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?

agree with the Ed Sheeran thing though

Wow, so on this thread, young people are criticized for not being racist or sexist or homophobic, for caring about climate change, and for, god forbid, wanting somewhere stable to live.

We're not rebelling in the way you want us to, so we must be wrong?

But people are doing things that are radical, and actually likely to have an impact.

So many people I know have given up meat, or red meat or animal products for environmental reasons. So many people try to be ethical consumers, and so more and more companies start selling vegetarian and vegan food- which is better for animal welfare and for the environment... that's a major change and it's coming from young people. It might not be big, or violent, but it's changing the world.

I think it's harder to go on big protests (although I know people who do) when anything might be put on social media and stay with you for the rest of your life.

But what about people like Saffiyah Khan staring down an EDL protester? www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/edl-racist-saffiyah-khan-viral-birmingham/

What about Will Connolly egging a racist politician and giving money raised for his legal fees to the victims of the Christchurch shooting? www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48441185

What about the youth climate strikes?

What about millenials pushing for small changes like flexible working and having a better work life balance?

What about people speaking out about sexual abuse?

What about people sharing information online that the MSM doesn't seem to want to cover?

I think what you really mean is why aren't young people pushing for communism, and it's true- I don't think many young people are that economically left. I think young people care more about social issues and the environment- which according to you is wrong? I think we have maybe less time and energy and more fear about taking part in violent protest- but we've also seen that one off violent protest doesn't change things.

I think for a long time, political parties didn't represent us- for many, the lib dems would have been our natural home, but with the tuition fees stuff we felt betrayed- but if you look at the recent local and EU elections that is changing too- long term, I think my generation will see the two party system crumble.

I do also know some young people who are quite economically right wing- but here is the radical thing. I think all of them truly believe that anyone, regardless of sex, sexuality, race, background etc should have the right to do and be anything. I think if you look at older generations that is a truly radical idea!

I also think young people have been disenfranchised and dispossessed by the older generations- and I also think it's unfair to have a go at a generation where a lot of people are struggling just to survive. Not everyone has the time or money to rebel.

If you don't like the way the world is, then it's your job to change it, not ours- but my generation isn't going back to the tired, irrelevant dichotomy of left and right- which I think is actually what you're arguing for.

The don’t seem to be terribly resilient, lots of them anyway

Yes, the idea of a good old mid-life crisis that the OP seems to treasure screams of resilience

Yeah, you're being very dismissive over the very real fucking struggle it is to pay the rent in your twenties nowadays. Not everyone is running home to shelter with mummy and daddy, and save a deposit for a nice starter semi.

Plenty of people are maxing out every last fibre of their being just to keep the roof over their heads

Well said jayblue.

@BeckyAnnLeeman don't worry we abandoned Ed Sheehan after his abominable GOT cameo. We like Lil Pump now.

Also OP - I'm sorry that you're angry that our rebellions are formed of kindness, not rage. But, you did teach us to share and be nice to each other - isn't it good that we listened?

Now go pop on some T.Rex or Sweet or whatever you like and chill out.

I feel like I come from the most conformist generation. 38, and I don’t remember any movements or causes at college or university beyond student groups for the main political parties. Nobody was interested in feminism (this was the lads mags era), environmentalism meant taking your bottles and cardboard to the recycling bins at the supermarket and racism was something perpetrated by thugs and not nice, ordinary people (yes, inherent bias is a big deal). Nobody was openly gay at my school; coming out was a grown-up matter to be undertaken no earlier than university.

I’d come into contact with second wave feminism online and nobody in real life got it at all!

There will always be huge numbers of conformists out there (me included - my feminist activity was mainly confined to reading the Ms magazine message boards), but I think there are genuine challenges to the system out there now. It’s unfair to dismiss young people as just doing what they’ve been taught at school; people are making tangible sacrifices (meat, flying) and giving up their time to organise. In their late teens and twenties, my contemporaries were obsessing about dance music (but we’re too young to catch the rave scene in most cases) and, well, buying stuff.

Imagine pretending not to know that Ed Sheeran’s fan base is 90% women over the age of 40.

Totally agree. I work in higher education and just today my colleagues and I were deploring the lack of intellectual curiosity and maturity among students. It's like teaching a bunch of robots trained to pass exams. I would not blame them though- society made them this way.

What age are we calling these people?

@OneKeyAtATime they've had about 20 exams every year since they were 10. Uni is where they break away from that a bit - help them instead of sneering. I've had an exam on or around my birthday every year since 2006. Including this year. It's a focus

"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"

I think what you are referring to is one or two generations at the most, and those mainly from among the privileged classes. Or, to put it bluntly, the very short window when you happened to be young.

