Millenials - Generation Y-Not?

A couple of weeks ago, gentle readers, the New York Times published - in the Sunday Magazine – an article about the new generation of twenty-somethings.  About how they are now adults (as adults are perceived).  About how they are not on a career track.  About how, maybe due to the economy, maybe not, are moving back home with Mom and Dad.

And while the impression given, despite the fact that all the photos were by twenty-something Yale MFA grads, was one that the current generation of twenty-somethings is a bunch of freeloading, lazy and uninspired kids, your MatchGirl sees that proven wrong every day. And, while, dear ones, your MatchGirl may be well out of her twenties – firmly planted in GenX – the Millenials and those at the tail end of GenY who she knows are certainly no slackers.

Through this little web space alone, your MatchGirl has been introduced to a ton of twenty-something “kids” who disprove the Times’ thesis every day.  From my Work It Brooklyn co-founders Joann Kim  and Aja Marsh to my kid sister who works full time as a rape crisis counselor while going to graduate school to my friend Emily, working crazy hours in the fashion world while constantly striving for culinary perfection.  Not one of these women is a slacker.  Not one of hit hard times and just turned tail and moved back in with her parents.  Certainly not one of them decided to just mooch off of someone else while they figured their shit out.

Every couple of years, an article comes out touting the next generation as lazy or ditzy or less than the generation that came before them.  Your MatchGirl must warn against painting a whole generation with such a wide brush.

I mean, my grandparents – the “greatest generation” – definitely looked at the next generation, my parents’ generation, as a bunch of loser, slacker, hippie, do-nothings, too.

Just a thought.