Millennials today are more focused on their education, career and making money more than their previous generations have been. These actions lead to them shunning marriage and children. Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are young people who were born at a particular time, between the years of 1984 and 2004. Marriage is not just the legal union of two individuals in love, it is also a union that is pierced with expenses. Millennials show a decline towards getting married because of the financial restraints they have from loans, the obstruction children put on parents from achieving their dreams, or simply that they have not found the right person. Today, when graduating from college, some students come out with loans that can equal …show more content…
They begin looking for jobs where they can make a lot of money to pay off their loans quickly or even go back to s school to get a higher degree in order to get a better paying job. The rate of student loan debts is increasing at an alarming rate. According to Tepper from Time Money, “it will cost middle-income moms and dads an average $245,340 to raise one child up to age 18—a stunningly large figure for those who are already burdened by student debt and who graduated into a nasty Recession.” Childcare is very expensive and can cost some people half of their paycheck to just pay a babysitter to watch their children. Also, America does not have paid maternity leave, which contributed heavily on if parents can afford to take the time off of work to have children and how many children they can possible have. With marriage, you go from living a single life to having stable finances for a long term but also significant financial strain from home ownership, childbearing, necessary expenses, savings, and many more. Financial restraints stand to reason that college graduates would put aside marriage until their career is on a solid line with money flowing in at all time in a good amount. Millennials are working harder than ever to try and stand out from the rest of their peers so they can land a good job to support them on their …show more content…
Many people feel as if it is very difficult or even impossible to make having children work with their busy schedules. Katrina Alcorn from The New York Times says that “we need to remove the stigma that says a flexible schedule equals low ambition.” Just because someone chooses to have kids and spend quality time raising their children does not mean that they are slacking at their jobs or have low ambitions for their career. Fewer adults today want kids they don’t see themselves having a manageable life with kids in them. Women feel as if their ability to make a difference in their work world would be inhibited by spending quality time with their kids like parents should be doing. “millennial women expressed motivation to help others and solve social problems, but the desired route was through business, corporate social responsibility, and social impact organizations,” says Katrina Alcorn from The New York Times. What people need to see is the amount of joy and happiness that comes from having kids because you can put your wants and desires in your children you love, unlike towards anything else in this
...o solve these problems in an innovative manner. Pew Research Group defining my generation’s journey to adulthood, as “forging our own passage” is accurate. Millennials aspire to influence and contribute to society like their parents of the “greatest generation” accomplished. A majority of Millennials are the children of the “greatest generation”. The children of the “greatest generation” fought the ideals of their parents to become politically and socially liberal in ideals that pertain to equality, feminism, race and sex. The “greatest generation” fought to be freethinking and as parents encouraged this same behavior in their children.
The myth of the millennial nation is one that describes the vision and perception held by the American people that suggests that the United States is the Nation responsible for heralding in the second coming of Jesus Christ. Hughes ties this vision to the American idea of manifest destiny which held much responsibility for our nation's growth and overpowering force, not merely in our hemisphere but in all of the world.
They squander their money on luxurious foods instead of taking the next step into adulthood. (NY Times, 2017) However interesting Gurner’s argument may seem, he is incorrect. Avocados may currently be at their peak price, but Millennials buying too much of them is not the cause for Millennials’ financial hardships. According to the source, this isn’t the first time someone has tried to blame buying luxurious foods as an excuse for Millennials’ failing finances. Millennials’ finances have not been under extraneous tension for a while. Since the Great Recession, Millennials have been trying to improve their finances and find their place in
They want financial freedom from their debts and their bondage to hourly work. They want spiritual freedom from corporate materialism and working for companies they don’t believe in. They want the freedom to work hard doing what they love, rather than working hard simply to pay for a comfortable living arrangement. Many Millennials are now graduated from college and facing the impenetrable job market. And instead of choosing to fight for the ridiculous, and oddly demanding dream of their parents, they are seeking a humbler way to develop communities and construct society - and in less expensive communities, they are finding interesting ways of achieving
On average, the typical millennial needs constant feedback on everything they do, and want to share their entire lives on social media. They want everyone to see their accomplishments. This differs from some of the older generations that may value their privacy and do not want to have their entire lives placed on the Internet. According to the “Millennial General Research Review,” Millennials are considered more accepting of other races and cultures compared to the previous generations. The Millennial generation puts more emphasis on trying to be culturally and racially accepting towards everyone. In addition, they are able to multitask better then any of the other generations, changing from task to task at an extremely accelerated rate and receiving their current information from technology like the internet and television as compared to other forms that were previously popular (“Millennial General Research Review”). Overall, Millennials have many defining characteristics that have helped shape them to who they
Life for Millennials is not as easy as it has been said to be. According to Taylor Tepper, an editor of Money Magazine, when the Great Recession peaked in 2010, the large mass of Millennials graduating college were more vulnerable being that the unemployment rate among young adults peaked at 14% (Tepper). A Pew Research Center survey came to the conclusion that “Millennials are the first in the modern era to have higher levels of debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations had at the same time” (Tepper). In addition, David Bass, a Millennial himself and author of “The Millennial Generation Lacks a Strong Work Ethic,” states that the current employment rate for young adults is 55.3%, “the lowest rate since the end of World War Two” (Bass). These numbers do not tell it all, rather “a generation’s greatness is not determined by data; it’s determined by how they react to the challenges that befall them,” challenges that this generation does not fall short of
“A recent Pew Research Center survey showed that 39 percent of respondents believe marriage is becoming obsolete. And as far as the issue of living together vs. marriage, 55 percent of respondents felt that it was a good thing or made no difference if a couple lived together without being married.” The older generations are surprised at how different the newest generation is. They are the ones fighting against the new generation. They do not want change and are not prepared for it. It is different than what they grew up with and it’s breaking what they have always known.
