The Entitled Generation | Teen Ink

The Entitled Generation

September 10, 2017
By pjcurtis PLATINUM, East Rutherford, New Jersey
pjcurtis PLATINUM, East Rutherford, New Jersey
21 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."
-Robert Frost


We have all had to deal with situations that have made us uncomfortable, but we have still overcome them and moved on with our lives. An emergence of entitled individuals has been becoming more prominent in recent years, which unfortunately seems to be representatives of the new generation.


To continue, the ultimate reason why this generation is starting to evolve into spoiled children is due to the fact that parents are sheltering their kids far too much. An after effect of this incessant coddling seems to make the child turn into a miserable adult with high and unrealistic expectations. As shown in Nick Gillespie’s article taken from Time Magazine, "Millennials Are Selfish and Entitled, and Helicopter Parents Are to Blame", “If millennials are self-absorbed little monsters who expect the world to come to them and for their parents to clean up their rooms well into their 20s, we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves — especially the moms and dads among us.”


To elaborate, Gillespie’s article made a great point by incorporating parents into the how-to-make-a-millennial formula. Of course, a child’s behavior may be different despite the way their parents raised them, but in this case, millennials tend to be accustomed to that “always a winner attitude” from early years of being pampered by their parents. Parents of millennials usually tend to always make their children feel like winners excluding any room for disappointment, which is an essential component of life that we must know how to deal with.


Though the parents are still a major factor in the creation of the entitled generation, the individuals in it itself are still the central contributors to their own demise in society. Children who grow up into adults who have individual lives are not required to continue their overly-privileged ways that were first introduced to their parents. As adults, we have our own lives that we can live freely. To survive in this world, we must learn to work in jobs and to conform in our environments to blend in and follow the system that leads to a stable life. Kate S. Rourke from Inquiries Journal wrote in her article, "You Owe Me: Examining a Generation of Entitlement", that, “…children who would rather not work at all then take a job they do not believe is luxurious enough for them, and have no shame in sucking society’s economic pool dry. This never-ending cycle of blame evasion is perpetuating the trend.”


To interpret from Rourke’s wise words, the adults in this entitled generation are basically so accustomed to having their standards so high that they forget that life does not give you the best for free. The best is only given to people who work hard for it and yes, that includes working in a place that is not “luxurious enough.” Overall, this new generation of entitled individuals needs to learn how to learn from their mistakes and develop into full-grown adults who can handle the grimmer side of the world.


This era will soon end in time, but parents must prevent this from happening again by applying your children. Of course, parents should always encourage their children to do remarkable things in this world, but we should also teach our youths that life is the best and most difficult teacher that we will endlessly be taking a harsh lesson from. We must teach our children that life has no short cuts and that we must bear through the ugly parts to reach our version of paradise. And for the generation of today: we must pick ourselves up and stop playing the victim with our palms open and ready for our award. Let us be the generation that should be grateful for never being drafted to fight in wars, living in a time where technology is at its peak, and living in a nation where you can become anything you want to be if you put the effort in to make it happen.


The author's comments:

What inspired me to write this article, is that I believe there should be a voice of the millennial generation to address the issues of it, along with the source of the matter.


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