Generation What?

After a discussion the other day with someone about how I don't really feel like I fit in with my generation and then further that I didn't even know what my generation was called, I decided to look it up. According to Wikipedia, I'm in Generation Y. And no, that's not just because many in my generation seem to have a 'why me?' attitude. Wikipedia did have an interesting section on Generation Y in the workplace, and I must agree with it. According to Wikipedia there are three main things driving Gen Y in the workplace: impact, communication and flexibility. Apparently Gen Y wants, after making money and having benefits, to make an impact through their work. Second, Gen Y, already being focused on communication due to being raised in an age of expanding communication, seeks communication from employers about their progress, an evaluation really. Lastly Gen Y wants their job to be adaptable to their life, not have to adapt their life to their job.

Oh man...this really really fits the people I know in this generation. What's sad, is the things I can't stand about my generation seem to be getting worse in the generation beneath me. The constant need to be communicating and evaluating is just getting worse. This constant need to be told that we're doing a good job....maybe my children will rebel and move culture back in the other direction. It seems to me that's how we've gotten here. I look at the baby boomers and say, maybe tough love should have been used a little more. Most of the baby boomers who had stern but loving parents turned out to be great people. Unfortunately there seems to have been a trend in their generation of a lack of parenting (not to say all are this way. Clearly this is a generalization post and not an everyone is this way post). If not the lack of parenting, then the lack of the ability to put their foot down and actually scold their children (last part of Gen X and now Gen Y and Z) when the kids were being bad or brats. So many people I know today would be better people if their parents would have used more tough love. But based on my undergrad studies in American culture, the need to rebel and not 'be like their parents' probably led the Baby Boomers to think their parents were not loving enough (as some probably weren't with all the alcoholism and depression sweeping the nation during the 40s and 50s) and thus they needed to be more relaxed. So hopefully some of the little shits who are growing up to be big shits will either decide not to have children or will somehow manage to deliver enough tough love mixed with actual love to send our culture back to a more balanced person who doesn't expect life to be handed to them on a silver platter.

Soap box gone...not sure how I got up there.