Note: I have released the first segment in the Generation: Millennials reading! You can order the full reading here; segments are being published individually.
Dear Friend and Reader:
Sometime in the early 1980s, people started displaying the ‘Baby on Board’ sign in the back windows of their cars. Far from being the Pet Rock of its day, this sign heralded new attitudes in parenting, and the arrival of a new generation — the Millennials.
Millennials on board. Illustration by Lizanne Webb.
These kids were welcomed to the world, and grew up amongst parents who really did their best for them. The cynical attitudes toward parenting of the 1960s and the 1970s were finally being left behind.
Now, the first arrivals from this generation are at or just beyond their first Saturn return, the astrological gateway into adulthood. Yet they face a world that seems openly hostile to their growth and progress.
For one thing, most of the Millennials who went to college carry a ridiculous amount of student loan debt. And there is a question whether their education even prepared them for life in the 21st century — and if not, how they are going to get that preparation.
Second, they are emerging into an economy where there are not many job opportunities for them. Said more precisely, the concept of a job is changing; some would say it’s evaporating. Millennials are coming of age in a world that is unrecognizable from anything their parents experienced.