"How is it that these days one kilogram of meat is barely enough for a household of like four people, yet back in the day, our parents fed about 12 people with one kilogram and it seemed enough?”, someone asked on Facebook.

From a millennial’s point of view, what our parents were able to do with somewhat the same resources 30 years ago, we cannot do today.

Many people use titles like ‘millennials’ and ‘baby boomers’ to refer to various generations, and it can be confusing to decipher exactly what age group they’re talking about. Just so it is clear, if you were born between the early 1980’s to the 1990’s, even early 2000’s, you are a millennial.

Considered liberal, millennials have also been described as impassive, narcissistic and afraid of commitment.

Also known as ‘Generation Y’, they’ve become a favourite topic of study, comment and critique.

Author Joel Stein referred to them as the ‘Me Me Me’ generation, noting that this generation is so convinced of its own greatness that with any situation, they will just be able to feel what’s right.

"The internet and urbanisation have created a generation as overconfident and self-involved, and that these are not just rich-kid problems: poor millennials have even higher rates of narcissism, materialism and technology addiction in their ghetto-fabulous lives,” he said.

Stein also noted that each country’s millennials are different, but because of globalisation, social media, the exporting of western culture and the speed of change, millennials worldwide are more similar to one another than to older generations within their nations.

58-year-old Joyce Nyirabarinda, a businesswoman, says she barely understands how millennials approach life, or what they have in mind for the future.

She believes that the future could be holding very little for these young people seeing as "they live mostly for the moment and rarely plan for the years to come.”

"If it’s not social media, young people worry about materialistic things,” she says.

This, she says, is a result of young people getting used to everything being handed to them.

"This has led to the rise of a lazy generation, one that wants the easy way out of everything,” Nyirabarinda says.

Commitment

Counsellor Joyce Kirabo says that millennials being "the dot com generation” have been brought up with the internet and advanced technological systems.

This, in a way, has made them very self-absorbed. And at times, they are not willing to listen to elders because they believe they know it all, she says.

"Society is now distinctive, previously, people were connected to families, in fact, at a certain age, one would be considered incomplete without a family, but not anymore. Right now, being single is somehow ‘fashionable’ and people are likely to get children out of wedlock, which affects the true picture of the family,” Kirabo says.  

She says this is true millennial fashion — fear of commitment.

Understanding millennials

Kirabo explains that this generation behaves the way it does because it has been influenced by a number of factors, most of which stem from the influence of technology.

"This is pulling people apart; traditional norms of society have been violated; culture is being eroded because the internet is eating up society,” she says.

She says that the future generation is not safe. "Actually, sometimes I think we are heading for a future that will have no morals whatsoever, if we continue like this,” Kirabo says.

She adds, "A lot can be done from all stakeholders, that is, parents, educationists, leaders, and society in general. Parents have an even bigger responsibility; educationists should sensitise the youth on the cons of over using the internet.”

The complaints that are said to be a ‘millennial thing’ earned the generation the tag "entitled”, owing to how much millennials demand out of life — something older generations were afraid to do.

George Ndirangu, a media personality, believes that this generation is a bit misunderstood.

He says, "When you look up data on what this generation is most worried about, you imagine that they are concerned about how they are going to get their next car, or house, but funnily, statistics show that 87 per cent of the world’s young population is worried that the world will run out of natural resources.

"Of course for most people in that generation, there’s been slipup if you compare it to what we were accustomed to. We used to follow what previous generations taught us, which was school, then work, then marriage. But for the younger generation, things happen at the most obscure times. A key point to note too is that we are slowly moving to trends or activities that require less commitment,” he says.

"A good percentage of that generation wants to experiment, as opposed to mastering what they were taught in the past,” he adds.

Ndirangu points out the need to understand this generation, saying that this is not a parenting issue, rather, societal influence.

For Stein, this generation got this way partly because, in the 1970s, people wanted to improve kids’ chances of success by instilling self-esteem.

"The problem is that when people try to boost self-esteem, they accidentally boost narcissism instead. All that self-esteem leads them to be disappointed when the world refuses to affirm how great they know they are. This generation has the highest likelihood of having unmet expectations with respect to their careers and the lowest levels of satisfaction with their careers at the stage that they’re at,” he wrote.

What millennials say

Norine Mulekatete, a 28-year-old university graduate, says the way of living for millennials comes with the speed at which the world is moving.

"Everything is changing so fast and the people we would look up to for guidance are either too occupied with life, or they don’t really understand us. This has posed a great challenge for us,” she says.

Fred Kabera says people need to understand that generations are different and that everyone has their own way of coping with life.

"People are not that social anymore, everyone is busy with their own lives. We don’t have people to talk to; social media came as a life saver because this is where we express whatever we feel.

"It’s not our responsibly alone, society should see to it that we change this before it’s too late,” Kabera says.

Need for balance between generations

Olive Uwamariya, a gender activist, says the discussions about the difference in the generations tend to revolve around the age, however, she says there is a little bit of bias.

She believes the young generation is quick to learn and is innovative, hence the need to appreciate them.

"It’s dangerous to generalise because I don’t think it’s mostly bad with this generation. I think it’s a conflict of generation and what matters is to be tolerant of each other for we can learn a lot from the older generation, but they should also be willing to do the same,” she says.

She explains that most generations have different ways of doing things and for the millennials, it is an era influenced by technology.

"This young generation is so liberal in thinking around issues like politics and the economy, which is an advantage. Their ability is high and is driving trends which are helping the world move at a fast rate,” she says.

Uwamariya is of the view that the issue is to look at how to balance this generation and the older one.

"How do we learn from each other? Give them a chance to learn and make sure to be there to mentor them as the older generation,” she says.

YOUR VOICE

editorial@newtimes.co.rw