Do you ever find yourself talking to someone from a different generation and feeling like you’re trying to converse with a wall?
The difference in perspective can be so huge it seems like you’re not even on the same planet, as the posts in this Reddit thread demonstrate.
Gen Z and Millennials. What’s Something You Wish The Older Generations Understood?
by inAskReddit
Let’s see what the younger folks are banging their heads about.
1. Participation trophies weren’t our idea
You gave us the f**king participation trophies although I agree they’re dumb.
You were the snowflakes who couldn’t let your precious little angel grapple with the fact that he won’t be one of the like 500 NBA players one day.
– HitEmWithDatKTrain
2. Your standards of evidence are totally hypocritical
Throughout our schooling, we had to write research papers using online sources, and our teachers really stressed the importance of being able to identify a credible source before citing it.
Don’t be offended when you send us an article from Americanpatrioteagle.ru and we dismiss it outright.
– B**ch_Tuna
3. The dangers of the past are not a model for the present
Yeah, we know. You rode in the back window of a car that had no seatbelts, you got measles, rode bikes with no helmets, and still turned out just fine.
Just because you happened to be in the group of people who survived doesn’t mean any of these were a good idea.
– etoiles-du-nord
4. It’s not weird to know the stuff you were brought up in
My ability to find the power button on a computer does not make me anymore a genius than your grasp of the dewey decimal system makes you a genius.
– glarbknot
5. I don’t need directions
Stop telling me directions, I’ll just use GPS.
No really, just give me the end address. Stop. STOP TELLING ME DIRECTIONS. I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU. JUST GIVE ME THE ADDRESS AND I’LL USE GPS.
But they just keep going “and then at the 3rd light, go left, go straight for about 3.5 miles, then make a right at the farmhouse…”
– Omniwing
6. There’s a drain
You can h**e your f**king job and be sad just because you think of the future.
Once had a small talk with my parents. My job is draining and I can’t see how it can get me to anywhere. My mental health deteriorated since university. Become a little bit negative and stop joking around like a clown during the conversation, their reply?
“I don’t understand why you can h**e your job so much unless you are slacking. Why would you choose to be sad instead of being happy” Thanks mom, really helpful.
– thechoosennoob
7. We really don’t want a lot
My worst times come when I have unexpected emergency financial issues that saving money out of every single paycheck of my 8-5 40 hr/week job isn’t able to help me with.
I break down and literally cry “I did what I was supposed to”.
– Starglema
8. Jobs aren’t easy
That you can’t just walk outside and get jobs stuck in your hair or on the soles of your shoes anymore, also that minimum wage jobs will in no way allow you to earn enough money to get on the property ladder.
If you do manage to land a job you have to jump through a billion hoops such as uploading a CV as well as filling in a form asking for the exact same information that’s included in your CV, group assessments and all that carry on. It’s not enough to just hand a CV over anymore and get an interview.
Even if you know how to game the system getting a job is bloody difficult. Maybe back in the 60s you could afford to support a family with a full time job flipping burgers, but not anymore.
– Concerned-Pineapple
9. The world is changing
That the world is not the same as it was in the 80s/90s when they were our age.
Advice that would have been helpful then might not be as helpful now.
– Read_Maximum
10. Mental healthcare is important
Just because we’re more aware of our mental health and allow ourselves to feel what we want to feel, it doesn’t make us weak or “snowflakes”.
If anything, it makes us better at coping with, well, everything!
– cwt48
11. We’re losing hope
There was hope in your time. You felt like you could change the world.
Nowadays, our economy is f**ked, our environment is f**ked, our privacy is gone, our governments are pitting us against one and other, and the planet is going to kill us off within the next century regardless of what we do about it.
So don’t look down on us as “weak” or call us “entitled” if we’re a little p**sed off and/or depressed about it, ok?
– Mad-Mad-Mad-Mad-Mike
12. Knowledge
Just because I know where/how to find the answer to something doesn’t mean I “think I’m smarter than you.”
I’m just trying to save both of us from wasting time.
– WatchTheBoom
13. The cost of living
How much college and housing really costs compared to when they bought those things.
And it’s just a domino effect, too. The less reasonable college is, the harder it is to buy a house with all your loans.
And both of those things make it very difficult to have children.
– tinypiecesofyarn
14. It’s not a matter of hard work
It doesn’t matter how much I work. I busted my a** for my old boss for years, and when I decided to leave he tried to tell me a story about how when he was my age he worked as much as I did and bought an apartment COMPLEX as a side hustle.
I replied I would love to do that, and asked for a raise to which he declined.
Older generations love to spout how new generations h**e to work, we don’t h**e to work, but we want to actually enjoy our f**king money.
– XoeLoL
15. We’re grown-ups
Millennials are grown a** adults. Literally the youngest conceivable cut point for millennials (ability to candidly remember pre-9/11 at least for US in my opinion) is in the latter half of their mid 20s.
The oldest possible cut point is in their early 40s.
– HitEmWithDatKTrain
16. What Millennial really means
“Millennials cannot afford houses” doesn’t sound like a big deal if you only see millennials as people in their 20s, but the problem is that the oldest millennials are approaching 40 and they still can’t afford a house.
– ManulCat123
17. Costs of living
That the cost of education far outpaced inflation and wage growth in the US.
