Gen Z changing the dating game, will have better marriages….
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Anonymous
| I'm older Gen X, married 30 years. I think the Millennials are a huge mess as far as marriage and can't make it work. I think Gen Z will be okay. |
Anonymous
So true of my kid that did therapy, but this was and still is the recommendation and what all the other kids with the same issues were doing so we were bad parents not to as well. |
Anonymous
Agreed. Only in the US. Move to a country with a longer history and no one thinks this way. |
Anonymous
| If parents can pay for college and give down payment for the house, that really makes life smoother for some people but otherwise its tough to marry before 30, even if you earn a good entry level salary. |
Anonymous
|
The craziest thing about this all with everyone's replies about how entitled or selfish etc that generation z is
where do you think they learned this from? their parents... guess who their parents are?? GEN X. Most people on this forum seem to be Gen X. |
Anonymous
Well…. The first entitled generation was the everyone-wins-a-trophy-for-participating Millennials, raised by the booomers who wanted to make everything fair. |
Anonymous
I agree |
Anonymous
At some point, every generation has been described as entitled and selfish. |
Anonymous
Hmm I'm a millennial (sort of median millennial, '88) and we have plenty of our own issues in our marriages, but much of it comes from selfishness, unwilling to compromise, and excessive therapy speak (everything is a trauma that can be dealt with by erecting boundaries). Many of my issues with my husband early in our marriage came from a lot of manchild behavior he had out of fear (fear of not choosing a fulfilling career, but not enough confidence to take the risks that would get him there, fear of being a father because it constrains his choices to the point where it probably would have run out my biological clock if I didn't put my foot down, etc.). My experience working with the younger generation is that they have even more of all this than we did. A lot of them (generalizing here) are totally paralyzed by the idea of failure, have been extremely sheltered, missed a big chunk of life experience due to the timing of COVID in terms of mediating interactions with their peers/coworkers/whatever, are extremely lonely, never learned how to interact outside of structured contexts, are not used to anything that requires self-direction, and think that if you put up a "boundary" that you can avoid dealing with conflict or things that are hard. They are having less sex, spend less time with friends in person, drink/do other risky behavior less (but don't replace it with other healthier social activities, just with video games and phones), and are more fearful of career paths that involve any lack of guarantee that it's all going to unfold according to plan. I agree that someone else mentioned the younger generation doesn't have as much exposure to older generations who experienced really hard things and a lack of respect for what older generations dealt with. Millennials have less exposure than Gen-X, but I still had grandparents I grew up with who were born in the 20s-30s and a great grandmother who lived to he '90s who was born at the turn of the century. One grandfather fought in the Pacific Theatre in WW2, another grew up in a war ravished country as a child during WW2, another grandfather fought in Korea and Vietnam. I have friends whose grandparents were holocaust survivors. All of this seems very distant for people in their 20s now. Millennials have a hard enough time without getting into the woe is me about the very real consequence of graduating into the 2008 recession and having a hard time getting a foothold into the workforce and affording housing (we did have a hard time, but even so, most of us are in our 30s with jobs and homes and families now). With the exception of the throes of the pandemic (like 2020-2021), Gen-Z is graduating into a booming job market, but for some reason still think it's awful. There are certainly some things that are tougher now. Competition for elite spaces in universities and specific jobs is steeper as the world gets more globalized. The cost of living is an issue globally, but the cost of rent does make it tough for people in their 20s to get launched. But every generation has its problems. People in their 20s being self-absorbed and lacking perspective is nothing new. People said it of Boomers, Gen-X, and Millennials. But, I see nothing that suggests to me that Gen-Z is breaking these trends, and a lot of reasons to think they have all the problems my generation has, but even fewer of the tools to mediate conflict. Some will grow up and be all right. But overall, being inflexible, anxious, and unwilling to compromise, and having sky high expectations but at the same time a total fear of failure does not sound like a recipe for awesome marriages to me. Sounds like more of the same, but slightly worse. |
Anonymous
| My 18 year old has never dated. Only one of her friends has dated. Not even kissed anybody. And none of them seem the least bit bothered. Very different from when I was a teenager. But it saves a lot of drama. |
Anonymous
There's always been kids who didn't date until later. I didn't date or kiss anyone until I was 19, and the person I first kissed and I are happily married 25 years later. |
Anonymous
| Gen Z doesn't seem to be interested in collecting baggage of several broken relationships, they seem to have more clarity about what they want in a partner. |
Anonymous
| I don't see the focus on "mental health and boundary setting" to be a positive - seems the kids are just finding ways to weaponize mental health speak and live as forever children. |