The post Millennial generation might still be in grade school, but experts everywhere are already trying to pin down their generational characteristics and give them a name. Some are calling them Generation Z as they follow Gen X and the Generation some call Y, though “Millennial” label seems to be more apt. They’ve also been referred to as Generation Net or “iGen” because they have never known a world without the internet.
That aspect, that this generation is so tech-savvy that they don’t see low tech as an option, seems to be widely agreed upon. Toddlers can navigate YouTube and PowerPoint has become grade schooler’s poster board and construction paper when it comes to in class presentations.
But, beyond their technology immersion, most people agree it’s too early to know for sure what this generation will be. In fact, one might argue that it’s unfair to try to box them into a generational characteristic before they’ve cleared high school. One thing that seems likely, however, is that this generation will be shaped by recession, whether we, as their parents, want them to be or not.
“We’re not afraid to say money’s tight, so I feel like our kids are going to have that sense long-term,” Andrew Egbert, a 41-year-old dad who works in manufacturing in Greensboro, N.C. He has a son in fifth grade and a daughter who’s a first-grader, tells the AP.
Does that mean that this will be another lost generation, akin to the parents of the Baby Boomers who survived the Great Depression and WWII, to an extent, lived in the historical shadow of their children and their parents? I say lets give our kids the chance to build their own future, define their own character. They’ve already surprised many of their parents in their unquestioning tolerance of cultural diversity and their calm acceptance of the fact that the recession may limit their parents’ resources. Let’s give them the chance to continue surprise us by taking themselves, and the world we live in, in a direction none of us can imagine.
