Kids & Parenting

The Special Generation

by Andrew Tuttle
08/30/11
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There’s little more that puts a smile on a parent’s face than when their child finally admits to them “You were right.” As children, especially teenagers, we’ve all been through this. In fact, for many of us our parent(s) flat out told us “You’ll thank me one day.” And depending on your level of immature youthful angst you muttered something under your breath as you walked away or you instinctively knew they were, indeed, right.

But for most parents, the day of reckoning usually doesn’t come until well after their child has moved out, married and had kids of their own. Then they realize for example, “Oh that’s why Dad got so ticked off when I left the lights on.” Which is something that I realized and admitted to my Dad several years ago and a reality my brother has since discovered now that he has kids of his own.

Though my wife’s son (who I helped raise) never understood why lights left on or dishes left out pushes a variety of buttons, he once inadvertently admitted something to me that he learned while taking a leadership class. As it turns out the Millennial generation can easily be called “The Special Generation” since apparently this group of young people will soon be our leaders think of themselves as something special.

I could have told you that just by my own observations. But now today’s leaders are teaching, even warning, future leaders about some obstacles they will face which includes dealing more or less with an attitude of entitlement by their peers. Many reasons exist for this, one of which I blame on passive parenting – something I have previously written about. When I asked him why his generation feels so special he emphatically said “Because you let us do whatever we wanted.” It was said with a smile and without blame. But he was right but also wrong as I told him “Not me!”

Kids these days clearly have a sense of superiority. Studies repeatedly show the effects of Social Media and I believe with the invention and world domination of Facebook (now Instagram) teens and young adults have an increased sense of “I matter” because they open their entire lives and opinions are open to everyone. Perfect strangers become “friends” these days when in the past it would have been “Nice to meet you” as both parties parted ways and in many cases never saw each other again. Today, these strangers get added to a list of contacts that only further emboldens a false sense of belonging and relevancy.

The erroneous sense of adulation social networking has provided coupled with a passive generation of parents has only created this false sense of specialness. Believe me, I am no model of expert parenting as I went along with the teenage birthday parties that rivaled that which an eight year-old should only get or being an active human ATM machine every time money was needed. I somewhat successfully ended that after a period of time. But as I watched parents act more like buddies and pals to their children rather than offering discipline and direction, when necessary, I began to wonder if I was off the mark.

I personally struggled with filtering what worked and what I didn’t think was necessary in my own upbringing. I’ll readily admit my generation’s parents were much harder working and exemplified what it means to save for a rainy day forgoing the need for unnecessary luxuries. I’m not so sure that’s the case today as I have scratched my head countless times wondering how long people can play “Keeping Up with the Joneses.” This mentality no doubt trickled down to the household children who, in turn, played the same game with their friends, often succeeding at the game because of the “generosity” of their parents which only exacerbated their sense of being something special.

I was never brought up thinking I was something special. Now, I believe all kids, adults too, should feel special but there is a big difference in feeling special and thinking you’re something special.

As the years move on, I’ll be interested to hear how members of the Special Generation deal with other members of the Special Generation. Despite whatever trials and tribulations Millennials face as their own “specialness” clashes with the “specialness” of their peers, some we can only hope will end up feeling more special because hopefully they will learn they are not something special.