I’ve heard it and read it a million times. This generation of kids doesn’t want to or isn’t growing up. Millennials are hanging out and living in their parents basements way past the time of the previous generation. Of course, there are economic reasons for this, yet there is also a hesitation by this generation, to get out there and do life.
It crossed my mind, based on reruns, and particularly “Friends” reruns that maybe Millennials received a very strange message about growing up from TV. These six gorgeous people grew up, got apartments close to each other, limited incomes made them roommates – and they proceeded to have a wonderful life.
Friends kept this charade going for ten years. They led millions of young people to believe that life was about having fun. There was very little emphasis on the real world or any real problems. This isn’t an indictment of the show, it simply is a comment on what we were all viewing for all of those years: white people, always happy, never used drugs, no children, job free, but wealthy, in fashion and always, always perfect friends. In other words, no reality. These six people never really got married, they barely had children, never did laundry, cleaned toilets, or had harsh illnesses. Their lives were a dream of perfection where insurance was completely unnecessary.
So, if millennials have wrong ideas about life, who can blame them? We parents perpetrated those beliefs by participating in the popularity of our televised culture.
This is the point of view of those who would want to maintain life as it always has been. Another point of view is that millennials are here to teach us something. We (parents) moved forward lockstep the same as our parents did. Perhaps our millennials are telling us that our culture should change. Baby Boomers followed instructions too much. We moved forward as expected instead of forward to our dreams and potentials.
Millennials are also making a very important point. We Baby Boomers languished in our capitalism for a little too long. We have been passive believers in a culture that has gone way wrong. We allowed our children to become victims of predatory capitalism and now they struggle just to get by. They aren’t in a hurry to live their parents life.
“Friends” really was nothing but a white culture’s entertainment. It should not be any indication for reality and in no way should we allow our young people to believe it is anything other than a fun non-reality show. Life does not mirror the show in any way.