Boomerang Generation

Boomers had it wrong. We millennials are the ones 'dying before we get old'--or middle aged even. We came out of the helicopter parenting homes of our me-first centered parents, set up with a tolerance for everything and a drive toward nothing in particular, and like all children, have either decided within ourselves to overcome those limitations or succumb to them. Ours is not unlike those of previous eras, both the sedentary and active, and certainly economic circumstances contribute to our attitudes and tendency to "return," but cultural ones also play a part in molding the lackadaisical expectations from life that forced us back to your arms.

Those who have succumbed to perpetual childhood are the creatures like myself, those who were bred with an idea of entitlement, who sat back and absorbed all the information and knowledge possible from trusted adult sources and lived a model "child" lifestyle just to be left with an enormous load of expectations. The generational neuroticism and fetishism over protectionism in the past two decades has not protected us from the pains of growing up. It may have staved off the bug bites and bruises at times, but it hasn't taught us how to treat such inflictions when they happen in the course of normal living, in a manner of speaking. On the contrary, those who have managed to overcome the neuroses of the previous generation are those who will go the farthest to invent their own, but at least they should get credit for being original.

What is particularly absurd is this idea that we are supposed to grow up. Come on now! This is something new for sure. Were other generations expected to grow up at some point? You could have fooled me all those years. Certainly had we been told at any time during our development that eventually one day we'd have to direct our own affairs and live our own lives, I think I would have heard about it. How do you expect us to get out of our basement bedrooms now if that is where you would have had us confined for the first ten years (for the sake of your precious "peace of mind")?--if you never let us play outside lest we hit the poison ivy, or hit our head on the cement, or dash our foot upon a stone, or God forbid, play a touch sport!

Is it no wonder that we have gone off to college and done the required extra lap, the four year extension of high school, only to show our faces again at the end of the conveyor belt that had always been our education? Come now, a quarter of our lives was spent before we were even allowed to live like human beings, and now you expect us to live like adults? Did you not say we were special? Did you not always welcome us with open arms, and provide us all the praise we needed in our screw ups? Did you not say we should come to you and you alone for all our problems? Did you not expect we'd return to you?