If I had a dime for each boomer who lectured me about working my way through school like they did, I might almost be able to buy a house!
– Eli-fant
18. Having a different sleep schedule isn’t laziness
I fixed this when my parents started doing this.
I was working a night shift job and got off at like 6am and they would call me to chat and then give me s**t for sleeping till dinner.
The argument of…I don’t just come home and immediately crash our most days…I got s**t to do after working everyone else and b) do you walke up get ready and go to work, or do you wake up 7 hours early just for the h**l of it.
It finally stopped when I started calling them on my lunch break in the wee hours of the morning. Oh it’s 3am? Lol why are you still sleeping I’ve already been at work for 7 hours get up you’re wasting the day!
– rusty_L_shackleford
19. We’re not killing things
Millennials didn’t kill industries. Complacency and a lack of forethought killed them. Taxi monopolies had a decade or more to make an app or whatever that was transparent about pricing, route and at least vastly more secure for riders than an anonymous pickup.
We didn’t kill Applebee’s, the world is just more accessible now and I’d rather eat something more interesting than frozen and microwaved dishes I can make at least as well at home for 10% of the cost.
Industries committed suicide because they thought being the best when we were 6 was going to be good enough.
– HitEmWithDatKTrain
20. These digital devices are really versatile
Kids use computers/phones for more than just playing video games and scrolling through social media.
I basically live on my computer. My best friends are online. My favorite activities are coding and making games.
But no, my parents assume the devil computer is rotting my brain and making me stupid.
As a wise man once said: phone bad, book good.
– Afely
21. Our minimum wage is not like yours was
That $15/hour in 2021 does not give you the same purchasing power that it did in 1985.
When I hear an older person say “I used to get by just fine on $15/hour”, I wanna slap them.
– DeathSpiral321
22. There’s a reason we’re sad
That we’re not that lazy and we have a good reason to be depressed, cynical, and pessimistic.
People like my grandma always talk how “at your age i was married, had a house, and 2 kids blah blah” not realising they did all that on 1 paycheck, while simultaneously complaining how money isn’t worth anything nowadays and they just went grocery shopping and spent 25% of their income while chanting “don’t worry, its gonna get better”.
How the f**k can you not put those two together
– Sir_Daniel_Fortesque
23. Stuff costs more
Just general cost of living, especially for young families. I was at a baby shower yesterday and the mom mentioned that daycare she looked into near work was $3,000 a month. That’s for an infant so I know that’s always more expensive but, man, that means most of my paycheck would be going there.
On top of that, it was a hustle to get where I am, graduating into the recession, and it’s just now really paying off (literally and figuratively). I need to save for retirement so it’s not like I can just stay home. Plus, what if there is a downturn, and my husband loses his job? His parents were totally f**ked by the recession.
Plus COL is so high. Homes, cars, food, phones…everything costs more. Our whole goal is having a mortgage we can pay off stocking shelves at Trader Joe’s if we have to.
So, yeah, I think if I become a mom, I’ll be solidly in my late thirties. Not ideal but that’s just how it’s working out. Wish they talk more about this s**t when reporting on falling fertility. Obviously, there are people choosing to forgo (which even I debate now) but it’s economic. If you are a regular person, working for a living, you pay through the nose.
– gerdataro
24. It’s not a lack of effort
We’re not lazy, and we don’t see anything wrong with “paying our dues.”
We just want to be fairly compensated for our work, and also the job market is a lot more competitive (so advice that worked for you 30+ years ago simply doesn’t work for us today).
– coffeeblossom
25. Bagging groceries won’t cut it
You can’t put yourself through college by working at the supermarket anymore.
Our generation is the biggest in US history, so competition for jobs is much harder than it was for Boomers, which causes wages to flatline.
Add to this that housing and food costs are at all time highs and it’s pretty bleak for us, even many of those who have good jobs at Fortune 500 companies cannot afford to purchase homes.
I would really just like Boomers for ONCE just to acknowledge how difficult it is today vs. when they were coming up. It’s a different world and they just can’t see it. It’s very frustrating because most of them still think that anybody willing to swing a hammer 40 hours a week can make a living in America and it’s just not true anymore.
– Plantayne
26. Blood’s not always thicker than water
Just because someone is Family DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE TO LOVE THEM.
Terrible toxic people should ABSOLUTELY be cut out of your life REGARDLESS of their relationship to you
– Darth_Velos01
27. We don’t all have to have kids
That it is reasonable to not want kids and enjoy life with your spouse.
I can’t have kids, buy a house, and go on vacation even with my $100k+ salary. At least, not if I want to have money saved for emergencies.
Either older generations played it looser with less savings, or s**t was different.
– LimitedSwitch
28. Diplomacy is legitimately useful
That not everything can be solved with immediate aggression.
That being patient and thinking on the right thing to say rather than saying what comes to mind first goes a lot further
– Bman28345
29. School is harder
In high school, both of my parents only required one algebra class to graduate.
Today, I needed algebra I, algebra 2 and geometry to graduate and another math class if you plan on going to college.
– saltyasss
30. Google maps exists…
It is wholly unnecessary to spend 10 minutes giving me directions somewhere.
– HitEmWithDatKTrain
Yeah…that’s…yeeeeeaaah…
What would you add to this list?
Tell us in the comments.
