Gen Why: How Millennials Will Parent
I had heard things about the Millennial generation for a while before I realized I was part of it. I listen to a lot of NPR, and I feel like there’s always a radio guest fretting about the Millennials’ loss of human connection in the face of digital-deluge, or the Millennials’ neglect of things like… I don’t know, reading, for example. When the term Millennials was becoming more prevalent, I just had a picture of nightmarish tweens with smart phones.
Now, in 2013, tweens aren’t Millennials anymore. The exact cutoff depends on the source, but in general Millennials (A.K.A. Gen Y) are born between 1980 – 2000, so that includes early teens to people in their early thirties.
Looking at generations became interesting to me right away when I began this project with my mom. Reading her young voice, at nearly my age, has been startling at times. There are passages when it is hard for me to fully relate to the moment of time she was in. This project introduced me to a new understanding of my mom and myself — outside of our relationship as mother and daughter, outside of the 30-year age gap that separates our life-cycles… This project helped me see us as two women who have been shaped by cultural moments: a Baby-Boomer and a Millennial. Our priorities, anxieties, habits, and identities have been grouped, analyzed, and named based on events, cohorts, and shifts in zeitgeist…
I have asked what it will be like to raise a second generation of unschoolers. But there is another equally interesting question that I want to pose: how will the Millennials be different as parents?
When I read descriptions of the six living generations, who one’s parents are is clearly formative in defining what imprints a new generation. Older Millennials are the children of Baby Boomers, with younger ones being the children of Gen X. But there’s always interesting grey zones, too. My husband, for example, is the youngest of four — his three older sisters are all Gen X through and through, and his father is part of the Silent Generation. So Josh connects to aspects of the Gen X description, but also leans heavily towards the Millennial description, despite the age of his parents and siblings. It leads me to suspect there’s really something to this whole generation by birthdate thing…
Most of what is written about Millennials so far is not about them as parents (partly because of the continued trend toward older parenting — which we’ve addressed! — Millennials are waiting longer to have kids than any previous generation). But Millennials are becoming parents, and I have some thoughts about what values and priorities my generation will bring to parenting…
I’m going out on a limb here, but here are my predictions:
- Everything will be personalized — I see my generation, more so than any before us, wanting and expecting our kids to be treated as individuals, as unique. And expecting things that are tailored and personalized to meet their needs. Millennials expect this for ourselves, and we’ll expect it for our kids.
- BUT collaboration will be powerful — Everything you read about Millennials says they like to work in teams… I guess that can be credited to the crowd-source, open-source, free information digital moment we came of age in. And I think the true power and potential of collaboration is still beginning to bloom. I think the children of Millennials will be taught to value collaboration. And I think our kids are going to be treated as collaborators in the families that we raise.
- Do it yourself — And not just the DIY & local trend, with home-grown and canned tomatoes (although, I think we’ll also continue to exemplify those values to our kids). I’ve read a lot of places that my generation wants handholding and accolades. Maybe we do! Handholding can be nice sometimes. But, from the people I know, my generation also has had to hustle, putting together parts of this and that to make a whole. As the economy has changed, it’s forced creativity, flexibility, and independence to be the ruling values of the day. The old saying “if you want it done right, do it yourself” might be something we tell our kids.
- BUT network & connect — There may seem to be contradictions here: we value customization but also collaboration, we value DIY, but know it’s better not to go it totally alone. To me, these contractions make perfect sense for my generation, and belong together to strike a balance. Millennials have graduated college into a tough job market — really tough. We are the most college-educated generation, but 25- to 35-year-old Americans are the least employed in any of the developed nations, and this is a brand new trend (move over, Europe). Millennials have learned the hard way: you can play by all the rules and still not get a golden ticket into adulthood… So the other important ingredient we’ll emphasize to our kids (besides independence) is network building. It’s important who you know, and how you connect. It’s where opportunities come from.
- Success will mean quality time AND stability — I buy into the idea that Millennials don’t live to work, and that we expect work to hold real personal meaning. But Millennials have lived through some serious instability (9/11, wars in the Middle East, economic collapse, high student debt, low employment, polarized political dysfunction). I see my generation valuing stability for our kids, but in the face of challenges, I also see us prioritizing quality time.
- Being good parents is important to us — From everyone I know, Millennials see parenting as a great responsibility, a role of great importance. I think my generation has high expectations for ourselves, and I see us waiting longer on marriage and parenthood partly with an intention to get it right. I think that Millennials really want to get it right, and that we kind of think we can.
I love you and completely agree that our generation is waiting longer because we want to “get it right”. I personally feel from what my parents have shared with me- and their own stories are few and fare between shared with me and my brothers, it has been a long, strange trip as bits and pieces of their “tales” unfolded around us out of necessity- that I have “learned from their mistakes” and am making the best effort to pay attention and be mindful of my actions in this lifetime.
Enjoyed your commentary. My opinion is very much the same and I’m from a older generation. I don’t believe the generations, however, really differ that much. I was in my 20s when the stock market and real estate market crashed. I wasn’t able to find a job in my field of study. I was laid off my full-time job, given no severance, just two weeks and I was in the middle of college finals. I took temporary jobs and collected unemployment for a very short time…just like the generation of today. No, it didn’t last as long, but I do believe that college graduates of the late 90s and early 2000s were still wishing for opportunities of demanding high salaries, buying expensive toys and living extravagantly on the whole. It isn’t all this generation’s fault for being angry and feeling as if the generations before them let them down. In my opinion, the generation took on high debt because it was allowed without having to show proof and promise of payment and because our values have more or less prioritized material gains than life connections, personal values, life experiences and truly living withing one’s means as providing meaning and success for the individual. To me, it’s sad that we live in a day where the governments are defining how to live for the sake of ease, comfort and convenience. In my opinion, I see a future generation through this millennial generation that will thrive in living through challenge and resourcefulness to gain its sense of control and freedom and I believe we all know that there is more than one way to get where you want to go. The best way to be unique is to find the best path for yourself and your family no matter what anybody else thinks!! To be present, think and act with common sense and be able to act fast are at least a few solid skills that can go a long way to being happy and living in satisfied and successful lives. Every generation has challenges.
I started homeschooling my children in an era when home education was most represented by ten children piling out of one van. In the past fifteen years, homeschooling has transformed from moms in long skirts to jeans and hipster black glasses frames. Just for the record, I never ever wore a jean jumper. Families now tend to max out at three children and homeschooling is more of a lifestyle choice. Millennial parents choose to homeschool because they wish to impart a love for learning or they simply know that they can teach their child better than anyone else. It is refreshing to help millennial moms develop an education plan for their little ones. At our co-ops, http://www.edenhopeacademy.com for pics, moms learn too. We use a natural language processing technique to link history to other events, science and the bible. It is so much fun to watch the moms participate in learning alongside their sweet children.