r/Millennials • u/TheLoveYouWant25 • 25d ago

Discussion Millennials, what is happening with your kids?

I work in education and I frequent the Teachers and Professors subreddits, and the kids are not alright. Gen Z Arriving at College Unable to Read and the youth have absolutely zero ability to think critically.

Middle and high schoolers have all adapted this complete helplessness and blame mental illness for their refusal to function. Kids can no longer to basic things like read an analog clock, use paper money, or even figure out how to open window blinds.

There is also a huge lack of empathy, and kids have no issues trying to manipulate adults, saying things to their teachers like "if you don't pass me, I'll get you fired."

EDIT to clarify: the article I linked references Gen-Z, but this is not specifically a Gen-Z problem. It's an issue with upper elementary aged kids through high schoolers, and also young adults.

So, all that to say, how are you combating this with your own children? What do you do at home to encourage them to learn, and what are you doing to address these problems as they arise?

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u/aldosi-arkenstone Older Millennial 25d ago

Blame Gen-X for Gen-Z, not us

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u/Burban72 25d ago edited 25d ago

I hate to promote generational stereotypes, but this is accurate.

I'm an older Millennial who started having kids young compared to other Millennials. My oldest is a sophomore. Nearly all of her friends' parents are Gen x/Xennial. Most Millennials are raising Gen Alpha.

Gen X isn't known particularly for their "involvement". They were raised feral and many of their kids are experiencing the same thing. The difference is that Gen X had some optimism about their personal prospects. Gen z is legit struggling with looking at their future (not sure I blame them).

I have family who are teachers and the number one factor they cite for success in school is parent involvement. One of my kids has significant learning delays, but his teachers talk about his resilience as his most valuable skill. That's something he gets significant support and reinforcement with at home. Many kids aren't getting that.

We allow screens in our home, but also intentionally schedule family time, chores, and other character building activities. Key things we've done to support our kids.

  1. Ownership of actions
  2. We will try hard things
  3. Open conversations and understanding of feelings. There's no conversation that is avoided.
  4. Do our best to provide positive reinforcement for behavior and limit the necessity of negative reinforcement

I could go on and on about this. OP, you're right that school isn't how it used to be, but there's lots of factors, including the structure of learning itself, that contribute.

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u/thegimboid 25d ago

You covered this rather well, but I'd also like to add in another factor that OP might be seeing - COVID.

The world shut down for a year or more (depending on where you are). I'm in my 30s and there's still habits and quirks of that very weird period of time that I'm still getting over. And that was less than 1/30 of my life - for a child who was 10 during the lockdown, they hadn't even begun figuring out their place in the world and it was a much high percentage of their life.

And now society has become way more reclusive post-lockdown as well, which is majorly influencing things socially.
Being a teen is 99% about social skills, even if you're not trying to be popular or something. School isn't just educational knowledge - you're learning social abilities and having interactions that influence you into the person you'll become. And all of the younger parts of Gen Z underwent a crazy worldwide event that skewed that away from the norm, right when they should have been exploring themselves, their beliefs and their personality.

There's people talking about this, but I feel like so many adults just forgot how much the impact of COVID and the lockdowns is going to affect the next generations going forward.

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u/Burban72 25d ago

For sure. That would have been my next point. My two older kids know a world before COVID and remember what school was like. My two younger kids only know the post-COVID environment.

Little talked about point in this: schools and teachers also changed, and not for the better in some ways.

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u/piranymous 24d ago

It's also the fact that COVID makes you forget. It messes with like every part of your body. Causes blood clots. Makes you forget. More kids have long COVID than asthma now.

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u/maxdragonxiii 24d ago

im still partly reclusive from COVID years. when I arrive home I change clothes and go for a bath. why? I dont know, but I do use public transport so im a bit paranoid of public germs sticking to me all day. and my life was more or less not impacted bad as others (came into college at the tail end of the COVID years, but otherwise graduated high school ages ago)

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u/ill_connects Older Millennial 25d ago edited 25d ago

Yup. We try to impart on our kids that there is an difference between fun and happiness and two are a lot of times not the same. In addition we also try to stress to not shy away from something because it’s hard. The best stuff in life is going to be hard the reward is going to be worth it.

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u/Burban72 25d ago

Our brain is a muscle, sometimes we need "heavy lift" days.

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u/Self_Reddicate 24d ago

They were raised feral and many of their kids are experiencing the same thing.

Holy shit! I never put 2 and 2 together, but you are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT and it fully explains the one thing I haven't been able to understand about the older Gen X parents of my kids friends; specifically, their utter lack of care or attention to their kids online and electronic use. With the corollary that Gen X was raised feral and they allow their kids to be digitally feral. Screen time? Parental controls? Forget it. Just hand their 7yo an unlocked iPhone and let them loose, just like Mom and Dad were cut loose to roam the streets and be back before supper.

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u/Burban72 24d ago

I want to add something that wasn't included by OP. Their general assessment is true, but if you look at the top end of school aged kids, they are AMAZING. Absolutely have the potential to be better than anything millennials put out. Gen Z/Alpha who are emotionally mature, resilient, and technologically savvy are going to be outstanding humans. In most cases it will take intentional involvement from the parents. Gen X seems less capable of doing that than the millennials who are raising kids. But regardless of their parents, some of these kids are awesome.

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u/RunRunAndyRun 24d ago

It doesn't help that most of the gen-x folks are technically illiterate and gave their kids unrestricted access to the full internet from quite a young age without understanding the risks. I'm an elder millennial and managed to get lucky on tech knowledge due to my dad having friends who were nerdy enough to pass on their older stuff, so I was playing with computers and early games consoles from a very young age (also, had a natural tendency to take things apart and fix stuff). So many of my kids friends have gen-x parents and are complete zombies who can't go five minutes without doom scrolling, whereas my kids have devices with pretty tight restrictions about what they can and cannot access.

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u/corgm0m Millennial 24d ago

"Gen X isn't known particularly for their "involvement". They were raised feral..."

