Generation Me

I just read Generation Me by Jean Twenge, subtitled ” Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before.”   Every teacher needs to read this one–in fact, anyone who deals with young people at all ought to take a look. Twenge admits that she herself is a generation-me girl herself: She was born in 1971, and her definition of generation me is anyone born after 1970.

Using research but writing engagingly, Twenge describes Generation Me-ers. They believe that they are “special,” which means that they don’t show up for work when they don’t feel like it; they don’t complete their degrees when they don’t feel like it; they believe that they will be the one to get the “big score,” or in other words, become the top rock star, the famous, rich athlete. How could they possibly work for menial minimum wage when they are so special?

What has caused this rampant narcissism? Twenge suggests that even good parenting has been trumped by the “you are special” culture. Kids are enculturated to believe they’re excellent just because they exist, rather than becoming excellent through effort. Kids are raised to expect to feel good even though they don’t do anything particularly good. You’d think that all this high self-esteem would result in people really feeling great, but they don’t. Instead, this generation has the highest rate of depression ever. They drop out of college at the drop of a tear. More and more adults are living at home with their parents than ever in the history of our country. Parents of thirty-somethings are calling employers to intervene with their children’s work.

This is a book based on a huge longitudinal study resulting in hard statistics. (It is charming and readable, though, so don’t get put off.) The statistics play true in every geographical area except where Asian Americans predominate, because their culture insists on hard work without self-assertion. I am wondering if the next generation of political leaders will be Asian Americans.

Anyhow, these self-indulgent young people are becoming parents now, and their undisciplined children are showing up in our classrooms. Teaching these students can be a nightmare, because when they feel like it, they blatantly disregard instructions, work sloppily, and ignore authority.  I saw an example of this in a buffet restaurant the other day. The parents, obviously generation-me-ers, were getting food for their five-year-old.

“You want a muffin?” they coo.

“YUCKY!” yells the child.

“You want some cereal?”

“YUCKYYY!”

“You want some toast with nice jam?”

“YUUUUUCKY!!”

What that child needed was a plate of food in front of him, and everyone to start eating–no silly catering to imagined dislikes.

What do you do with the college freshman who thinks she sings like God’s gift when she has no musical skills and no vocal control? What do you do with the young man who plagiarizes and then hauls his parents into the dean to cry prejudice against the teacher? What do you do with the teenage girl who’s always weeping in the sick room instead of sucking it up and going to class? What do you do with the senior who comes up short with credits in May and demands extra-credit work to be able to graduate with his class?

Well, Twenge has no real answers and neither do I. I tend to take a hard line with unreasonable demands: smiling, firm, no do-overs. Students receiving this treatment tend to blame me and hate me forever, along with their parents.

But what else can we do?