In response to Mr. Brierley's letter re: "blaming" Woodstock for the millennials, I ask this: What exactly has my generation done that you feel the need to assign blame for?
This much-maligned generation has been blamed for many of the problems in the world, but it should be argued that we're a product of a world shaped by the generations that came before us. It's been said we're the most narcissistic generation, but how did we get that way?
Mostly, we're a generation of children raised by baby boomers. We (at least those of us in the Western world) were born into a life of unparalleled prosperity and unbridled materialism. We're children of the self-esteem movement, taught by our parents and educators that we're supposed to be special. We were told we can do whatever we want in life and that we should find our passion. We were bombarded with advertising, promising us the newest, shiniest toys.
We grew up with the idea of the American dream; prosperity, wealth, romance, a family and a house in the suburbs. As time passes, we're coming to realize maybe these dreams aren't ours, but the ones the generations before us want to sell.
The trouble is, now the price has tripled for everything. The cost of a university education has tripled in the past two decades.
The price of a single-family detached home in Vancouver had more than tripled in the last 20 years, going from around $400,000 to over $1.8 million. By the time we retire, the Canadian Pension Plan, which we've been paying into since we started working (many of us in our teens) will have been completely drained by our parent's generation.
But for some reason, both the boomers and Generation X seem to enjoy making fun of the millennial generation as slackers, who quit when things get tough and whine about not getting their way.
Certainly, millennials aren't sticking around jobs like previous generations tended to, but is that a crime? Nowhere does it say you're supposed to stay in the first real job you have.
Especially considering the debt many accrue in getting a post-secondary education, us millennials tend to gain experience quickly, in order to improve our situations in as timely a manner as we can, instead of patiently eating all the crap shovelled our way in a job where we wait for co-workers the same age as our parents to call it a day.
In fact, the Harvard Business review did a study which says workers born between 1980 and 2000 work more than our Gen X and boomer counterparts, taking less vacation and working longer hours.
Okay, maybe we're a generation which likes to take pictures of the food we get at restaurants or have a proclivity for stupid haircuts, but when you actually look at what makes millennials tick, it's not so different than baby boomers or Gen X'ers. One study found that, "based on a multigenerational study of 1,784 employees from companies across 12 countries and six industries, the same percentage of millennials (25 per cent) want to make a positive impact on their organization as Gen Xers (21 per cent) and baby boomers (23 per cent). Differences are uniformly minimal across nine other variables as well."
Maybe the real issue is the divisive nature of discourse in 2017. It seems like social media is designed to highlight our differences, and divide us along some lines, be they political, social, national, or generational.
In an era where fake news helped decide a presidential election in what is supposed to be the beacon of democracy for the rest of the world, maybe it's time to re-think how we get the information we preach as fact on our Facebook profile page. Let's have a conversation with someone, instead of judging them by the clothes they wear, or man-buns in their hair. For the love of Pete, let's stop looking for someone to blame for the imagined differences we've been told exist between generations and start looking at how we can bring people together and work towards creating a better future for the generations to come.
Adam Donnelly is a reporter at CFJC News in Kamloops. Before that, he lived in Prince George for two years, reporting for CKPG and serving as the media director for the Cariboo Cougars.