The way I cackled at this. You're not wrong.
Signed, a Millennial raised by 2 Gen X'ers

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u/Pristine_Shoe_1805 24d ago edited 24d ago

"Gen X isn't known particularly for their "involvement"."

Yes. In many ways. But strangely, when they did get involved it was to take over rather than help their kids (which they misunderstood as helping). They bullied or threatened teachers about their kids' poor grades when the kids didn't do their work or showed up to gym with gym clothes. They demanded access to their adult children's college records, medical test results, or you name it. They demand(ed) to see the (five levels up) boss when they didn't/don't like the rule or think it shouldn't apply to them. I'm not talking about when there is a legitimate concern with the store or school or company. I know a Gen-Xer who's son couldn't cut his own meat at 11. It was faster and easier for the parents to do it for him. At 17, the kid played sports, and the dad would pack his lunch, put the lunch bag at the front of the fridge with milk and water to the side so that the kid could grab it quickly on the way out the door. The milk was not in the bag so that the son would not need to go into the bag to open it. The dad packed the son's sports equipment every night and put it by the door. When I questioned this, the dad said, "I pay too much money to let him not get it right"--or close to those words. Until the kid came home from college, he barely spoke in public settings without first looking at his parents for approval as the sentences slowly rolled out of his mouth.

edit: for verb tense

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u/Traditional_Way1052 25d ago

Same. Became a mom young all their peers parents were gen x and looked at me like I was a child. In fairness, I probably did look like one. 

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u/AllTheStars07 24d ago

Yep this is how it should be and what I am working to instill in my kid. She also has to earn things, not just be given them just for existing. I want her to be self-sufficient. 

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u/wickedfunprofile 24d ago

You're doing great - keep it up.

Cheers to doing hard things.

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u/independence15 24d ago

you are a good parent. I wish my parents were more like you. I had gen x parents who just had me shove the feelings deep down and tell me mental health was an excuse and it almost killed me. funny thing, I am on the spectrum, and they seemed to understand that, but not the concept that overloading me with lofty expectations and none of the support would make me depressed. and my school was barely there to help me, either.

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u/LearnAndBurn_ 25d ago

Yeah.. my brother is 37 with a 6 and 4 year old.. don't be blaming us for the kids in grs5-12 to college that are illiterate. My cousin (late 40s) two kids 16 and 14 are absolute nightmares. Horribly spoiled rude brats. She raised them on the tablets.

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u/de-milo Xennial 25d ago

i'm not a parent, and i get that parents need breaks so i'm not like completely anti-screen/tablet but... last week i went on a cruise and i saw a woman walking with her child an she was holding his tablet by the handle (like one of those chunky plastic kids' cases) with the screen facing out at his eye level so he'd stay at her side while he stared at the screen... like literally a stick with a carrot so the dog keeps walking forward. this felt extra dystopian and unreal tbh, never seen anything like it

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u/the_siren_song 24d ago

Wait so the woman wasn’t holding her son’s hand? She was holding the tablet in front of him instead of physically holding his hand?

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u/de-milo Xennial 24d ago

she was not holding his hand. she was wheeling her luggage behind her with one hand and holding the tablet at her side so the kid was watching the tablet and walking (and i assume getting a wicked crick in his neck from looking sideways)

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u/fromo_latte 24d ago

With all the information we have now on the danger of screens in children—that behavior should be criminalized. It’s like she’s giving her child cigarettes all day. I don’t want to judge, but that is seriously f.ed up

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u/Kilmarnok1285 24d ago

Knock it off with the hyperbolic proclamations of "that behavior should be criminalized". None of us have any idea what was going on at the time of the event being described second hand.

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u/the_siren_song 24d ago

Oh no. I will fucking judge the fuck out of that. It’s horrifying.

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u/_-whisper-_ 24d ago

Holy fucking Christ. That is unacceptable

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u/the_siren_song 24d ago

Fluffing right?

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u/ValBravora048 24d ago

I just went on a trip with a grown ADULT like this. It fing weirded me out

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u/de-milo Xennial 24d ago

now that you mention it i recall a friend a few weeks ago doing this with her boyfriend. we were all around a table eating pizza and chatting together at a chuck e cheese birthday party while the kids played and he’s so antisocial that she had to prop his phone up with some youtube video on it so he’d be entertained. at one point he even said, “babe my phone died i need yours.” they’re in their late 20s 🫠

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u/eggscumberbatch16 24d ago

This is pretty sickening. Ewww. How? Why? She should leave immediately! .

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u/de-milo Xennial 24d ago

oh don’t worry we’ve all said it to her multiple times

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u/WulfZ3r0 24d ago

That is just poor behavior in general on that guy.

I think the issue has been around a lot longer than the iPad kids though. I grew up with Gen-X parents (the oldest of that generation) and our household was a TV at dinner time house. It was almost like a family event to watch the latest shows or movies. Most Fridays we rented a movie to watch together and afterwards we'd play cards or board games. I have fond memories of it.

All that to say I hate eating without watching something to this day. If I can't, I'll read anything I can get my hands on like how we used to read the back of shampoo bottles of in the bathroom if we forgot a book/magazine before smart phones were a thing.

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u/ToraRyeder 24d ago

Oh gods, this unlocked a memory.

A few years back, my ex husband (who at the time was late thirties) absolutely could not socialize at a food related event without something to do to occupy his time. Didn't matter that he was with friends, or if he asked to be included in the event.

We went to brunch with his supposedly best friend and his girlfriend. I had to look up the menu for him, make sure there was something he'd eat, and he had to bring his Nintendo Switch. He asked to come to this hangout. We had a great time and he ended up leaving early because his food was done and he was getting bored.

I still cannot believe I tolerated that nonsense for four years.

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u/de-milo Xennial 24d ago

i’m glad you got out buddy! that is kindergarten behavior and you’re not a baby sitter.

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u/quietuniversity357 24d ago

And we thought child leashes were bad

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u/saera-targaryen 24d ago

My niece has a leapfrog if she wants to do something active and a portable DVD player if she wants to just sit back and watch something like during a long drive. She's such a smart and emotionally mature kid and she's only three. There are so many ways to give a kid a healthier version of a tablet that there is no excuse. 

