&lt;p&gt;The Western world we live in is safer in most regards than previously, whether it&amp;#x27;s food or medical or military. Ten years of war in the middle east killed only a tenth of the US soldiers killed in Vietnam, and there was &lt;i&gt;no conscription&lt;/i&gt;. Before the downfall of the USSR, there was a very palpable fear of nuclear war in the West (justified or not) or a sizeable military invasion. Civil and social rights for minorities and women were far, far behind where they are now. In the consumer world, shit is cheaper and more disposable than ever before. Much less need to put effort into maintaining things, just get another one.  Hell, even going to the dentist is far easier today with improvements in pain control. What about support services for victims of domestic abuse? Or rape? At least now there are some systems in place where people can get support sometimes (if not always) and it&amp;#x27;s a recognised problem, rather than in the boomer&amp;#x27;s youth, when it was a taboo subject and there were no services.&lt;p&gt;So sure, complain about the current situation of Gen Y folks, but when people complain about how &amp;#x27;easy&amp;#x27; previous generations had it, these kinds of things are why it sounds like self-indulgent whining - because they only focus on the good things the boomers had and never recognise the bad things. Not to mention the things that the Boomers did build and give to us.&lt;p&gt;Gen Y does have hurdles to face, but those hurdles don&amp;#x27;t have to be defined in &lt;i&gt;how much worse it is than previous generations had it&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>whbk</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a couple years out of college and can&amp;#x27;t overstate how real this is (in America, though I know the article is focused on the UK). Last summer I flew back to my Midwestern hometown for a concert, and I still remember being introduced to a friend of a friend. She was a college graduate one year removed, vastly &amp;#x27;underemployed&amp;#x27; [1], and living in her parents basement.&lt;p&gt;When my friend mentioned that I was just in town from SF for the weekend, she asked what I did and after telling her, her reaction was something along the lines of &amp;#x27;oh you&amp;#x27;re like a real grown up!&amp;#x27; Her tone was one of embarrassment and a begrudging acceptance of where she was, and it&amp;#x27;s one I&amp;#x27;ve seen a fair bit despite going to a pretty solid school. Not Ivy League, mind you, but a reasonably high-ranked state school.&lt;p&gt;I really have no idea what the solution is, but I&amp;#x27;ve thought a fair bit about the as of yet unrealized ripple effects: Many of these people are in debt up to their eyeballs. Given that, they&amp;#x27;re going to be much less likely to (or at least will significantly delay) purchases of cars and real estate. Dating is a lot harder when you&amp;#x27;re living at your parents&amp;#x27;, and I&amp;#x27;m sure we&amp;#x27;ll see an impact in the ratio of singles&amp;#x2F;families among my generation as a result. Then there&amp;#x27;s the whole psychological impact of feeling they have nothing going for them that the article focuses on. Pretty dismal scene.&lt;p&gt;[1] Honestly, I hate this term. It shouldn&amp;#x27;t be any surprise to us that when we promote an &amp;#x27;everyone goes to college!&amp;#x27; culture a la &amp;#x27;everyone&amp;#x27;s a home owner!&amp;#x27;, coupled with an insidious lowering of standards in our education system starting in the lower rungs of K-12, we&amp;#x27;ll have a mass of college-educated individuals who can&amp;#x27;t find gainful employment.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scobar</author><text>I agree with you; especially your last statement. I believe that the arguing between generations spawns from the differences in the challenges each has faced. Those challenges may be nearly equal in difficulty, but the difference is great enough that each generation has a difficult time empathizing with the others. We should restore hope in those (of any generation) who are struggling against terrible adversity rather than assure them that everyone else had it just as hard.</text></comment>