The Millennial Ethos
The Millennial Generation is defined as those born between 1981 and
1996. My grade in school was born from 1989 to 1990 — so right in the
heart of that. I want to use my time today to give you a window into our
lives.
I am 33 years old, born 2 months before the fall of Berlin wall, at the end of
the Cold War. My early childhood is a blur of vinyl records, disposable
cameras, and Saturday morning cartoons. I took touch-typing classes in
Lower School. I know that the symbol for “Save” is a floppy disc, and I still
know my best friends’ phone numbers by heart.
In my first week of 6 th grade, 9/11 rattled our world. The next year, I came to Hunter. My new friends and I went to Hunter College to protest the Iraq War – while at the same time learning about Vietnam, and wondering why the adults didn’t learn.
At some point, my older sister came home from college and introduced me
to The Facebook, an interesting new website to connect with friends.
My Hunter friends and I texted with T9 flip phones … remember punching a
key 3 times to get the letter C? Each text message cost money. Every word
had to count.
When we weren’t romping around New York using pay phones, we were
chatting on AOL, while pulling all-nighters to write term papers.
We still used index cards to organize our research, and our teachers
cautioned us against relying on this brand new website called “Wikipedia”
instead of on our own research.
Eventually, we graduated, and headed to college. In the first month of
Freshman year, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the financial system soon
after. What was going on?
A few months later, Barack Obama was elected president. At my school,
reveling students blocked off the main square, standing on cars, cheering
and dancing and shouting long into the night.
After enduring the Bush years, it felt — for a moment — like our voices were
being heard, like anything was possible, and all the wrongs of the world
could be righted.
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And yet we had no idea what we were on the precipice of. My senior year, I
wandered among Occupy Wall Street encampments on the main campus,
the mood distinctly darker than 2008.
I got my first smartphone upon graduating college, in 2012. Soon enough,
social media would move from being a naïve place to post stupid pictures,
to a weaponized operative designed to extract and peddle and polarize.
You see, my generation straddles the digital divide. We remember analog
times, fondly — they are nostalgic and warm to us, like our own childhood.
In fact, technology grew up alongside us, tracking the growth of our own
lives, like another sibling.
And we are tired. We have lived through multiple financial crises and wars.
We are sandwiched between taking care of aging parents and young
children. We are fighting to afford our own lives, in a world where it feels
like the deck is stacked against us.
Public school teachers in New York currently make $60,000 a year, while
the median home price is $800,000. How is this math supposed to work?
Credit scores were invented the year I was born. My score is good because
my credit history began 5 years before I did.
And because we are living longer, we are living a slower life. I am 33 years
old, and I just got married last year.
My husband and I are currently deciding whether to have children. Only a
handful of friends my age already have children. We lament how
unaffordable it is to raise a child — just one! — and wonder if we can
reasonably expect our children to inherit a livable planet. Inherit from us,
the ones who were supposed to take care of it.
***
I wanted to give you this window into being a Millennial because over the
coming years, as a group we will find our voice, and step into our power.
You need to know how we have lived.
We don’t want to overthrow the system. We grew up in the system and
have some belief in trying to fix it. All we want is a kinder and more
sustainable world. That’s all.
Thank you for your time and enjoy the rest of your day.