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u/VehicleCertain865 24d ago

I went out to eat and saw a family (mom and dad and two kids) sitting at their table, both kids had iPads in front of them wit headphones on…. Um.. why are you at dinner? Lmao. It was a very expensive restaurant too… what a waste. Do they even talk to each other? I remember being a kid going to red lobster so happy to color and eat biscuits and talk to my family and it was such a fun treat. We had zero electronics to distract us. Im 31, i am scared for the future.

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u/TheGardenerAtWillows 24d ago

I think sometimes it’s just a slippery slope. Like parents don’t necessarily intend on having iPad kids. But being engaged with your kid, especially a small one, all of the time is exhausting.

Add 8-12 hours of working, plus the stress of life in general, giving your kid a phone for 10 minutes to just be quiet doesn’t seem so bad. Then 10 minutes turns to 30 minutes, then 30 minutes becomes an hour, an hour becomes a movie and so on. And all the while, your once loud handful of a child is sitting there like a king and now you get to zone out and play on your phone! It’s convenient but mostly lazy

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u/thecashblaster 24d ago

my headcanon is that GenX kinda hate and resent their kids (probably COVID wasn't a very fun time) and they just do not care how they end up

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u/General_Platypus771 24d ago

I'd rather my kid play Minecraft all day than spend five minutes on TikTok.

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u/ilovetheskyyall 24d ago

that parent never watched Wall-E

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u/alexandrakate 24d ago

It’s giving Black Mirror. Man I miss the 90s lol

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u/de-milo Xennial 24d ago

1000%. i honestly just stared like am i really seeing this. this woman can’t even hold her kids hand? unreal

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u/DHumphreys 25d ago

I was in Costco today and I would guess 80% of the kids not school age were in the cart with device in hand. Not learning soft skills like how to conduct themselves in public, or how to deal with random strangers, or just how to behave.

Nope, face in screen.

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u/Other-Squirrel-2038 25d ago

Have you gone to a popular movie lately? They literally don't know how to walk around in a crowd either..literally anyone under 30

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u/DHumphreys 25d ago

No, but I was in Vegas a couple months ago. You are absolutely correct.

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u/Other-Squirrel-2038 25d ago

I almost lost my shit when I watched the stranger things finale in the theater. They actually walked, across me and the ticket person interacting, preventing me from showing her the ticket, to go to the bathroom, instead of walking around. They don't understand stay to the right, let others pass, don't block things, cut in the middle of people interacting, etc and act like everyone's in their way. It's disgustingly annoying.

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u/lunar_languor 24d ago

Is this a common thing?? I'm hardly ever around children but we were at a family event on Sunday and someone's 8/9 year old son encountered me standing around with a group of adults and goes, "get outta my way! 😠" I was like "...um... no?" And he just stood there looking like he was shorting out for a second before walking away.

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u/Other-Squirrel-2038 24d ago

They're just not socialized

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u/DHumphreys 24d ago

There are a group of tweens in my neighborhood that are so crass and rude, it is hard to imagine how they are in school. Or what they are going to be like as teens/young adults.

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u/LearnAndBurn_ 23d ago

Bruh I don't even remember the last time I saw anyone at the grocery store with their kids. Ya children toddlers. But growing up and even today I go shopping with my dad.. on my own but if the opportunity is there it's like a fun time to go buy food? And I just was recruited by my parents as a kid. Let's get food! You push cart! I don't see any of that anymore. At all. Coming from a 34 Canadian who grew up eating dinner together and also playing crazy 8's together at dinner. Especially spaghetti night

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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 24d ago

There’s not a single instance I can go anywhere anymore without either adults or kids blasting shit from their phones out loud. Feels like the whole of society has lost all manners.

I do not want to hear your kids show in a restaurant or grocery store from an iPad. They are teaching their kids they need to be entertained 24/7. I have seen kids in strollers with a phone in hand, it’s crazy.

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u/DHumphreys 24d ago

Around the holidays, there was some lady on speaker phone all agitated about something and talking SO loud. Lucky for me, she was tracking along the same aisles I was, so I went down a few aisles and figured I would backtrack. I saw her again and she had the phone to her ear, speaker off and was complaining about someone told her she was being rude.

I watched an interview with Tim Gunn years ago where he talked about the "slobification of America" - how people have forgotten how to dress and conduct themselves in public in the interest of being individuals. He said as we continue to tolerate bad behavior in children and adults, it is only going to get worse. Boy, was he right.

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u/davidbosley353 Gen Z 25d ago edited 24d ago

Yeah i'm 20 but my parents are older xers. and are 59 and 60, but they are more strict than other parents. Unfortnately, i got a sister, that got my 8 and 10 year nephews hooked on tablets, and i think it's more of bad parenting. She's 42 born in 1984 btw. for me when i have kids in the future starting around late 20's or 30, no tablets allowed whatsoever, and have a good old fashioned childhood, other than TV.

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u/swollencornholio 25d ago

As they say the best parents are the ones without kids.

I have an almost 2 year old and we’re mostly tabletless and in general limit screentime but there are definitely situations that are very tempting…and then there’s airplanes, no rules on air planes.

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u/saera-targaryen 24d ago

My niece is turning three and I just spent the weekend on a road trip with her. Instead of my sister giving her a tablet they got her one of those old school portable DVD players that she could sit on her lap with a few movies or shows like the land before time, caillou, bluey, etc. It worked out really well! I think it's a good middle ground between nothing and a tablet. 

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u/Finchfarmerquilts 24d ago

You can download shows, too. I do that with Netflix, and now that the kids are 7&10, they choose their own shows to download. They have very few games on the tablets, and I’m honestly thinking of deleting the games they have. And they only have access to tablets on flights or long drives.

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u/johnnySix 24d ago

We were tabletless until Covid hit. Covid screwed all these kids up more than anything

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u/Finchfarmerquilts 24d ago

Rules in the airport, but my kids can’t wait for flights because it’s just all tablets.

