“Kids these days…”
We’ve all heard it a million times, the chiming’s of our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles about how easy the next generations have it these days. We’re the entitled ones, born between 1981 and 2000, whom are arrogant, overly ambitious, and expect more than we deserve.
But wait, as both females and millennials growing up in the first real generation where equality reigns, weren’t we taught to believe that the sky was the limit? Weren’t we told, basically from birth, that we were capable of achieving anything and everything our hearts desired?
So why then, are we all of a sudden getting such a bad rep out there in the world?
Erin Dietrich is a 25-year-old professional dog groomer from Toronto who believes that Millennial females – or M Girls as she likes to call them – aren’t getting the credit they deserve.
“We are misunderstood,” said Dietrich. “They think we’ve been given everything on a silver platter and that we don’t have to work as hard.”
“I think there’s a lot more drive in our age bracket,” says Dietrich. “We’re definitely driven to gain success for ourselves as opposed to for others. We’re more focused on the individual and that shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing.”
Project Millennial, a recent in-depth study that actually looked at Millennials of both genders, has shown that Dietrich could be on to something. The results show that it is more accurate that what has been negatively characterized as overly entitled and overly ambitious is actually a generation who is more concerned about the future state of finance, health, and world issues.
“Our generation is a lot more conscious about other people’s beliefs and it gives us the opportunity to piece together our own way of thinking,” says Dietrich.“We are sort of the first generation to be raised differently. There was a lot more of a positive spin on the way we were brought up and we were taught to have an optimistic outlook right from the beginning.”
Dietrich believes that while this overly positive outlook may seem naé¯ve to many, it is actually what is shaping us into being powerful individuals in today’s working world. And the research supports it. Project Millennial reports that many of its subjects who hit the job market before the 2008 financial crisis maintain their high expectations for their career, lifestyle, and financial security. Most of us, even those burdened with more then $10,000 in debt are satisfied and comfortable with their finances.
“We’ve always been taught to better ourselves,” says Dietrich. “We’ve seen a lot of what our parents went through to get what they have and we want to emulate that lifestyle. And we’re the first ones who have really had the ability to do so.”
So the next time you’re approached at the family party and someone complains about your generation and how they’ve never had to work for anything, give them a smile, tell them you’re an M-Girl and remind them that you’re just trying to better yourself so that one day you can better their world.
