Relationships November 13, 2016
You’ve seen the headlines: “Millennials, the Job-Hopping Generation,” “The Scary Truth About Millennials and Student Loan Debt” and “How Millennials Work Differently From Everyone Else.” You’ve probably even skimmed over the numbers referencing reputable studies by important economists who tell you that your work plans for the future may be looking a bit shaky.
Does this sound like you in scare quotes? If it does, congratulations. You’ve earned a permanent position in the Millennial Box.
The Millennial Box is a place where people go to worry about millennial’s hopes for the future – voicing a mixture of legitimate concerns and generalizations and scare tactics to enforce the “woe is me” claim that young people are dealing with problems unique to a millennial’s unique time and place in history.
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But in the cozy safe space of the Box, millennials can forget that they aren’t the first generation to struggle – and though their obstacles may be different, there is still much to learn from previous generations who went through similar doubts about their own futures. Perhaps it’s time for a return to the guts and glory of the past.
If you’ve read news pieces like those listed above, you know that “the times they are a-changing,” in the words of Bob Dylan. Some of this change is good; business opportunities for tech startups and other alternative business strategies are booming. And thanks to this creativity, we enjoy Facebook, Uber, PostMates and – dubious social value aside – Pokemon Go.
But sometimes the forecast doesn’t look so sunny, especially for those who have had rocky starts to their work careers. Many of these issues have only become worse since our parents’ time – or maybe the technologies that gave rise to these issues didn’t exist yet.
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And as the ominous headlines above attest, housing, investing and retirement are also looking stormy. It’s tempting to contrast today’s uncertainty to the good old days of steady work and affordable college and housing.
But were the good old days really so good?
Blair Cahill would likely answer “Yes” to that question – but not for the reason you’d expect. Cahill, a production designer and art director, is a classic success story; throughout her career, she has contributed to feature films and created commercials for big-name clients such as American Airlines, Ford and AT&T.
But her success didn’t come easy. After college, Cahill started her career in downtown Los Angeles, an area where young women didn’t walk home after work – they ran, befriending homeless people who were willing to escort them from street corner to street corner. And ambitious young women also had to work insane hours to succeed in the entertainment industry.
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But this struggle didn’t box in Cahill. In fact, it led to a productive, successful career. “Moving out and supporting myself at a young age gave me a very strong work ethic,” Cahill says. “It forced me to apply myself to my work and budget my earnings.” Hours, days and weeks spent in production offices also created a sense of camaraderie. “It helped me greatly to find a support group, either friends or coworkers, that could relate to the challenges I was facing,” she remarks.
Cahill and her coworkers – like many dedicated women of her generation –worked hard, partied hard and saw the results in productive films and blossoming careers.
Today, the mother of two works from home in a new career. “The transition from department head to full time mom and part time artist was not easy at first,” she says. “I found that most of my identity was my job, and I think this is one of the most common struggles for new mothers. Luckily, because I had worked hard for so many years and budgeted accordingly I was able to stop production work and transition into fine art working from home.”
Now, she passes on her “hard work pays off” strategy for success to her children. If you’ve heard a version of that story a hundred times from your own mother then her “guts and glory” story may not be new. Still, it’s a bestseller for a reason.
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The skills that lead to success are the same as they’ve always been. The rules of the game have just shifted. Compared to other generations, millennials prefer to err on the side of caution – they have a wider safety net of family, friends, hobbies and freelancing projects on the side. But they also have a thinner rope to walk as they balance multiple jobs in a questionable job market with uncertain prospects for investment, home ownership and retirement.
But the common view of mothers, educators and First Lady of the United States is that adversity is, in its own way, a blessing.
“You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage,” Michelle Obama said in a commencement speech at the City College of New York. “I encountered students who had every advantage. Their parents paid their full tuition, they lived in beautiful campus dorms. They had every material possession a college kid could want – cars, computers, spending money. But when some of them got their first bad grade, they just fell apart. They lost it, because they were ill-equipped to handle their first encounter with disappointment or falling short.
“But unlike so many other young people, you have already developed the resilience and the maturity that you need to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and keep moving through the pain, keep moving forward,” she continues. “You have developed that muscle.”
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The millennial crisis – especially in the area of work – is real. But maybe, in the face of debt and job placement crises, millennials are asking for a chance to return to the guts and glory of past generations’ brave struggles for career success. While dark descriptions of millennials’ futures may seem like a cozy fit, they’re also stereotypical, hyperbolic and in the end, pretty claustrophobic. It’s time to break out of the Millennial Box. And we’re ready for it – we’re armed with millennial spirit and inspired by our mothers’ spunk.
The youth of yesterday – and the leaders of today – have taught us how it’s done.
