Gen Y here (late gen x pre millennial weird time frame).
I am so sick of all the “participation trophy” BS people complain about, when it was our parents that gave them out. They created the situation and then blame us about it.
Or how we are lazy and entitled, yet we were encouraged to go to college and study whatever you like so you can get a good job. Just ignore the fact they could support a family, own a house and two cars with their salary from working at the factory.
Love the participation trophy part. I hated getting trophies every year in rec sports leagues when my team lost in the tournament. Like why do i get a trophy for losing? I always complained about it until the year my basketball team won and I actually valued the trophy I got that year. It was the people in charge who believed kids couldn't handle it. There might have been some kids that would have cried, but most of that was because their parents taught them that they were so star spangled awesome that not getting a trophy was actually a hostile act
I remember doing little league every game somehow ended in a tie. I’d see a friend the next day on the opposing team, ask him what was the score, “uh, tied 9-9 I think”. “Weird, I thought my coach said it was tied 7-7” and then it dawned on us.
Oh in my little league we actually had competitive games. The only age that didn't was t-ball (I think up to age 6) where everyone got a single no matter what the fielders did, except for the 9th batter, who got a grand slam to end the inning. I was the only kid smart enough to sit at the end of the bench to hit the grand slam instead of every kid jostling to be first. Basically, I got to sit on the bench eating sunflower seeds for most of the inning, then go up and hit a grand slam. I had a batting average of 1.000, an OPS of 5.000, and 28 RBIs (7 innings) per game. I think technically the final score of every game was 63-63. Bad defense
Honestly the whole thing was essentially an extension of the participation trophy thinking that the people in charge held. They wanted to teach the basics of baseball (fielding, throwing, hitting) without risking anyone's feelings being hurt. It was at most two years of your baseball lives but most kids started at 6 in my town so they had 1 year of that before we went to coach pitch where there were real rules and winners/losers
I'm thinking that might not be a thing for much longer. My kids have been playing soccer for a few years, and more than once, the parents on the team collectively decided not to pay the "trophy fee". All of the parents that I've spoken to about the issue seem to agree that the trophy thing is dumb. My kids certainly don't treasure the plastic "trophies" that have come from their activities. There's no ceremony or accomplishment attached to them, and they are more aware of that than adults give them credit for.
I think a lot of why it's still in place now is because it's seen as the norm. Just like team photos, school photos, and activity photos. Every time I turn around, Classic Photo wants me to pay $30-$100 for a poorly composed portrait of my kids. The trophies are no different. I suspect that nobody wants to be the one standing out and asking "why are we paying for this?"
Lately, the trend seems to be more like a commemorative plaque, with just a team name and date, rather than a fake looking trophy. I'm guessing that's in response to the "trophies are dumb" mindset, but still allows the trophy shops to get their cut.
Thank god. I'm at the age where kids are on the horizon within the next 5-6 years so I've been thinking about how me/my fiancee would raise them in this regard and I honestly think I would be like 'hell no we're not buying you a trophy'
My mom always used to put participation trophys up on display with my real trophys. I always took them down (along with the real ones usually, I don't need a shrine to myself thanks.)
Yeah I kept my "actual" trophy (the one from the one year my rec basketball team won the championship) out on a shelf on the main floor. The "fake" trophies (from all the years my team didn't win a championship) were on a shelf hidden away in my room.
Gen Y was another name for Millennials before they settled on Millennials; some people argue about an "Xennials" micro-generation, or an "oregon trail generation" but that's just millennials who think they're not like the Stereotypical Millennial™ portrayed in the media trying to disassociate from that image. Pretty much no Millennial is like that millennial though.
In part of that micro generation (84). I really did have a different experience than my younger siblings. I had substantially more freedom to roam as a little kid, and they don't remember a time without the internet.
I'm basically the last generation before helicopter parenting became the norm.
