Millennials vs Baby Boomers

We are a reality TV generation... a generation of open conversations, new ideas and plans. We are an honest generation when it comes to topics of sexuality, personality and politics. We are looked down upon and it’s often by the “Boomers” who created us. Never mind that they were the ones who raised us to think freely, to be ourselves yet they still hold on to their traditions. 

I often find myself backed into social media corners, conversations  with them that are less complex with my peers. They love our technology yet hate it... they dislike our religious stances because most of us have eliminated religious ideology/thinking all together. I have friends who work endless jobs just to make ends meet, many of us are entrepreneurs because we took the college/trade route and became unfulfilled/unhappy. We love and live in a social media age where being authentic is praised because it’s rare. We seem to be on the same page as far as appearances are everything in that sense because “Boomers” love keeping up appearances! They don’t “talk” about personal things, they’re private, often appalled by what they don’t understand. They’d rather scoff than to agree with us, most would rather turn their noses up than to understand us.

We as a generation thrive off of communication, we thrive off of honesty and despise being enabled. I don’t like asking for things and I don’t like needing people.I’m self employed right now and take what editing jobs I can get while collecting royalty checks from books. Subtle hints of job apps are typically thrown, jobs that have already “subtly” rejected me with the cliche “your experience doesn’t fit the job details.” Which either means I’m overly qualified (I have managerial experience) or I’m under qualified. I turned 30 last year and I’m drowning in student loan/ life debt but a baby boomers suggestion would be to get a job. They don’t understand mental fragility, mental health and they battle depression too but “it’s just life” with them. There is a break down in communication because we aren’t kids anymore, the youngest of our tribe will be 22 this year in millennial terms and we hate being talked down to.

As a millennial I don’t claim to know everything, yes I’m selfish in areas of life and would never deny that. I’m also kind, I’m very giving of myself and will give my time freely until it infringes on my mental health. I guess most millennials are different in the sense that respecting your elders is somewhat cliche when we should just respect ALL people. I think that respect belongs to everyone, no matter their title, their age or class. A prostitute deserves just as much respect as a preacher in my world because we are all human and that is where the line is crossed with millennials. You taught us to be respectful, to be kind to others yet you hold biases on that respect. I’ve had conversations with people from various walks of life, religions, overall backgrounds and one thing I have learned is that everyone just wants acceptance. Too many times we “tolerate” people, we size them up before conversation, we make quick judgments based on outer appearance and that goes for BOTH generations! Only difference is that once we start the conversation we are no longer stuck on the appearance, you are though and in slight ways you’re hoping they’ll change. 

We are a love out loud, love freely without apologies generation. We love God, we hate silence when it comes to broken people and unfortunately many hate church. Oh the conversations about church I’ve had with my generation... religion has caused many of us to walk away at points in our lives yet many of us have points where we want to be embraced by a church that somewhat looks down on us. Our ideas/plans are seen as “too out there” when we aren’t just reading the Bible for what it is but trying to apply its principles to our lives without man made rules. We are a “woke” generation who have become impatient with theology not being broken down to us in ways that it should have been a long time ago. I wrote this blog post because I’m tired, tired of trying to fit into a world that ultimately now belongs to us (millennials) a world where we’d LOVE to meet “Boomers” in the middle without opposition. I’m looking forward to the replies, responses from generation Z who will be leading us millennials, Generation X who is stuck in the middle right after Baby Boomers and even that Silent Generation who would’ve been born anywhere before 1946. We need to communicate! Let’s go!- Cdj ❤️