If millennials are entitled it's because you made us that way

Thursday, 9 March 2017

OPINION: Winston Churchill once said something along the lines of: 'If you're not a liberal when you're young you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative when you're old you have no brain.'

Maybe the old bulldog could see into New Zealand's future, where the children of the flower power era took advantage of policies and economies that helped them get ahead, then refused to champion the evolution of those policies to help future generations.

The growing inter-generational frustrations can't come as a surprise. It was only a matter of time before students spending two-thirds of their weekly income on sun-deprived rooms in mouldy, quake-prone flats started to lean towards a revolt a la France against the baby boomers, sitting in their million-dollar homes on leafy streets.

The disparity is made worse because we were brought up with the ideals of the boomers but without the economic foundations, therefore, we're powerless in rectifying the balance, no matter how much we might like to. We need you to step up and help.

I think obscenities directed at an entire cohort is misplaced anger - there will be haves and have nots in every generation.  

But a growing number of millennials are staring down the barrel of life-long renting, crippling student loans, and possibly non-existent Super, and that doesn't seem fair.

The fact that a swathe of boomers continue to vote in a self-interested way then turn around and call our generation entitled and narcissistic seems to be another injustice.

For years now, the rhetoric coming from boomers like economist Tony Alexander and Bernard Salt is young people would be living in their own homes and free of student debt if we would just stop munching on smashed avocado on toast, guzzling cafe-bought coffee and working a little bit harder.

I'm writing this piece more than 11 hours after I started my work day - that's not a complaint. Myself, my colleagues, my friends, across all industries, endure 12-hour work days on a semi-regular basis in order to try to get ahead.

We don't want to be debt-ridden, we don't want to be handed things, we do want to work. And we do work hard, partly to prove you and your stereotypes wrong.

But if there are self-interested millennials walking the streets with their iPhones glued to the tips of their noses, it's because you made us this way.

Every parent wants their child to have a better life and greater opportunities than they did, and rightfully so. That meant we grew up hearing we were special; you told us we could have anything we want just because we wanted it.

That included going to university and trying our hand at rocket science, philosophy or business administration - the student loans would be worth it in the long run.

You told us it didn't matter if we changed our minds, changed degrees or didn't get jobs straight away - it was good life experience.

Now you cry 'entitled' when we say we wished we could get a foot in the door of our first home. You say you had to work hard to get your home and we can't have a house just because we want a house.

Yes, there are narcissistic, entitled millennials out there but those people exist in every generation.

I don't think you're to blame for the state of things but I do believe you're not trying as hard to fix it.

For those of you who have already secured your nest egg, why not make a return to liberal ideals in 2017? Why not vote in a way that will help your children and grandchildren?

I don't think one generation has worked harder than another for what they have. But we still need a little bit of your help to get what you have.