As is customary of late, I asked Google AI "Is it possible that the trend of estrangement with parents has something to do with Gen Z and Millennials having to work multiple jobs to survive?" The answer I got was this (partial, in burgundy red):
Yes, severe financial stress and working multiple jobs can contribute to family estrangement by draining mental energy and exposing clashing values over economic realities, though therapists primarily link the trend to a broader cultural focus on mental health boundaries rather than job counts alone.
* Exhausted bandwidth: Working multiple jobs causes severe burnout and money-driven anxiety, leaving young adults with little emotional reserve to tolerate difficult family dynamics or criticism.
One reason I asked this question was because in forums, this fact of life for Gen Z and Millennials is often brought up as one reason they had to split with their family in addition to negative family dynamics. The common negative family dynamics include criticizing them for who they are, or who they are dating, or what their interests or politics are, or how they measure up compared to their siblings, or they are too often expected to endure invalidation of their feelings, thoughts and experiences.
If the family dynamics seem a little too toxic, or are demanding, or the family is highly critical of them, that can add too much stress to the already stressful environment of working very long hours. They prefer to retreat into peer support and therapy, rather than seek out their family for comment or support.
That link also makes these realities known: Therapy is normalizing "firm relational boundaries" over continually enduring family dysfunction in society in the present time. That link also points to this reality: 60 percent of Gen Zs are estranged from a loved one, usually a family member or members.
Compared to older generations, these younger generations feel little obligation to parents who cannot accept them for who they are and how they conduct their own decisions and lives, or parents who cannot accept their limits and boundaries, and parents who are refusing to acknowledge them beyond highly critical judgements.
To me, these reasons seem fair, but I'm sure at a sixty percent rate of estrangement (and the creation of a "cancel culture"), some parents are being cancelled just because an adult child can do it without blow-back from their own generation, or others such as the Millennials and the younger half of Gen X, and even experience peer approval and support over doing it.
However, when I look at forums for adult children who have been abused, I see very little from members who do it "because it is a trend."
The last story I read was from a woman:
As a little girl, she and her younger siblings were sexually abused by an older sibling. They felt that they had to take turns every night at staying awake so that if this older brother tried the door knob they could alert one another. Even after the complaints, the parents said they had talked to him, but it wasn't effective, and refused to intervene in ways that would stop him. As he grew older, he was labeled "a monster" by his siblings. Then the siblings all became estranged from the parents who enabled his behavior. The last comment she made was: "Sometimes parents don't abuse you directly, but they deeply enable a sibling to abuse you. I can no longer believe that our parents have our safety and well being in mind and I'm tired of being the target of my older brother. So I decided to 'go no contact' and to put my own safety in my own hands."
That, to me, seems like a justifiable reason to be estranged.
Can the family work through it? Maybe if there is recognition of what the younger siblings went through, a lot of therapy, and a lot of accountability and accepting that their children distrust the parents for enabling the sexual abuse to happen. But should these children feel obligated to end the estrangement or "to forgive and forget"?
This kind of situation is hard to forget, so pressures to forget are unlikely to happen.
And forgiveness cannot be forced for it to be genuine.
And it depends what "forgiveness" means - putting yourself in harm's way when it comes to this older sibling who appears to his younger siblings to "have grown into a monster" at this juncture?
In fact, I see almost no posts about being estranged for erroneous reasons. They are usually pretty dire situations like this one.
But apparently many parents are saying that they care or cared deeply about their children, or a child, and the child still wanted estrangement, and even for some, the permanence of it. I'll look into that in another post, which is to say I've seen parents have concerns that this trend is so widespread that it is sweeping up adult children who are not, and were never, abused, and instead who are, and were, deeply loved and cared for, where parents were devoted to them for life.
