Generation Y vs Baby boomers

The tradition of western societies is that older generations always deny younger generation the right to their own culture and behaviors, in the name of things like “we worked harder than you ever will, our times were much harder”. Now what happens if things go the other way around, if the older generation leaves the younger folks with a world close to bankrupcy? Which way will the blame go?

Check this op-ed by David Brooks in the NYT, he nails it, and reflects on the challenges facing those graduating this year:

But, especially this year, one is conscious of the many ways in which this year’s graduating class has been ill served by their elders. They enter a bad job market, the hangover from decades of excessive borrowing. They inherit a ruinous federal debt.

More important, their lives have been perversely structured. This year’s graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree.

Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured.

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