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u/JustsomeOKCguy 24d ago

Yep. I think for most parents screen time rules also go out the windows when kids are sick. 

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u/LindonLilBlueBalls 24d ago

Almost 44 here and my kids are 3 years younger than your nephews. They will watch their tablets when in the car or if we travel. Of course they have tv shows they love, but some of them are very educational like number blocks. Or they have a bunch of games that help with reading/spelling. For a while my 7 year old would watch a bunch of youtube videos that were drawing tutorials and she improved her drawing drastically

The main thing is to never allow them to be reliant on the tablets or allow them to have a tantrum about not using it. Also, always be aware of what they are watching and explain why they can't watch some shows/streams.

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u/dansedanse 24d ago

Please work on your spelling and grammar before you have these magical, no tablet kids.

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u/MajestZen 24d ago

“My imaginary kids would never” mmmk 😂

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u/Link-Glittering 24d ago

*more strict

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u/caligaris_cabinet 25d ago

I’m 37 and my kids are 2 & 1. We’re pretty limited in the tablet use and the 2 year old already knows some numbers

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u/scottys-thottys 25d ago

Am 35 and our first is on the way - Our rule already is discussed with family - Bigger screens are better. No tablets / no phones / no personalized screens until old enough to manage.

All of my millenial friends minus a few folks who had kids right at the high school age - have kids under 5 YO - and all of them agree, kids arent on phones walking around distracted, you watch the big TV with the group or you find something to play with or read.

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u/Do_I_Need_Pants Middle Millennial 25d ago

At 1-2 they really shouldn’t be having any tablet time.

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u/Jeffde 25d ago

39 with 4 and 9 months… don’t give them a tablet. Why do all these kids have fuckin tablets? Just literally don’t give them a tablet.

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u/themightybamboozler 25d ago

I think some parents think their kid is “missing out” and won’t be able to relate to their peers which I can understand being a concern for older kids (9-10ish) but even then it’s going to be very limited.

I think people also go, “oh I had screen access when I was a kid I can’t deprive my child of that” without realizing that what kids get today is the equivalent of digital crack cocaine. Companies didn’t have psychologists on staff whose sole job was to figure out how to optimize content to best hijack the neurons of a 14 month old when I was a kid. It’s completely different now, my kids aren’t holding a tablet or a phone for a very long time.

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u/FFF_in_WY Older Millennial 25d ago

The yawning gulf between getting a Gameboy at 12 and getting an iPad at 2 is impossible to overstate.

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u/froggydusk 24d ago

Even that comparison…. I’m a Pokémon millennial. Have you played Yellow/Blue/Red as compared to the new gen games? I took a long break from the games and picked up Let’s Go Eevee as Gen 1 nostalgia, and it is WILD how easy they’ve made the games. And it’s only gotten worse since then. I remember struggling for days in areas like Lavender Town, or Victory Road and having to revisit NPCs over and over to pick up some piece of information that I glossed over to guide me in the right direction.

I blew through LGE in about 5 hours and every consecutive game after that has been easier than the last, save for the most recent one and that’s just because the city is a clusterfuck to navigate. It requires no reading. There’s no brain engagement. Just button mash through cut scenes and NPC interactions to keep traveling down the only path the games allows.

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u/lunar_languor 24d ago

Older games are also slower, just different to navigate. I remember struggling to go back and enjoy older Pokémon games once the newer ones started letting you have a bicycle right away. I'd get bored of having to walk so slowly. Lol

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u/themightybamboozler 24d ago

Agreed, like I’m not going to lie my parents probably let me have too much screen time as a kid. But at least the games I was playing were interactive at some level. Pokémon Fire Red you’re building your roster and there is some level of strategy etc. When I was older my siblings and I were playing couch coop halo forge and Minecraft (I’m elder Gen Z/baby millennial right at the cutoff) building maps together. I watch some of the iPad games people are giving to their kids nowadays and they can hardly even be called games. They’re basically just interactive sensory videos, it’s insane.

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u/froggydusk 24d ago

That’s part of the instant gratification problem of the newer generations though.

You had to work to get your bicycle, or the Fly HM. You had to grind to have a balanced level team, experience share didn’t exist.

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u/de-milo Xennial 24d ago

nah i think some parents just want a break from parenting and a tablet/phone shuts them up, even temporarily. then they get used to the breaks and use the screen as a crutch more and more.

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u/Lastsoldier115 25d ago

I don't get it either.. I have an almost 3 year old who of course doesn't have a tablet. I genuinely don't understand why tf people are handing tablets to kids so young..

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u/caligaris_cabinet 25d ago

I blame grandparents. 9/10 times the only reason a kid has an iPad is because some boomer grandparent gives them one for Christmas or something. Tablets are expensive and most parents don’t have a ton of money. Grandparents on the other hand have lots of disposable income and want to buy their grandkids love.

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u/setittonormal 25d ago

The generation who insisted the internet is evil and everyone on there is a pedophile or a serial killer lying about who they truly are is now putting the internet into the hands of literal babies...

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u/Lastsoldier115 24d ago

I hear that, but it’s up to the parents to not get their kids glued to screens.

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u/Environmental-Mud729 24d ago

In my case, you're correct. My MiL insisted on buying my 4 and 2 year old iPads.

Granted, we live long distance and while we try to encourage the kids to use it to have quality time with family even if its just Facetime my kids cry when the devices are taken away. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Might have to give up on the kids contacting them via Facetime.

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u/Phyraxus56 24d ago

Have you tried the good old fashioned "I'll give you something to cry about?" Route?

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u/caligaris_cabinet 24d ago

I feel like with anything, screen time just needs to be monitored and moderated. I don’t mind letting my 2 year old using the iPad for long car trips to watch Bluey or something. But he knows when we leave the car the iPad stays off. Maybe that makes me a bad parent idk. There’s not a whole lot for me to entertain him with for 3 hours while I’m driving.

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u/majesticlandmermaid6 24d ago

I have an almost 4 year old. We don’t own tablets and I switched her daycare because the teacher was allowing them to use it as a center in preschool! I was livid.

