This past month I have been reflecting on the differences in Millenials and Boomers, particularly in each group's perception of the other--it was not what many Millenials would have expected. I recently posted some interviews with Millenials and today I am sharing responses to similar questions from the perspective of two Baby Boomers with adult children in the Millenial generation, and one with a 15 year old. All are still working.
- How do you think Boomers and Millenials differ?
Baby Boomers were strivers, they want to get ahead – similar to their parents. Immigrant notion, you always want your kids to do better than their parents. I see my peers wanting to do better than their parents did in terms of status, success, a lot of materialistic aspects of life. A lot were the first in their family to go to college. A lot were better educated than their parents, achieved more educationally than their parents. A lot wanted really to achieve and make a mark in the world. They were not going to be satisfied having a good job like dad had, work at the same 40 years.
Millenials look at their parents and say “My dad worked his butt off--for what?" More experiential, don’t want to be in a rut. [Millenials] look at their world more [in terms of] experience and less about the destination. I think that they looked at their parents and maybe . . . they realize that chasing success is not what they want to be about. They want to be successful, but not at the expense of living. More into the journey than the destination. Boomers were about the destination.
As parents, we all foist our worldview and our values on our kids and expect them to have similar worldviews and values, and that’s where there’s a rub between generations. It’s a different worldview. We all wanted to express our individuality; in college we had long hair and we did different things, that was partly generational, and it was the style, but part of that was rebellion against our parents’ values.
--Brad, 62, Executive
All the digital stuff, ways of communicating, as [my daughter] entered 16, 17--it had an interesting way of pulling people together and pushing people apart, both. If you were in the group that had all the communication modes – it worked. If you were out of step with that or not quite on top of that game, it at times left my daughter at odds…she didn’t know, everyone else did.
She’s very connected around the world and that is automatic, the friends that she makes go all different places and continue their connections, and that was not going on when I was growing up. And it’s a continuing connection. She knows how to network very well.
I personally like the face-to face stuff, I like communicating that way.
I think it has impacted the way they learn. It has probably changed their brains.
I feel like I learn so much from my daughter and I work with a lot of Millennials and I am so impressed with their attitude with the quality of work, with their intelligence, with their willingness to share. I am really pleased to be working with them. And my own daughter I find inspiration in.
--Cindy, 65, Physical Therapist
Often I think the strongest differences come in the use of technology. I'm fairly connected, but many of them are using tools I don't use -- Twitter, Snapchat, and much more YouTube video. I still would rather watch something on TV than the small screen.
Another example of difference with Millennial's; I bike with a guy who is 30 years old, and I find he's much better at dictating a voice text than I am.
I am surprised when he and I talk, how often I feel like I am interpreting my culture for him and he for me. I am actually just a few years younger than his dad.
--Tim, 52, Middle School Teacher
- On How Different Parenting affected Millenials:
You still see a broad range of rebelliousness. Just like we rebelled against our staid, depression-era parents, Millenials want to choose a different path, different from their striving and their materialistic parents.
Our parents really knew what it was like to go hungry, that drove their view. Most of us middle class kids who went to college didn’t know hunger, but we knew what it was like to stick to a budget.
Now Baby Boomers have been such helicopter parents--the mealtime looks different because these Millennial kids are involved in so many activities, have lived such programmed lives. Every ball game they’ve played was structured, where we played sandlot ball. Our parents said just go outside and play; we grew up much more independent. That’s kind of a class notion, I’m speaking about middle-class and upper- middle-class families, not people who have struggled more.
--Brad, 62, Executive
I think the thing with Jacob Wetterling [boy who was abducted] affected her, people protected their kids more and were put in organized activities and not allowed to run loose as much. The fear that your child could be abducted was really impactful, parents felt like they had to protect their children all the time.
--Cindy, 65, Physical Therapist
- How did you feel when you were in your twenties about being grouped as a Baby Boomer?
Fascination, and a little irked with it. I didn’t particularly like it, it had to be explained to me. The talk was that we had so much impact – as I was more in my twenties and there were more and more protests, I thought maybe we as a group can accomplish something. I took it as a positive, but also sometimes was annoyed at being clumped and labeled.
You gotta ask who is doing the clumping and labeling, it’s the people who want to make money off of you, who is doing that and for what purpose. Are you clumping and labeling to simplify things and turn heads, or to seek to understand?
--Cindy, 65, Physical Therapist
I remember the term Baby Boomer more in an academic sense, probably when I was in grade school. I'm the very tail-end, being born in November 1962 I think it's the last year that's even considered Baby Boom, maybe the last few months… So, I've always been on the tail-end of it. So much of the change that was done to accommodate the Baby Boom was over and done with and old news by the time I was sliding through the system.
I didn't feel like the term Baby Boomer was any kind of bad label, put-down or other thing that maybe held me back from reaching the highest potential possibilities in life.
--Tim, 52, Middle School Teacher
I learned it in sociology, looking at demographics, more like we studied it in school; there were not generational labels yet.
Did not matter as a label, but I remember that growing up, demographically there were a lot of us. I am right in the middle of the Baby Boom--bubble was the biggest around the time I was born. Turning 16 and wanting a job, it was impossible to get a job because there were a million 16 year olds wanting jobs.
When you think of marketing to these different target audiences, it’s challenging because the values are meaningfully different.
My son was thinking about selling his car, for us having a car was part of your identity.
--Brad, 62, Executive
- How a Boomer feels about how times have changed:
When I was in my twenties, we were recycling, and now – are you kidding are we still fighting to recycle? Why is that a question? I can hardly bear people throwing that stuff away. The environment is an area we have let ourselves down on.
And now I cry about the backsliding on women’s rights – not getting the ERA through was a big mistake, and we did not fight hard enough.
I feel like the Baby Boomers have some opportunity to forage into this next phase of life – there are a lot of us who are going to live longer. What are you going to do, how do you want to expand your life?
I think there is going to be a lot more of me, people who will continue to work, to contribute to society, than there ever were before--that want to continue to be engaged in positive ways.
--Cindy, 65, Physical Therapist