Entitlement and the Millennial Woman

I put this in my “Intuitive” category because I could not figure out where else to put it.

Millenial Women. I used to never give them a second thought for the most part because it is like observing odd life forms via a microscope as it lays there flapping around in a petri dish.

I have no clue how to deal with a Millenial woman girl.

My daughter is one but she has thrown herself in a different dish due to her choice of getting pregnant at 19 and choosing to be a single mom. That being said, she has the tendency to feel entitled to a couple of things. I worked with a couple and I always thought it odd how they felt that people would “freak out” if they were consistently late for work or they continually violated the dress code. I would stand there listening to the whining like, what part of this guideline do you simply not understand? They feel entitled to share complaints about every single thing that the rest of us who were old enough to be their moms simply took in stride and problem solved.

Those issues are one thing. Getting into an argument with one is another. I recently got into a bizarre situation with a Millenial girl woman over me simply unfriending her on Facebook. Yes, I could have given her a heads up. I will own that. But she simply threw into a rage via an email to me that was so outrageous and disrespectful. Yes, over being “unfriended”. She could not wrap her self-absorbed head around the fact that it would appear that I was no longer concerned about her endless posts about cat videos and food. Later her father apparently calmed her down through a phone conversation and she admitted being a complete bitch to me. So an apology? Yeah…..no. She feels entitled to fly into a written rage, call me names and accuse me of things I don’t do THEN get over it without owning it through an apology.

How did this sense of entitlement happen?

I spent waaaaay too much time picking this apart. But I wonder how did these people get like this? I’m not this way. I get pissed off and can be rude. But I own it. I own it through acknowledging what I did by first realizing it within myself and then with the person who bore the brunt of the rude behavior. Have we as parents, as coworkers allowed or enabled them when they were younger? Were we guilted into this? Did we think we would mortally wound them psychologically if we stopped their world and asked them to rethink what they just said? There is a dumbfounded reaction when you do share your reaction or request for an apology.

Is my generation to blame?

When I had my daughter it was the time when all children got trophies in sports just because they showed up. Perfect attendance awards at the school where I was teaching ceased because it’s not fair to the kids who get sick. There was a massive movement to have this long drawn out dialog with your child if they were upset or angry or whatever. So what we “gave birth to” are children who now felt ENTITLED to be catered to. Every thought, word, and action had to be acknowledged. Their egos need to be constantly stroked. If parents did not do this, we were destroying the essence of that child. Our children could not experience any discomfort at all. No financial woes, no lack of technology, transportation or the latest fashion. We built these monsters. This is why so many of us have them living with us after college graduation. They certainly couldn’t live like paupers like we did fresh out of college and rubbing two nickels together to make rent on the dump we were living in.

We built these monsters

Then there are women like me who have entered this realm of spirituality. I am embracing my power as a woman. I take my role as a role model for other women very seriously. So as a older woman seeing younger women act like spoiled babies, makes me cry for humanity. What happened to instill a sense of independence and resilience? I’m not talking hating men, burning your bra and wearing odd pink hats on your head and marching through the town screaming for our rights that have not been taken away. I am talking to nurturing your feminine and masculine qualities with all your roles as a woman with balance. How can you have balance when you feel someone else should be taking care of you most of the time?

What is the solution?

I am thinking the only way to deal with this is by example. My fear is what gets media attention, for example, isn’t exactly the best. To name a few: Any Kardashian, Madonna, Beyonce etc. If they could just step out of their egos to see that so many young women look to them for some sort of twisted guidance. We can talk about feminism and strong women all day. What does that look like? Who are those women? What does it look like when you are at work, parties, interaction with men?