To think current young adults are heading for a tough mid life crisis?

[clairemcnam]

Most generations since we have moved in the west beyond bare survival, have had a significant group of young people questioning the point of focusing on a career, buying more stuff and living an ordinary consumerist life. But this generation seems incredibly conformist. Amongst young adults the emphasis seems to be on agitating around being able to buy a house, rather than questioning capitalism.

I suspect when a lot of current young adults hit mid life, they are going to be hit very hard as they begin to question their life and why they strived so hard to be consumers.
AIBU?

Not read all the comments but I disagree.

Lots of support of things like vegan, minimalism and green movements and many more.

Previous generations have lead us to this consumer lead market and this generation is fighting back on the negative impact.

I am part of these movements although I do have a mortgage! But that is so I can work to pay it off whilst I'm young and escape the rat race early.

Massive sweeping generalisation there OP.

Not my DCs. They feel very strongly about climate change and actively promote it, they go on Marches (one is taking time off to march against trump next week, she's just perfecting her placard, and I went on the last March with her when Trump came).

They are socially aware, do voluntary work, one at a kitchen for the homeless, another mentors a young guy who struggles, this via a great organisation... and all this is the tip of the iceberg with them, they feel very strongly about a variety of issues.

Spent time in London with a friend of mine today, her two 20 something adult kids are the same.

So OP stop generalising

That's the point of being old; misunderstanding younger generations.

This in a nutshell. You just sound like an old person whining about the younger generation. Nothing new to see here.

I don't see the young adults of today different to any other generation.

Ther is a lot of rhetoric, swaying with the zeitgeist, but I think they are as human and self serving as any other generation.

Some attitudes are better- mostly a more inclusive way of thinking, but when it comes to greed and consumerism they are just like the rest of us.

During the recent hot weather a large park in the middle of the city near the University saw a few thousand young people - mostly students- enjoy days in the sun, having picnics, BBQs, sunbathing,

The mess they left behind was shocking. The park was filled with discarded crap, beer cans, broken glass, discarded food wrappers, plastic and disposable BBQs.
Many of these young adults would have been the ones protesting about climate change the week before.

I'm not criticising, I am the parent of young adults, just believe that these individuals are no different to previous generations.

I'm so confused. Why is it undesirable for our young adults to be nice? What am I missing?

@clairemcnam

That is my point. In THIS generation, a house and savings and a job IS genuinely subversive and revolutionary. It is kicking against the 'doomed generation' trope. Failed on every side by every form of government, failed by societal mores, failed by every previous generation - WHY NOT kick against the system and establish your own identity and material value..? No manning the barricades and pointless sloganeering for the youth of today; no awful collectivism and the dread that goes with it. Get a job. Buy a house. Have an Instagram life. And to fuck with the society that tells you you can't.

emkoda I am genuinely amazed that you think that is subversive.

OK I'll bite, what do you think the young should be doing?

thelonggame nice is hardly raging against the machine, is it? Hardly cutting edge. Doesn’t imply much fire in your belly.

I think they’ve been brought up to be so terrified of saying anything that might offend, or exclude, or trigger someone that they have no option but to be ... nice.

@clairemcnam

I am not at all surprised that you can't see that it is.

They are more aware of what is happening and what is coming than previous generations. They have live with the impact of social media allowing them to see what's real, not what we are told.
They know they are fucked, maybe that's why many aren't openly vocal about it. They are living for today and this month and blame us for the mess of the planet.

So when all of us conforming, well behaved, non-questioning junior doctors went on strike, none of "your" generation were annoyed that you had appointments or surgery cancelled?

Who exactly would you like to stop conforming? Because our non-questioning generation are the future of this country's economy. Want us to all sod off out of the work place, squat instead of buying and turning up late to the job centre? Fine. But you'll then have bigger issues than worrying about what kind of mid-life crisis we will have.