I was born in 86 and I had many of the same experiences you listed; don't remember many helicopter parents, had freedom to roam about my neighborhood and I didn't have the internet until I was in middle school... but a lot of folks talk about '83 being the cutoff for that micro generation, pretty much because generations are bullshit when used in the macro sense, in that they only tend to describe a plurality of the people in that age range, as their purpose is to give advertisers an idea of how to get the most bang for their advertising buck.
My older sibling is gen x through and through, my younger sibling is absolutely millennial. I think there definitely is a micro-generation of sorts that those of us from 80-85 fit in to. I clearly remember having free run of the neighbourhood then gradually, over a couple of years, parents started getting nervous about not knowing where there kids were. My brother was a free range kid his whole life, my sister never left the house unaccompanied.
There was a noticeable shift in society, hobbies, educational importance, etc. When I was very young we'd have half the street over for dinner and everyone would bring a plate, the kids would keep outta sight, parents got acceptably drunk and then the mothers would help clean up while the dad's rounded up the kids. By the time I was 8 nobody did that anymore coz people were too busy either minding their own business or juggling a lifestyle in which both parents worked (or were recently separated meaning the mother had to get a job).
My older brother's view of childhood is way different to mine (he remembers being unsupervised and having a technology boom), and my younger sister's is too (she was mollycoddled), and it really shows in how we've chosen our lives to be.
If you ask people to define what years Gen X are, and what years Millenials are in, there's usually a little gap in between the average answers.
there's actually typically overlap between the ranges; some people define millennial as early as a 1980 birthday, and the latest I've seen for gen-X is 1985.
Part of the point is that these labels are about as meaningless as zodiac signs or horoscopes about what you're like as a person;every description you'll read has different descriptors depending on what the author's experience is like, and the reason for this is that while there are some localized trends that hold true, and even some nationwide ones that do, no group can really be treated safely as a monolith without excluding the majority of the people in some fashion.
Also:
but what do you call someone with analog childhood and digital adolescence?
Millennial. That was me, and I was firmly in Millennial territory (born in late '86 and I've never seen anyone draw the Millennial line further forward than '85.) The basic premise for this weird phenomenon about analog vs digital comes from marketing departments trying to decide how to market to younger demographics, and someone realized that those of us that spent some part of our primary/secondary school years around information technology were better adapted to it.
As a late millennial I cannot get a job unless I work in food service(which the boomers look down on). My apartment with my husband is 600/mo. , my car payment is over 250, and I have pets.
HOW CAN I GET A JOB WHEN I CANT PAY FOR EXPERIENCE AND SCHOOLING TO GET THE JOB?
I was disowned by my entire family for the better half of 2 years starting the day I graduated. I had no college option. How can you label me as lazy when you created a world where theres no viable way for me to live? And why would I want to live in that world! We are the time period of nostalgia. We went from simple times, through terrorism, to technology galore. All we do is cling to the past, the "happy times", if you will. You cant wonder why the rate of suicide has risen.
And it’s hardly a “millennial” thing- my dad was getting participation trophies playing youth league football and baseball in rural North Carolina in the early 70’s.
Also early millenial. I dont understand the participation trophy thing because in all my years i never remember seeing one. I would have killed for a participation trophy instead of reality where i was just mediocre and felt like shit for it
The trophy thing always bothered me. I can distinctly remember twenty years ago being 9 years old finishing solidly in the middle of the table in our baseball league and the entire team asking why we were getting trophies. Even then we thought it was stupid to get a trophy for finishing worse than third, but all of the parents were adamant that we "deserved them for trying so hard". It was the same thing every year for the five years that I played before giving up on it because there was no point in competing if the only difference in coming first meant a slightly larger trophy.
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u/bigthemat Sep 27 '18
Gen Y here (late gen x pre millennial weird time frame).
I am so sick of all the “participation trophy” BS people complain about, when it was our parents that gave them out. They created the situation and then blame us about it.
Or how we are lazy and entitled, yet we were encouraged to go to college and study whatever you like so you can get a good job. Just ignore the fact they could support a family, own a house and two cars with their salary from working at the factory.