It is not a new thought that today’s young Americans are facing issues, problems and difficult decisions that past generations never had to question. In a world of technology, media, and a rough economy, many young adults in America are influenced by a tidal wave of opinions and life choices without much relevant advice from older generations. The Generation Y, or Millennial, group are coming of age in a confusing and mixed-message society. One of these messages that bombard young Americans is the choice of premarital cohabitation. Premarital cohabitation, or living together without being married (Jose, O’Leary & Moyer, 2010), has increased significantly in the past couple of decades and is now a “natural” life choice before taking the plunge into marriage. Kennedy and Bumpass (2008) state that, “The increase in cohabitation is well documented,such that nearly two thirds of newlyweds have cohabited prior to their first marriage”(as cited in Harvey, 2011, p. 10), this is a striking contrast compared with statistics of our grandparents, or even parents, generations. It is such an increasing social behavior that people in society consider cohabitation “necessary” before entering into marriage. Even more, young Americans who choose not to cohabitate, for many different reasons, are looked upon as being “old-fashioned”, “naive”, or “unintelligent”. This pressure for young people to cohabitate before marriage is a serious “modern-day” challenge; especially when given research that states, “... most empirical studies find that couples who cohabited prior to marriage experience significantly higher odds of marital dissolution than their counterparts who did not cohabit before marriage”, stated by Jose (2010) and colleagues (as c...
“We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.” -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Not Only Are Millennials Redefining Adulthood but Are They Changing the American Dream as Well?
That is understandable because in the early years becoming an adult meant turning of age, 18, getting a job, moving out and starting your own family, but now turning 18 doesn’t mean you automatically are an adult and can move out and start your own life, I have friends that went to college, have a job but still are not able to move out on their own even in their twenties. Parents of the individuals in Generation Y are, according to Rosie Evans (n.d.), “subconsciously trying to cover up their guilt over the state of the economy by lifting their children’s financial burdens.” Our social lives in some ways are very positive and many of us can balance a good social life. On the other hand, some of us don’t have a very good balance and our social lives can come from our families, education, and finances. The Millennial generation is very dependent on social media, and what society says is “in,” this is because that’s mostly all we know, growing up in a time where technology is a main part of society.
We blame the millennials for their behavior and their different characteristics compared to previous generations; however, what if we stop looking at the millennials and start looking at the reasons that they behave sensitively? Each generation contains their differences, including the way they educate the next generation. We continuously judge the millennials behavior, but we rarely judge the people who influenced this behavior. Education has changed throughout the ages, not to mention the parenting skills that vary from generation to generation, which has affected the millennials way of interacting in the world. Millennials grow up believing that they are imperative, that they are secure, that the world will conform to their generation, and that the world is a “nice” place. This teaching, causes millennials to be sensitive babies early on in life. True, millennials have the freedom to act the way they want; nevertheless, like other generations, millennials will act the way that parents and other influences taught them to behave. The millennial generation should not be liable for their
It is safe to say that the working life for millennial generation has been and will be different to that of generations past. Gurenteed jobs after leaving school, college, or university are now a thing of the past. These days placing responsibility of your career progression into the hands of someone else can even be considered passé.
In today’s society, a majority of young couples are taking the opposite route when it comes to preparing for marriage. Instead of waiting till their newlyweds to move in together, many couples have decided to move in together. They believe that by living together, the divorce rate is decreased significantly. This idea of living together before marriage baffles a lot of people who are pro and against the idea. Yet, when you think about it for a moment, it does kind of make sense. Compared to previous generations, millennials would rather live together to decide whether marriage is in their future. There have been arguments for and against this idea of couples moving in together.
As the largest generation on the planet (Jenkins), the Millennials (otherwise known as generation Y) have faced plenty of scrutiny from the previous generations. A Millennial is the demographic group made up of anyone who was born between the years 1980 and 2000. This group of young people has proved to be a great contribution to society and also to the advancement of technology. They do things in their own ways and on their own terms, always approaching a problem in the most efficient way possible for everyone. Millennials have settled numerous issues in our society and they are expected to change our world exponentially. Millennials adapt to new technologies very quickly, however, while Millennials see themselves in generally positive terms such as ‘tech-savvy’ and ‘up to date’, many people from the older generations see them as ‘spoiled’ and ‘lazy’. The new technologies do make living everyday life easier and more functional, however, Millennials are not at all ‘lazy’ for taking advantage of them. Millennials use these new tools in incredibly innovative ways and they see the world in a completely different light.