And somehow only your rebellion counts: young people of today protesting against fascism, protesting against climate change, protesting against austerity are somehow not as important as you were when you rebelled against whatever you were rebelling against.

And absolutely no young person these days is an artist or a musician or a writer or an actor. Nobody lives in house-shares or throws wild parties and discusses the state of the world until breakfast time. Nobody writes their own play and busks so they can take it to the Edinburgh fringe. OP- you don't get invited to those parties because you are old and boring They are still going on, young people are still being young.

WTF? I don’t know any women over 40 who likes Ed sheeran. Lots of their kids do tho (not mine, but both of mine are pretty musical, which seems to create immunity).

@blackprism that was my whole point.

Thank god young people are more caring and responsible than we were, when you look at the people in power you can see why young people are turning their backs on self centered careerists.

Sorry, I don't find my students as boring as all that. I've had some great moments in seminar this year.

Also just had a chat with my dd who is doing actor training in London, living off a shoestring and working all the hours of night and day despite some quite serious health problems (which currently involve being unable to walk in a straight line), and clearly having the time of her life. I asked what she was up to and she replied cheerfully: "I am a Virgin of Jesus and doing tantric sex therapy". Sounds a lot more fun than anything I was up to at her age.

I'm going to be mortgage free because I hit 40, this is because I was encouraged to prioritize it. As to my poverty stricken mum that was her one bit of security.

I'm so glad I did, I may well be skint in my old age and disenchanted but I won't be homeless. 💁

I don't think it is even remotely fair to criticise a whole generation because we essentially not rebelling in a way that you deem impactful enough.

Unfortunately we are the first generation will real hard facts about things such as the climate crisis. A situation that we are in because of the lifestyles of all of the generations before us. Not any individuals fault, just naivety and lack of knowledge.

We don't have the luxury of rebelling in a more traditional sense. We don't have the luxury of time.

Yet this is the generation that is seeing changes.

Changing the way we consume is forcing larger companies and laws to change. Be that more vegan options, lowering plastic use etc.

The climate protests are working to get people talking. Youth strikes are seeing very young people, the newer generation, truly passionate about something and making change.

Yes there is more focus on mental health. But a lot of this generation are so over exposed to an 'ideal' life online that they are more vulnerable to mental health issues. Why is it a bad thing that people are breaking the stigma and allowing people to talk about their struggles and feelings?

We are buying less and investing more in the future of this planet and enjoying the time and the life we have rather than being surrounded by possessions.

We are trying to make life more enjoyable yet be able to have a career at the same time by pushing for flexible working as a corporate standard.

I think, as a generation, we are probably making a lot bigger of an impact than some people in previous generations care to admit as it highlights how we have been let down by some of those before us.

JayBlue A lot of those examples are about individualism and ethical consumerism. They are fine, but it is very much about working within the status quo.

I am also amazed at the lack of historical understanding of those who think their generation was the first to face possible annihilation. In my generation we believed there was a very very real possibility of a nuclear war that would mean Russia firing nuclear bombs at us. This is when some people bought private nuclear shelters for their garden and when we had Greenham Peace camp and massive massive marches against nuclear weapons. The generation before faced the real possibility of nuclear war with the bay of pigs.
There does seem to be an incredible lack of understanding of recent history and a Utopian idea that everything in the recent past was wonderful.

And I am not criticising younger adults, it is older adults who have created this. It is an observation.

Incidentally, there have been people campaigning for things like flexible working and exposing sexual abuse for many decades. There is a lot more work to do, but none of this is new.

I don't know what young adults you know OP, but they are not the ones I know in any way, shape or form. Huge understanding of recent history and fact check me regularly

I totally disagree. This generation is generation boring. They just work and study. I have two cousins who in this generation. They and their friends yes do have a nice phone but they work to pay for it. They very into environment issues and working and studying.

It's too easy to judge the past by stereotypes or by headlines of the era. My mum was in her teens/early 20s during the 1960s. Was she at Woodstock or living in a squat as a hippie? No, she was studying and working.

I was a teen/early 20s in the 1990s. What was I doing? Hanging from a tree at the Newbury bypass, maybe? Nope. Studying and working, and eventually buying my first house.

I expect the vast majority of people have always spent their time studying and working - we remember the media images of different eras and characterise whole generations by them - but it's illusory.

Did you write this from your ivory tower @clairemcnam?

The younger generation have been screwed over financially. They will struggle to get on the housing ladder, will leave university with massive debts and will struggle to find employment. It’s not their job to fix capitalism since it wasn’t them that broke it. I suspect they have also totally lost faith in our democratic process recently.

But to say they aren’t trying to do anything is totally wrong. There are lots of grass routes political movements (look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and the climate change protests are mostly being led by young people.

The young people that I know are very political and not at all how you describe them.