Millennials aren’t so bad.

Recently my FaceBook feed has been inundated with a particular young woman posting an apology for the behaviour of millennials (for those of you unaware the definition of millennial as a noun is: “a person reaching young adulthood around the year 2000”).

Most of the people that posted this video posted it in agreement with her words. She certainly seems like a polite and intelligent young woman that is appealing to us “elders”. That is until you start really listening to what she’s saying and taking a look at the young woman herself.

Let’s start with her appearance, I know this seems unfair but in context it really isn’t. She is an attractive girl, bright white teeth, nice make up. She’s sitting in the driver’s seat of what appears to be a relatively late model car, recording her apology on what is very likely a smartphone and her clothes seem nice enough. Now appearances are deceiving but all of this together leads me to the conclusion that this young woman probably comes from a family that does okay and probably doesn’t struggle a lot with finances (this is an assumption that might very well be wrong, I concede that). She’s also as white as the day is long, as white as I am (am I supposed to use caucasian? PC confuses me sometimes).

Now for the apology itself. “I realized that we’re pretty much just existing, we aren’t contributing anything to society” Oh, you mean you’re being average young people? The same as the average young person has been throughout history? I didn’t contribute much to society at her age either, neither did most people I knew. Now I wish I had but this isn’t a new “problem” with millennials, honest.

“We don’t have basic manners, we don’t hold the door open for ladies let alone our elders”. News flash, neither do most people, young or old, black or white, male or female. Lack of manners is a societal problem and it started long before you were born.

“We use the words like bae to describe someone we love” So? My generation used the word “maintain” WAY more than any reasonable human should, we had tons of other stupid slang or words we misused, so does every generation. This is not something to apologize for, it’s people’s way of small rebellion, of changing things so we aren’t carbon copies of our predecessors. Regardless of silly social media complaints no one cares, we all did it.

Now, here’s where I start to realize what I’m listening to. “We idolize people like Kim Kardashian and shame people like Tim Tebow” Okay, the Kardashians and reality TV in general is pretty sad and so is the fact we put these people on pedestals. But Tim Tebow? Tim Tebow is an NFL quarterback, a decent one, but his biggest claim to fame is his faith. He prays openly in games. Ahhh I get it now, we should idolize people that are Christian, got it. There were so many other people this woman could have chosen as a better person to idolize, Bernie Sanders, Mother Theresa, the list goes on. People that do, are trying to do, or have done great good in the world. But she chose someone that is a good Christian. That’s pretty telling on it’s own.

“We have more opportunities to succeed than any of those before us”. Seriously? I mean really seriously? Sorry this one is just pure misinformation. Here’s a clue, you’re a young, attractive white woman that obviously isn’t poor. Today’s minimum wage has risen five fold since 1971, housing has risen 1,800%. Post secondary education costs have risen more than that, students regularly leave school with $100,000+ in debt entering an insecure job market. We have companies moving manufacturing to other countries where the labour is cheap and governments that allow that. We have corporations using every dirty trick in the book to pay less while demanding more from employees. We’ve had government shift the tax burden from the rich and corporations slowly to the middle class and poor. Your generation, and almost all middle class to poor people, don’t have more opportunity now than ever before, that is unless you consider working two jobs to keep the lights on opportunity.

Now all of this sounds like I’m slamming this young woman for wanting to be better. I’m not, and I give her credit for trying to understand and to be a better person and ask that of her generation. The problem is her generation is no worse than most and her seeming complete separation from the reality of today’s world for the majority of people In fact most millennials, in my experience, are significantly better than we were. Most of the millennials I know personally, including my own children, are not entitled. They don’t want something for free, they want the same opportunities we had. They want post secondary education that isn’t a business. They want employers that care about their employees and care about their communities and share in the burden of supporting our infrastructure, instead of focusing on just getting richer and hoarding more money. They want a better planet, less war, more love, more peace. They’re more understanding and appreciative of people’s differences, be that race, sex or age.

Every generation has it’s slackers and people that think they deserve more than they’re willing to work for, millennials aren’t worse than other generations in that regard, just ask your parents what they thought about our generation when we were kids, or your grand parents what they thought of your parents when they were kids.

Millennials want a better world. For all of us and for generations to come. That doesn’t make most millennials entitled, it makes them intelligent and compassionate and I for one look forward to a world where today’s kids are running the show, because a big part of me believes they’ll do a much better job for people in general than we are..