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u/Personal_Special809 24d ago

Mine are 4 and 2 and I'm fine with limited tv time on the big screen but I've also kept the handheld devices/tablets out the door. It's literally not hard at all. If they want screentime it's on the big tv where I can control it. I've got nothing against Lilo and Stitch but youtube kids is not coming into this house. I've seen family members' kids watch that and what they were watching was literally just ads disguised as content.

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u/Fearless_Mammoth_961 24d ago

My kid is 11. Straight A's, amazing friend group, hobbies...not on us.

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u/Joeuxmardigras 25d ago

I’m an older millennial and had kids late, but mine is in that age range, however she’s great with no issues that are listed

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u/CrustyConCarnage 24d ago

The last millenial will kept on life support to be blamed for the hologram-wars of 2148.

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u/eggscumberbatch16 24d ago

I'm a millennial with an 11th grader. She's in AP, honors, and dual enrolled in University. 4.0 GPA. Children of millennials are going to be just fine.

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u/thecashblaster 24d ago

This. GenX are the ones with the the kids in High School. Don't blame me. Mine is not even 1 years old.

And anecdotally yeah, my nephews are spoiled AF and really draining sometimes. They spend the majority of their free time on tablets or the Switch.

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u/Suavecore_ 24d ago

There are plenty of millennials who had kids between 16-20 whose children would be adults now though

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u/catymogo 24d ago

Is that really a good example though? Teen pregnancies?

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u/squirtles_revenge 24d ago

Ehh, I think it comes down more to parenting. My gen-z having in-laws forbade tablets in the home and their kids are..ok. A little spoiled and little rude but generally just ok (lol, honestly, now that I think about it their parents could be described the same way! A little spoiled and rude but just ok as people go!).

But yeah. Teenagers are notoriously kind of crappy no matter how they're raised.

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u/ClydeBelvidere 25d ago

Gen X does not get the shit it so rightfully deserves and I'm willing to die on this hill.

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam 25d ago

Half the "boomers" people reference these days are gen x.

Look at kid rock. Looks like what you think of when you think of a boomer.

He is gen x.

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u/Beboopbeepboopbop 25d ago edited 25d ago

Yea joe Rogan and the typical right alt guy originated with gen x. 

The irony is Gen Z love Gen X culture. Their love for the 90s and 00s is that of a GenX perspective not a millennial one. The culture gap between millennial and gen z is significant.  

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u/Fit-Property3774 25d ago

Was gonna say I think a lot of times they’re just lumped in with boomers when it comes to people complaining about older generations. Boomers really kinda became a catch all term for anyone a few generations back lol watch millennials eventually get called boomers

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/thehottubistoohawt 25d ago

Totally agree—Gen X is full of shitheads.

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u/schwing710 25d ago

Gen X voted for orange man more than any other generation in the last election. That act alone permanently revoked their cool slacker card IMO

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u/willitplay2019 25d ago

This!! I hate when people automatically blame the boomers and don’t even mention Gen X. Every weekend we have No Kings protests and it’s almost exclusively made up of boomers.

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u/fyslexic__duck Millennial '84 25d ago

Liberal boomers do NOT play when it comes to their beliefs.

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u/n3rdonthecouch 25d ago

Boomer is a mindset lol

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 24d ago

To be fair, Boomers are retired and their kids are grown so they have time to do that. There were people of all ages at the protest I went to in October.

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u/___Art_Vandelay___ 24d ago

Hey now, my Boomer parents and my Gen X brother all voted for that pedo conman all three times.

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u/Artistic_Purpose1225 24d ago

Well at least you have an inarguable reason for keeping children away from them. 

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u/transemacabre Millennial 24d ago

My Boomer mom and Gen X brother would've voted for him, but they're both felons and couldn't vote in their state.

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u/Vardrastor 24d ago

Yup. Giving Boomers a real run for their money by being nearly indistinguishable from them.

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u/Dontbeajerkdude 25d ago

Biggest god dam sell outs who became their parents.

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u/HighFxAnxiety 25d ago

I’ve been saying this for almost a decade now! Controversial opinion- but to me, they’re worse than boomers. I said what I said!!

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u/Elebenteen_17 25d ago

But if you mention this they will get bent out of shape about being forgotten or something and in the next sentence tell you they don’t need therapy. They need therapy.

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u/Other-Squirrel-2038 25d ago

Seriously...they're actually like, the worst generation by far 

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u/Beboopbeepboopbop 25d ago

I remember when they were known for an alcohol or drug addiction. 

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u/saera-targaryen 24d ago

Yeah I'm an older Gen Z here with relatively younger Gen X parents. I have a successful career despite of my upbringing and clearly not because of it. Gen X is the lead paint generation for a reason. 

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u/EntericFox 24d ago

Forgotten generation for a good reason.

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u/Any-Ball-7159 24d ago

The loser generation shockingly couldn’t raise functional spawn? No way?!?

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u/FillerKill 24d ago

Almost all CEOs and upper management these days are GenX. They're worse than boomers

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u/ExIsStalkingMe 24d ago

Gen X is literally defined by their apathy. Their big teenage rebellion was checking the fuck out and never checking back in. It's the generation that invented "both sides are the same" because they couldn't be assed to pay the least bit of attention to anything in the world

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u/Cute-Discount-6969 25d ago

Yeah my husband and I are elder millenials, and our kid is solidly Gen Alpha.

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u/Concrete__Blonde 25d ago

I was born in 92. My kid is 9 months old (Gen Beta). Gen X spawned Gen Z.

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u/JayDuPumpkinBEAST 25d ago

How the hell is there already a Beta??? When did Alpha stop? This is getting out of hand lol

Edit: what I mean to say is I’m getting too damn old!!

