My friends comprise engineers, graduate students, analysts of various subjects, consultants in various industries, a teacher, a lawyer, and others of myriad professions and aims. Some of them live in Washington, D.C., where I reside and work. Others do not. A couple of them own a home. Most of them rent. They all went to college; student debt is not among our usual topics of conversation, but I’m sure they possess it in varying amounts. A handful of them have been out of a job before. They bounced back. A few of them are what 99 percent of the country would describe as keen political observers, or what the nation’s capital would deem typical. A few of them pay fleeting, if any, attention. They are an assortment of folks. All of them are between their mid-twenties and roughly 30.
Members of this age group are often said to possess a list of unflattering attributes: impatience, lethargy borne of impatience, ingratitude, self-interest, vanity, vacancy, asociality, technophilia. Those with a grasp of basic arithmetic will know that the sum of these traits equals general loathsomeness. The friends I keep are not part of the equation. Here is what I see in them: work ethic, dutifulness, compassion, curiosity, extroversion, and social media and smartphones in moderation. Perhaps I am lucky to know such a lot. More likely, it is that this generation, like any other, cannot be caricatured.
A New York Times photo essay from this June tried to accomplish as much. “Hi, Mom, I’m Home!” it was headlined. 14 millennials in debt and unemployed, underemployed, or struggling to follow through on career goals are pictured in pathetic situations. A 27 year old set back $75,000 by college sits on a stack of cinder blocks with a pile of leaves at her feet, a rake at her side, a cola in her hand, and her head titled upward into the breeze. Sunlight shined onto the right side of her face — if only it could’ve disinfected this image of its misery. There’s another photograph of an aspiring professor. He’s eating what appears to be a tray of gooey chocolate brownies and drinking a glass of milk. He told the bartender to leave the jug. I was unaware that this was a routine of the despondent. I eat something chocolate every once in a while. So does Maureen Dowd.
Of the 14 individuals in these photos, zero of them are smiling. All of them are longing. And while I wish for their success, as I do of anyone with positive ambitions, they are not the sad faces of this generation. Their circumstances are not permanent. I was out of work upon completing graduate school and tailored cover letters and resumes to the exhaustion of my sincerity. I eventually caught a break. It was not as I envisioned. It may not be as these people envision, either, but such is life. These photographs capture a contrived image of the difficult present. They do not foreshadow what good can come of diligence — the same as it has always been.
Sometimes words tell the story. Jezebel’s Kate Dries, a millennial writing in the same space afforded to the photo essay, listed some of her favorite headlines from Baby Boomer authors describing the shortcomings and plights of the young. “Why Millennials Are Spending More Than They Earn, and Parents Are Footing the Bill.” On the other hand, “Generation Broke.”
“Here’s How to Deal With Millennials Who Aren’t Ready to Face Real Challenges.” One wonders if it’s the same strategy used to deal with someone like Richard Lorber, a then-20 year old who wrote in LIFE magazine in 1968 that he felt “very slimy” working for a brief time at his uncle’s business, and preferred his self-described “smugness” in academics and social movements.
“Who Cares About a Career? Not Gen Y.” Lorber went on to become the CEO of a media company. Funny how people grow up.
Here’s the headline — a somewhat misleading one — of what a FOX News panelist, Kimberly Guilfoyle, said on Tuesday: “Fox’s Guilfoyle to Young Women: Don’t Vote, ‘Go Back on Tinder’.” The true comment that ought to have stirred the most reaction was that she said young women are carefree and better off visiting “Tinder or Match.com” than the jury box for civic duty.
She could’ve said the same of young men. I was on an app called Hinge no more than 18 hours ago. I shudder to think that this disqualifies me from civic participation. By no means am I asking the D.C. government to test my theory.
I work alongside sharp young women each day who demonstrate consideration and thoughtfulness. Most of the millennials I know possess the same qualities. Here is what is inarguable about the whole of us: We lack life experience in volume. We may lack the depth of knowledge of some of our older peers, naturally because of time. We have not encountered obstacles and troubles that are inherent of individuals in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. In no way does this strip us of our perspective. In no way does this mean we are unintelligent. We are not cartoons. We are, after all, “the future of the country.”
If only we were encouraged to prepare for that responsibility instead of being chastised for our supposed insolence and typecast as aloof, despairing, unaware, and incapable.
That attitude enough would be an invitation.
