“You Sound Like a Spoiled, Whiny Millennial.”
My favorite advice from wealthy boomers.
A few months after my wedding, my father-in-law asked me what teachers did with all their free time. It always bugged him that we got summers off, he said. It just didn’t seem fair to him.
So I explained…
Teachers like me spend their “free time” at seasonal jobs to support ourselves, in addition to doing unpaid work like planning courses and doing research. Some of us even take on extra jobs during the school year. We tutor online. Others drive for Uber.
When I was done, my father-in-law sighed.
“It must be nice,” he said. “I never got summers off when I was your age. I had to work all year, six days a week.” This is how conversations go with a lot of my parents’ generation. (No, not everyone).
They don’t listen.
They stare off into space while you tell them how the world has changed since they entered adulthood, nearly half a century ago. They hear every third or fourth word you say. They call it “whining.”
Then they offer you advice.
Like this:
