It is very apparent that today’s generation has changed greatly since generation of the “baby boomers”. Children in the current generation are coming into a completely different world than it was just 30 years ago. From almost every kid owning a cell phone, televisions being flat, and social networking, it is obvious this isn’t the same world that our grandparents, and even our parents were raised in. Looking back at the generation of the “baby boomers”, it’s hard to even imagine what life would have been like.
The book starts out with the notion that kids these days are taught to be their selves and not care what others think. Parents of the generation me children teach their kids to do whatever makes them happy, and giving them the idea that “your way is the right way”. Also a main focus that parents and teachers both focus on is teaching the children to love themselves for who they are and have a high self-esteem. Generation me kids took these idea and ran with it. Kids these days are more individualistic than any other generation in the past. From infants, children are taught to make their own decisions, and even have an influence on the decisions made by their family. Parents and mentors of the children want them to express their selves in any way they want to and be whatever they want to be. They believe that as long their child is expresses themselves as they want, and get what they want, than that will raise the child’s self-esteem. But with children having a higher self-esteem, not use to hearing “no” and them having an influence in any decision that could involve them, when children enter school it causes some conflicts between the children and teachers. Schools have almost completely changed the way that kids are taught. With the major focus on self-esteem, teaching had been modified not to let the kids down. The book states the idea that teacher would rather focus on self-esteem, than giving the children a good education and preparing them for the harsh reality of the outside world. “Children shouldn’t be challenged to try things that others in the class are not ready for, since that would promote competition, and competition is bad for self-esteem” as stated in the book.
Throughout Generation Me, it is evident that self-esteem, and individuality plays a very strong part in the way we were raised, and the way we act. An idea from the book that seemed very true was that children in the generation “me” are set up for failure in life and for their dreams to be crushed. Growing up, children’s heads are drilled with phrase “you can be anything that would want to be”. Going through schooling, and never having much resistant from any authority, and constantly being re-assured that no matter how they do, whether it’s; pass, fail, win, or loose, they always did a great job and did their best is far from the harsh reality of “life.” When kids are told that they can be anything they want, and do whatever they want, or even get into any college they want to. They believe this until realty strikes. Children are never told that there are thousands of kids with the same dream as they have, or that some schools accept less than of all of their applicants. Children are never taught to be competitive in life. They are simply handed what they want and when entering the working world full of “boomers”, everything changes. This change can even be detrimental to their self-esteem. Average level of education has even changed since the “baby boomer” generation. It was completely normal for members of the “boomers” to stop education after high school, and expect to make a decent living. Today, in order to get a well-paying job, most jobs require a college degree, and even a master’s degree. Since the cost of living has increased dramatically, this puts a lot of stress on kids to go to college so that they will maybe be able to afford a house and support a family.
Generation Me has also pointed out that families are a lot different than they were in the “boomer” generation. “Boomers” believed in settling down early and starting a family. That’s not the same view that generation “me” members see themselves doing. This means that that average age for people settling down and starting families had gone up. Even the amount of unmarried people has gone up. The book gives a few explanations as to why this could be happening, from stress of getting a good education, finding a well-paying job that would support themselves, let alone a whole family. Although the people generation “me” have been so focused on having a high self-esteem, and doing what makes them happy, there has been a noticeably drastic change in how people feel about themselves.
One points made in the book is that the people in the generation me are a lot more depressed, have more anxiety, and are a lot more unsure about their future. This could be due to many factors in the way they were brought up, and the world they were brought up in. As stated earlier in the book, people getting out of high school and entering college, or the working world face many stressful. The members of this generation have a lot of built up anxiety when waiting for that letter saying they got accepted to the college they want, and even make it worse when thinking about a letter saying they didn’t get accepted. When raising the generation “me”, parents never thought that teaching their children to have such a high self-esteem would cause problems such as depression and anxiety, but in reality it was just that that caused such a down-turn in the way the “me’ers” saw themselves. Unlike the “baby boomers”, who saw segregated schools, and were taught that women were to stay at home to cook, clean, and raise children, generation “me” is all about equality.
Today is a far change from any past generation, and could probably be one of the most beneficial changes that has come from this new generation. Generation Me does a great job at noticing the good, the bad, and the ugly changes that has occurred since the past generation. This book has helped me even notice things about myself that I never took the time to think about, and all the points that the author, Jean M. Twenge makes are valid points, and obvious changes since past generations.