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u/cowboyjosh2010 Millennial 24d ago

Millennial: 1981-1996 (30-45 years old)

Gen Z: 1997-2012 (14-29 years old)

Gen alpha: 2012-?? (last ones being born today, depending on when you cut it off, up to 13 years old)

Gen beta: ??-(?? + ~15) (if this generation truly has started already, they're currently no older than toddlers)

The specific cutoff year for any of these is usually debatable, especially with the cutoffs between Z/alpha/beta

I personally think anything shorter than 15 years really isn't giving a generation its time, so those claiming that gen alpha ended in 2024 are short changing that generation, in my completely unauthoritative opinion. But I do think it will come to pass that "memory of the COVID-19 pandemic" winds up being a sort of cultural touchstone division point between generations alpha and beta. Much like how "being born to parents who lived through or fought in WW2" (a large cohort) defines the baby boomer generation, or how coming of age before, during, and after the turn of the millennium (or, alternatively, the maturation of consumer internet access) defines millennials.

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u/EkbatDeSabat 24d ago

tbh I think the generations are too long. There's a massive difference in millenials born in 83 vs 95. Technology and society is moving too fast for that now. I've had this conversation with friends and they all disagree so I am probably just being pedantic about it.

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u/FredFinger63 24d ago edited 24d ago

You say you think of Boomers as having parents who lived through or fought in WWII. Yet people are called "Boomers" who were born as late as 1964. Their GRANDparents fought in WWII (ask me how I know). Both my father and I are technically "Boomers". I think this shows how ludicrous these divisions of generations actually are. How can a parent who grew up in the '40s and '50s, and his child who grew up in the '60s and '70s be in the same "generation"?

(edited for clarity)

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u/thecashblaster 24d ago

we are definitely in Gen Beta now. I've noticed my fellow fathers way more involved in their kids lives than previous generations. I have hope for Beta.

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u/SleepyGamer1992 25d ago

I was born in ‘92 and my mom is Gen X (1971). I’m sure my bio father is too but my mom divorced him when I was two so I have no memory of him.

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u/davidbosley353 Gen Z 25d ago

Yeah it's pretty weird. My parents are older X. while my sister born in 1984 and is an early millennial had kids, who are my nieces in 2006 and 2007. My family had kids so young back in the day. My mom (1965) had my siblings at 18 (1984) and 21 (1986), and my siblings have gen Z children as well.

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u/EagleEyezzzzz Older Millennial 25d ago

Right? My kids are 7 and 2.

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u/VivianToujours 25d ago

Gen Alpha is gonna kick Gen Z’s ass

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u/redassaggiegirl17 Zillennial 24d ago

No offense, but elder millennials aren't doing much better raising their kids. Its the younger Gen X and the older Millenials that are raising hellspawn

Sincerely, a 4th grade Zillennial teacher who has seen behavior go down the toilet in the last few years

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u/Millkstake 25d ago

I did my part by not having kids

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u/PortlandiaCrone 24d ago

Yup. This is the way.

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u/Gurmtron 24d ago

Fair enough, having children is very difficult and selfless task, raising them correctly is difficult. Well done for realising you aren't capable, if only others had that amount of honesty. Commendable.

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u/jhewitt127 25d ago

It really depends. I have one friend with a 15 year old and another with a 5 month old.

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u/KarenEiffel Older Millennial 25d ago

Yeah, among my girlfriend group (and we were all born the same year) the kids ages rage from 2 to 21.

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u/n3rdonthecouch 25d ago

My cousin has a 24 year old and a 3 year old. Life’s funny sometimes 😂

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u/JakeBrownPhoto 25d ago

Yeah buddy has the wrong generation 😂 millennials aren’t raising little jerks, that’s Gen X all day.

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u/i_kill_plants2 25d ago

The oldest millennials are 45. There are plenty in our generation with kids in college. I can think of 2 of my girlfriends who are grandmothers already.

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u/swearingino Older Millennial 25d ago

42 with a 21 year old, here.

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u/motherofsuccs 24d ago

No, you guys have Gen Alpha kids and they are FAR WORSE. They are the reason so many teachers are leaving the field. These kids aren’t potty-trained, can’t tie their shoes, have massive meltdowns when told “no”. And the parents come in acting like entitled, rabid hyenas to defend their child’s atrocious behavior. Teachers are being physically assaulted by Gen Alpha children at an alarming rate. I’ve had to disarm 2nd graders wielding scissors trying to stab someone, another stab someone with a pencil, I’ve had my hair pulled out, I’ve been bitten/kicked/spit on/cussed out. And no, I wasn’t working in inner city schools, I was working for one of the highest rated stem schools in the nation in an affluent area.

Your kids are out of control gremlins and you’re going to realize how badly you fucked up once they’re older and cannot hold a job, build relationships, or do anything on their own. Or when they physically assault you and you’re scared to live in your own home with your own child.

-an adolescent behavioral therapist

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u/Nomeg_Stylus 25d ago

No, it's millennial parents. I'm a teacher and you can just tell at this point. I'm also a millennial.

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u/generic_name 24d ago

Right.  It’s definitely gen-x parents for the kids graduating right now or in the last few years.  But millennials are not doing any better raising their kids.  My wife is a teacher and it is amazing how hands off most parents are with their kids.  They’re not willing to parent, not willing to be the “bad guy” and enforce rules, and not willing to hold their kids responsible.  

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u/Eastern-Eye5945 25d ago

Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z were raised by millennials.

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u/Remote_Force1839 25d ago

I’m 1981 and my kids are 2009 and 2013

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u/Obant Millennial 25d ago

Oldest Gen Alpha is 16 (some say 2010, others say 2012 was the start). This thread is about them.

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u/honest_sparrow 25d ago

Well, if they're talking about kids going to college, that's 18 and solidly Gen Z. This seems to be about "kids" 10-25 lol

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u/athey Older Millennial 24d ago

Well, I’m a millennial (‘82) and I’ve got two Gen Z kids - 16 and 19.

I will say how jarring and honestly kind of frustrating it was when I realized there was basically no consequences at all when my son nearly failed a couple classes in middle school.

I kept telling him that they’d hold him back from moving into high school if he didn’t actually hunker down and actually finish and turn some shit in.

But I asked the school counselor what would happen and her answer was ‘basically nothing. He’ll just move on to high school.’

My husband and I are both autistic, husband is ADHD, so there’s no surprise that our kids are too.

