By Heather Monahan
Features Editor
Lazy. Narcissistic. Coddled. Delusional.
All adjectives Time used to describe Generation Y.
It’s funny, if you think about it. My generation, the twenty-somethings working our butts off in college to come out with debt up to our eyeballs and an awful job market, is constantly labeled as the selfish and entitled generation.
While narcissism can be applied to certain people, it most certainly doesn’t pertain solely to our generation. I don’t think it’s fair for us to be classified as lazy when many of us are trying to get good grades in school, working a minimum wage job to make money, taking part in extracurriculars to build up our resumes and working unpaid internships to gain job experience.
We may not work your typical 9-t0-5, 40-hour work week, but if this generation isn’t one of the most competitive, I don’t know which one is.
Stereotypes aside, the thing that amazes me the most is that older generations are quick to criticize us, yet they try to blow over their own failures. The most recent, and hardest to overlook, is the government shutdown.
How can that generation criticize us for being selfish, entitled and delusional while our government is currently shut down because people of their generation simply can’t compromise?
While national policy is obviously a major decision, the fact that they find shutting down the government more logical than talking it out, being rational and making a decision speaks volumes.
What I want to know is what my generation has done to directly affect the older generation in such a negative way. Even if we were as narcissistic, “coddled” and “delusional” as Time magazine so eloquently put it, I fail to see how that would have any sort of impact on anyone other than ourselves.
Yet we’re heavily affected by the government shutdown. My 26-year-old cousin who recently moved to Washington, D.C., told me how awful the job market was in her area because of the shutdown. Thousands of people between my age and hers are out of jobs because some gray-haired men can’t work together and compromise.
Thankfully, we’re a private university, but not all colleges are as lucky. According to USA Today, many public universities have had their funding cut completely as their research has been deemed non-essential.
It’s true that the government shutdown is a lot more complicated than a lot of us probably realize, and I’m in no way trying to undermine that.
What I am trying to point out is that it’s unfair for people my age to be criticized so heavily. We’re more capable and hardworking than we get credit for, and I think the older generations needs to stop pointing fingers at us and take a better look at themselves.
monahahm10@bonaventure.edu
