On being a millennial.

I am a millennial. 

I didn't choose to be one. I was born between 1980 and 1999, so therefore I am one whether I like it or not. 

I've also heard it is if you are born after 1984. Either way, millennial.

This post comes on the back of a few things. I read this article. Also, the last season of Survivor was a Millennial vs GenX season. So there was heaps and heaps of Millennial jabs. Lots of lazy and entitled jokes. There was one immunity challenge where the word puzzle answer was literally 'not a participation trophy.'

Millennials catch a lot of flack for a lot of reasons. I would like to address just one: participation trophies. One of the biggest jokes made about my generation is that we are soft and need to be coddled because as a child we were celebrated whether we won or lost. 

I was a highly competitive child. It took me most of my childhood and teenage years to simply get a handle on it. I was stubborn and determined to win. I had to be the best. Participation trophies felt like a slap in the face. I hated them. In school, I once received the "most improved" award for basketball season. It felt the most "participation award-y" of all the awards given and I was livid that I was given it. I was embarrassed and I'm pretty sure I went home and cried. It felt like a participation trophy, which felt like being singled out for losing. I shoved it in the bottom of a box and when I purged all my childhood stuff this fall, I'm pretty sure I threw it out. 

So yes, whether I liked them or not, participation trophies were a part of my childhood. 

But here's the thing about participation trophies. We never asked for them. 

At some point, you oh wise generation before us, decided to start giving them to us. You decided they were what we needed. 

And now that you see the results of them, you have changed your mind. But the crazy thing is, now you blame us for the fact that they exist. You laugh at us for receiving them. Like it is somehow our fault that you gave them to us. Like we should have known better than to accept them. That we should have somehow, with our eight year old minds, foreseen what they would do to our work ethic and refused them. My generation didn't come out of the womb demanding to be coddled and praised and told that we could never lose. You did this to us. 

And look, we will give you a break. We understand. You were doing the best you could with what you had. 

But can you look at us and see that we are too?

This video has been floating around Facebook for a while. It is called 'Exactly what is wrong with this generation.' That phrasing does not make me interested in watching the video. I was purposely avoiding it because, from the title, I was expecting another Millennial bashing. I finally just watched it. It was actually good. I would recommend it. I'm not trying to say that Millennials can do no wrong. I know there are some things we need to work on. But I am sick of feeling like everything that is wrong with this generation is being blamed on us when we had no control over our upbringing and very little control over a lot of our environments. This guy, I think, does a good job of laying out the situation. So if you also thought this video was a Millennial bash-fest and were avoiding it too, don't worry! It's actually alright and worth 15 minutes of your time. 

This poem is not about participation trophies. But it is a good companion to these thoughts. Don't mind the video, it's not the poet's video or anything. This was literally the only audio file of the poem on youtube. Just listen to it, don't watch it.