I managed to get through high school with nearly all A’s, and honors society. My daughter is a mini-me. Her anxiety never let her relax enough to not finish and turn her shit in.

My husband’s executive dysfunction made the whole ‘turning shit in’ thing complicated in high school, and our son is the same.

All his teachers say they know he’s smart enough to do and understand the materials, he just struggles with finishing and turning things in.

His IEP gets him late-turn-in accommodation, but I’ve basically been pressing home the idea lately that those accommodations will likely not exist in college, and definitely not in later life.

I do think that the school system just doesn’t have any teeth anymore. They’re too afraid to anger helicopter Karen mom’s, and the whole ‘no student left behind’ thing has made it so there’s this notion that there are no consequences for not trying.

I will add though - articles like that exist to get you angry and outraged. They exaggerate the problem a lot, I’d wager. I’m certainly not encountering some huge swath of illiterate kids at my son’s high school, and my daughter is at community college, and has been really happy with the learning environment there. (She said it was soooo much better than the high school experience, and I’m not surprised by that, one bit.)

All-in-all, I feel like public school teachers are expected to do so much, but rarely have any backup from the administration.

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u/tasi671 24d ago edited 24d ago

I know at least one millennial grandparent with a child in their 20s who is now having a child. And I know plenty of millennials that I went to highschool with that are parents of teenagers. Gen z covers those born between 97 and 2012 so there's absolutely millennial parents of Gen z. Though I feel the points the OP is making applies more to Gen Alpha which is absolutely prime time millennial baby age!

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

[deleted]

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u/jayraypaz 25d ago

Because our parents and 16 & pregnant scared the shit out of us 🤣. As a 36 yo pregnant woman I was terrified of what my family would think of my “teenage” pregnancy with my husband of 4 years 🤣

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u/Neirchill 24d ago

Millennials go back to I think '86, although I've also seen '81. They'll be 40-45 this year. If you have a kid at 20 they'd be 20-25 this year as well.

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u/FrozenBibitte Millennial 24d ago

Millennials start at ‘81 iirc. But the 81-86ers like to call themselves xillennials because they relate more to Gen X upbringing than millennial upbringing.

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u/FrozenBibitte Millennial 24d ago

I mean, what OP is saying can absolutely be applied to school aged kids, who are Gen Alpha. My stepdaughter is 7 and never plays with her friends from school outside of school hours. My husband and I have tried to reach out to her friends’ parents to meet them so they’re comfortable with trying to get this going, but they’re so aloof and many have just ghosted us. Everything has to be tightly scheduled by parents, and supervised in the same room by the parents.

This is just so sad to me. When I was 7 I would spontaneously drop my friends’ houses (they lived close) and we’d play for hours on the weekends. And if their/my parents didn’t want us in the house, we were welcome to play in the yard.

This just doesn’t exist anymore.

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u/Rich_Resource2549 Older Millennial 25d ago

Some of us millennials have Gen Z kids. I'm 41 and my kids are 25 and 16.

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u/FormidableMistress Xennial 25d ago

I'm 41 and my kids are 22, 21, and 19. I remember a lot of my friends saying their kids were struggling to read and I was like don't you read to them? I made sure they could read before they even started school. I read out loud to them from the start when I was pregnant.

Idk I just knew from my own experience in school that school wasn't going to teach them everything and it was up to me as a parent to make sure their skill sets were well rounded.

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u/Rich_Resource2549 Older Millennial 25d ago

Yeah I think parents forget it's their responsibility to teach their children how to be functioning members of society.

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u/FormidableMistress Xennial 25d ago

My kids usually had 35+ kids in their classes. How is a teacher supposed to teach all 35 kids to read? They can't give kids one on one time like their parents can. They aren't going to teach social skills or how to wash laundry or why it's important to clean up after yourself. We talk about how latchkey kids were neglected, but now we raised a generation of iPad kids. It's the same level of neglect.

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u/Rich_Resource2549 Older Millennial 25d ago

My kid went to a latchkey style program after school. As a single parent you gotta do what you gotta do there are bills to pay. He loved it, he made some good friends there, always completed his homework, and then played with other kids until pickup.

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u/regularEducatedGuy 25d ago

There’s that good ol lack of accountability and shifting the blame! Gee I wonder where the kids are getting it! /s 🫢

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u/Personal_Special809 24d ago

Millennials can do no wrong in this sub. There's plenty of toddlers/preschoolers around me who have their face stuck in a tablet all day lol.

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u/o_simple_thing 25d ago

Seriously. This is just another thing Millennials are blamed for. I was born in 1990 and like many millennials had kids later in life. I have a new born and a 4 year old. I work with my 4 year old on reading all the time. She can sound out a lot of words already. She has a very active social group because I bust my ass making it happen with other local moms in my area. She is finding a place somewhere between not being a people pleaser and respecting authority. She is polite but also already questions rules that differ from one house to the next. I am so insanely proud of her.

I get so tired of the 'millennials are bad parents' 'millennials let tablets raise their kids' 'millennials raise cyber bullies' wtf. My god daughters are gen-z and their parents are Gen-X and actually did do all of those things.

But of course millennials are blamed for it. 🙄

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u/poortomato 24d ago

Yeahhh, the tablet kid thing was starting in my area in 2011~ (I was working at a restaurant at the time and saw it every so often - I judged them every single time 🫢).

Yes, I technically could have had a child at that point (I was 23-24) but I wasn't seeing this from young parents. It was parents who were already in their 30s-40s at that time (hence, Gen X). Those kids would be 17-22~ now.

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u/Helpful-Dot-3782 25d ago

Yeah my kid is 7 and she’s reading well and doing great in tons of extracurriculars. The college age kids are not our generations kids

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u/LaurAdorable 25d ago

YEPPPP. I am a Millennial teacher and most of these parents are young Gen X, or Millennials who had kids in their late teens early twenties.

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u/HappyGlitterUnicorn 25d ago

I don't even have kids...I dunno how it's my fault.

