Millennials
Born between 1982-2004.
I'm a millennial. I've known my birth year, 1995, classifies me as a millennial for quite some time. “You’re such a millennial,” the older generations say as my friends and I simultaneously talk and text, stream music and movies and make “friends” through social networks online. All of these entities are so often associated with our unique generation—the generation that has been considered to be all about
“Me, Me, Me” and “lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents” in Time magazine. As a millennial, I am one of the 75 million strong “Me’s.” We developed alongside technology, which has become intertwined in our everyday lives more than any generation before. We all experienced 9/11 and we all are facing the issues that have grown in severity since our parents were our age. Millennials represent an extremely unique generation in size, diversity, lifestyle and life events. Representing almost a quarter of the total U.S. population, the millennial generation now outnumbers baby boomers. This mass of individuals is 44% minority, making it the most diverse population of adults in U.S. history. In addition, more members of my generation are achieving higher education degrees, leading to increased wages. However, since the Great Recession in 2007, millennials have faced a higher probability of poverty than most baby boomers at similar ages.
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We Are Children of Fearful Parents
In spite of their own reckless and carefree childhood (or maybe because of it), baby boomer parents like mine raised their own children with far more fear than freedom. Some of this had to do with an increased focus on child safety. Baby proofing the house became a top priority. Electrical outlets were blocked, sharp table corners were padded, gates were set up like prison bars so toddlers could not wander or fall down stairs. Children wore bike helmets, elbow pads, and knee pads to avoid scrapes and bruises. Warnings appeared on almost every toy and product made for children. Seat belts and car seats, restraining children from any movement in a vehicle, became the law.
In addition to preventing injuries, our parents became increasingly worried about “stranger danger.” There were news reports of children were being abducted from bus stops and playgrounds. Pedophiles lurked in every community. As a result, parents had a heightened fear of letting their children play outside alone. Gone were the days of walking to school, riding your bike into town, and exploring the neighborhood until dark.
To be fair, our parents also dealt with a new kind of fear -- triggered in 1995 when American Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people and injuring nearly 700. Children were among the victims. A series of horrific and unimaginable events continued. In 1999, two teenagers went on a shooting spree in their high school in Littleton, Colorado, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others. And on September 11, 2001, four airplanes were hijacked and 2,977 people died in the worst attack ever on America. This was just the beginning of an age of terror when it seemed that no place and no one was safe from encountering a crazed individual using bombs or guns to kill as many people as possible. The most frightening part of it all for parents was that children were no exception.
After 9/11 a new department of Homeland Security was formed. Parents received disaster preparedness brochures. Schools began to practice lockdowns. Airports and train stations and stores increased security. Everyone was on edge. Our country was on high alert, and so were our parents.
How did this environment of fear affect their children? Kids like me, born into a new Age of Fear?
We're the Anxious Generation
Studies have shown that millennials suffer from anxiety more than any other generation that came before them. According to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), a personality test designed to compare traits between generations, millennials are experiencing symptoms of anxiety such as restlessness, dissatisfaction and instability much more than other birth cohorts.
Millennials worry. A lot. Psychiatrists hear more and more that teenage patients are nervous about things like terrorism and going to the movie theater and coming out alive. According to Psychology Today, an average high school student’s anxiety is comparable to that of a patient in a psychiatric facility during the early 1950s.
The numbers are there. And people are talking about it. Current circumstances are speeding up the heartbeats of the millennial generation, making them feel generally unsafe and unsure, and people are questioning why.
Some attribute it to the fact that the millennial generation was the first ever to be “helicopter parented” (hovered over) by their Baby Boomer parents. Malcolm Harris, writer at The New Republic, points to the “intensive risk aversion that characterizes contemporary parenting and the zero-tolerance risk-elimination policies that dominate the schools and the streets....It’s a wonder,” he says, that paired with the level of systemic instability our country faces, “millennials can muster enough trust to walk outside their own doors.”
Others point toward the various unprecedented challenges that millennials face -- the uncertainties that are spread through tunnels of media and conversation like economic stability, environmental deterioration, governmental distrust (to name a few). Life-threatening issues are constantly talked about in the media, making us constantly think our lives are being threatened.
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Active shooter.
Terrorist.
AR-15.
Lockdown.
Security checks.
Bomb explosion.
Murder.
The massive anxiety that millennials are experiencing is being talked about. However, much less is said about the rationality of this level of anxiety. Millennials worry about the future -- about what could happen to them if they sit in that crowded movie theater.
But is this necessary? Is our heightened level of anxiety justified?
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Let’s take a look at...