There is a really good article in today’s Guardian about midlife crisis
www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/29/reggie-perrin-or-walter-white-what-does-a-21st-century-midlife-crisis-look-like

One academic thinks they are a declining concept because we now have a life before settling down, opposed to previous generations who settled down early and then had the ‘is this all life is’ meltdowns

clairemcnam - I suspect the young are subversively planning to euthanase the older generations.

nice is hardly raging against the machine, is it? Hardly cutting edge. Doesn’t imply much fire in your belly.

I think it’s a good thing that the misconception that you have to be a prick to succeed has fallen by the wayside.

I have kids in their teens and twenties. I don't recognise the way you characterise young people in your OP at all. They are much more socially and politically knowledgeable and active than my peer group was back in the complacent '80s, and we were a bit on the alternative side ourselves. They read against the grain, question the accepted narrative, care about the planet, look after their friends, examine their own motives, look for creative solutions, and actively reject the sort of consumerist messages many of our generation fell for. I think they're fab, and thank goodness they are, because the climate emergency, and its logical sequelae - mass migration and fortress-mentality populism - are most definitely not 'micro-issues', for the love of god.

seems rather silly to be negative about the 'younger generation' as if they popped up fully formed out of no where. The younger generation is exactly what we have raised them to be. They, like us, are a product of the environment they were raised in. and it was a pretty negative environment overall.

I've read somewhere the theory that the teens and twenty somethings of today are more like the generation that grew up in the depression than any generation since. They grew up in a crap economy and knowing the system is stacked against them. Of course they show up, them that don't show up don't get hired, even though the job won't pay enough anyway. Still, it's better than the dole. usually.

unlike that generation, they didn't grow up with the idea that a stiff upper lip and bottling up your frustrations and unhappiness are the best coping mechanism. We taught them to seek help for such things, therefore, they are very in favor of provision for mental health care and the active seeking of that care. ditto gender awareness, a renewed awareness of the racism and sexism that didn't actually go away just because of marches in the 60's and regulations created since then. We told them this is how it is, and now it's better, and they've looked around and noticed it isn't really. Ditto climate change, it's the continuing knowledge from the ecological awareness in the 60s and 70s, we say, look, my goodness, we've cleaned up our rivers since then, and they look around and notice either it wasn't really completely fixed, or we've mucked something running parallel to the first problem and we don't seem to care.

The anxiety and depression is the subversion. They are living with the very awkward realisation at previous generations have messed up the planet, that they are supposedly materialistically lucky, and at the same time have perfectly usual desires for a home, job and good life.
They can’t afford to be as selfish as previous generations.

Patronising twaddle 🙄

So far the recommendations for my generation from this thread seem to be

• be ruder
• move into a squat
• listen to more Bikini Kill (am fine with this one, tbh)
• “rage” against something, but not racism (that’s a micro issue apparently!) homelessness or climate change

I have kids in their teens and twenties. I don't recognise the way you characterise young people in your OP at all

Agreed. I work with older teenagers and I think they're basically the opposite of what OP has described.

I don't know... I'm 24 think that generations are made up of individuals. I have friends who get blind drunk in mini-skirts, fitness mad teetotallers, indies who smoke joints for fun.... they work in shops, courts, beauty counters, newspapers, hospitalsand big 4. They own their own home, live with mum or flatshare. Some can't cook an egg and some cook me three course dinner parties.

Weirdly we're all quite different as humans are want to do.

The don’t seem to be terribly resilient, lots of them anyway.
The Ed Sheeran thing is also troubling.

And I'm sorry but it's not my generations fault that you decided you were above your uni classes. I paid £55k for the honour of my 5 hours a week contact so you can bet your arse I showed up.

nice is hardly raging against the machine, is it? Hardly cutting edge. Doesn’t imply much fire in your belly

so you are saying in all previous generations ALL young people rebelled. What a load of tripe, it's always been the minority.
Personally I'm proud of my nice DDs.
I was a nice young adult, I'm well into middle age, no crisis here.