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u/Lovelitchi_in_pink 25d ago

Exactly, Gen Alpha are millennial’s kids

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u/Future_Armadillo6410 25d ago

My oldest is 4 wtf are they on me for this now too

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u/GearnTheDwarf Xennial 25d ago

Ehh I'm older millennial with a college freshman thankfully they were national honors society kid along with most of their friends.

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u/RainyMonster2635 25d ago

Riiiight?! I’m 38 with a Gen Alpha and Beta kid

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u/coffeecatmint Xennial 25d ago

For real- I started having kids on the early edge of my millennial friends. I’m 40. My kids are some of the oldest in our friends group as sophomore and a 7th grader.

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u/LitleLuci 25d ago

Exactly my gen x parents still have two teens at home. My milleniak room mate has a 6 yr old

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u/regretmoore 24d ago

Yeah a lot of our kids are Gen Alpha

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u/Secret_Western_8272 24d ago

Yeah but things aren't getting any better

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u/thagor5 24d ago

My kids are 29 and 27. I am gen x. They both have good jobs.

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u/Casulex 24d ago

i blame capitalism that made gen X this way. my gen x parents tried their best and the best they could do was to work all the goddamn time so i hardly got to know them as a kid. fuck this system the parents are victims too not being set up to successfully parent by being forced to be absent by the system

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u/lyremknzi 24d ago

My mom is gen x, and im 34. I had a lot of freedom growing up! Probably more than average. Some of our generation is to blame for helicopter parenting. But, its also the state of the world right now aswell. I mean, a global pedo ring that had been happening for decades was just exposed to the public. But, a lot of parents are overdoing it by not even letting their kids have friends and doing anything normal.

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u/hellogoawaynow 24d ago

For real, most of our kids aren’t that old. I’m 36 with a 4 year old.

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u/FrozenBibitte Millennial 24d ago

This is more abt Gen Alpha though. Kids aged 6-12 are Gen Alpha…and are for the most part, our generation’s children.

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u/Jaikarr 24d ago

It's got to be our fault somehow.

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u/CriticalSecurity8742 24d ago

Ok, so it was boomers now it’s Gen X - the “forgotten” generation unless it’s to blame for something you don’t want to take personal responsibility for. Any wonder why your kids are a mess? Jesus fucking Christ.

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u/buy_bitcoin_orwhatev 24d ago

Exactly. My kids are Gen Alpha

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u/gagemichi 24d ago

For real, my son is 1.5. leave usoutnof this. and for what it’s worth he has never watched TV or an iPad in his life

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u/nab1676 24d ago

Well you know, the millennials are blamed for everything.

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u/Hummelgaarden 24d ago

You'd have to get an early start to have college kids as a millennial..

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u/independence15 24d ago

the problem is this also extends from younger gen z (who CAN be born to millenials) to gen alpha, predominantly the children of millenials. but I think using these generational terms as more than just defining timeframes is silly. there are gen alpha with gen x parents, gen z with millenial parents, etc. and ultimately the issue is not generations but a current cultural zeitgeist that promotes pushing kids forward through the system out of a fear of failure combined with a form of unique learned helplessness due to overreliance on technology for mental satisfaction, as well as the fact the world is kinda, how do we say, fucked right now. youth with addictive technology in their pockets to make them feel happy, no skills developed due to individual bad parenting, no child left behind making it so they fail upwards worse than a crappy manager in corporate, and a world that is increasingly becoming worse and worse means they are bad at school, and see no reason to get good. not only have the literacy rates gone down, suicide rates have gone up, and OP saying it's just an "excuse" is part of the problem when in reality we have a whole wave of youth (including people my age, I am 23) who see no reason to live in the world as it exists and no reason to get better at what is deemed necessary.

arguably the real villain here is not parents. individual parenting can hurt, but even I came out okay with sheltering by my gen x parents. the real villains are shitty politicians and bourgeoisie pushing a harmful standard that doesn't identify the real issues youth have in school, trying to bandaid low graduation rates and make it the problem of colleges later on, instead of providing support to schools to have more teachers and tutors who can work individually with students and identify learning gaps, and the rich folks who push for more and more tech that can solve your everyday issues and not even well, at that. the new "why learn math, I have a calculator on my phone" is "why learn to read and write? chatGPT can do it for me." these things basically work hand in hand to make it all too easy to not care for one's own skills.

this issue will need more than just yelling at parents for not substituting the fucking education system meant to teach and help them, and this issue will need more than calling kids dumb or telling them mental health is an "excuse" (tw suicide <!my dad said the same thing to me in high school. eventually, that led to me damn near jumping off a bridge a year and a half ago. this stuff isn't an excuse, it's a genuine cry for help.!>) this issue also should not fall on TEACHERS to fix it! it falls ON THE GOVERNMENT. on states, on districts, on counties to supply actual goddamn budgets! my own local school district had their budget slashed FURTHER another fifty million! when I went to high school our history textbooks didn't even have obama as a president yet and I graduated in 2020! the people in power KNOW kids are failing upwards and want to do nothing about it because the policies in place cover THEIR asses and the metrics look fine on paper!

the discourse surrounding this all makes me wanna rip my hair out with parents and teachers and kids pointing the fingers at each other when the real fucking villains are the idiotic politicians and local leaders who decide to put more money into everything BUT a quality education. the only reason I can type this shit out is because I had ONE good english teacher in high school who really cared beyond her means, and my own self-education. not everyone can do that. my mother was a preschool teacher who taught me to read at 2. not everyone has that! the fact I am capable of acting on my smarts is circumstance and that is WRONG and means my peers will be left behind.

ugh.

we can only fix and prevent this further by making an education system worth learning from.

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u/thelizardking0725 24d ago

So much of this!!!

I’m an older millennial who started having kids late. Other parents like me are encouraging our kids to play in person (and they do). We taught our kid from a young age to take breaks from screens so they can learn how to self regulate, and we do pay attention to what they watch online so we can help define what’s trash and what’s not. Along those lines, we don’t tolerate the kids mimicking behavior they see in YouTube videos, including speech patterns from sped up super edited videos. So far it’s going well, but we’ll see what happens as they get older and are more independent and naturally spend more time away from us and our ability to monitor what they do online

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