They say that the estrangement trend is giving younger generations power over older generations (creating a generational split based on "unreasonable boundaries" - as some of these parents see them). They are saying these adult children are telling parents to shut up about topics, even topics that aren't confrontational in the least, acting like what they say is of utmost importance while what older generations have to say is irrelevant, acting so narcissistic in conversation that the parents wonder if their child has this Cluster B disorder themselves, and is merely projecting his or her own personalities on to their parents, since narcissists project their own traits on to others).
In my own life, I have on a personal level (not-internet based) known three people my age who were estranged from their children, but in all of those cases, the estrangement only went on for two years at most, and ended due to therapy with the estranged child.
However, I have also known even more parental figures my age who feel threatened by the generational trend of estrangement, and what they say is along these lines: "My parents told me to shut up a lot, that only they had the right to tell us when we could speak on a certain subject, or bring up a certain subject, and now I have children who are doing the same thing to me! Are we some kind of 'sandwich generation' of silenced people? I think what we lived through in our generation is pretty interesting, but neither generation wanted to hear anything about it; they judge us instead. So just like my kids, I am closer to my peers than to them, or anyone from other generations. I feel like my own generation goes out of their way to understand each other, but that no other generation wants to be bothered to understand us."
That's a sad state of affairs, so I'm going to try to look at some other sides, though I won't have much compassion for adults who are "bashing" their children in forums as it seems that is what got their child to leave in the first place, or there was too much interference by the parent about how they were living, or even whether they measured up in terms of "parental approval". What adult child actually needs or asks for parental approval? Even when parents give it out of concern, or when asked, for instance, their child is either going to accept it, or reject it.
Children who are told to do things over and over again for parental approval are less likely to listen to their parent after a while. And "adult children" who are told to do things over and over again for parental approval are less likely to listen to their parent too. What the latter link reveals is that it is seen by most adult children as a power struggle, or a parent who is unwilling to give up control when the child becomes an adult. That link also says that it is far more effective to give validation and respect for a child's independence than to harp on issues that the parent sees as negative or too independent.
One thing I learned when I taught Head Start was that children respond much better when you talk about their positive qualities than their negative qualities and I took that lesson with me when I taught school aged children 6 - 12, and teens 13 - 18. Instead of saying "Don't do that!" unless it is a grave issue or mistake, I'd distract the child and focus on something they were good at: "You're good at building castles. Would you like to help 'so and so' build one?" They get attention from misbehaving, and if you can get them to get 'better attention' from being helpful, they tend to put their focus on that instead of on misbehaving.
With school aged children and teens who were misbehaving enough to keep them after school, I focused on what they were good at when they were in class: "Why would you want to do this when you're so talented in (that)?"
It definitely works a whole lot better in terms of behavior than constantly giving negative attention to bad behavior, and quite a bit better than trashing their self esteem. Narcissists feel they cannot afford to do this because it means their child becomes more "independent" (fear of the child's independence from the parent is what really triggers narcissistic injury and narcissistic rage), but for those of us who are not narcissistic, and do not feel narcissistic rage over a child's independence, we can afford to focus on any child's better qualities than their worst ones.
In my experience, misbehaving tends to slowly disappear when positive assessments get more focus than minor misbehaviors, in teenagers and young adults. For 3 - 4 year olds, the behavior gets better much faster.
It also gets them looking at others in positive ways. Modeling positive thinking towards others and in them means your child will probably be looking at others, including you, the parent, in positive ways too. It just makes sense.
I also talk about how to avoid estrangement with your kids in this post. And remember that patience, patience, patience is always necessary when you want positive, or an enlightened, or a compassionate discussion with underage children and adult children. If they have been taught "negativity and intolerance" you have to be patient with them "unlearning it". It can be a habit, and may take as long for them to unlearn as it was to learn it.
When you teach in a classroom, your students may still be learning how to get attention from misbehaving, but you can give them a counteractive experience where their best qualities can shine, where acceptance rather than rejection is more of their experience, and where all children's feelings make a difference.
So since I have an open mind, I'll be exploring what non-narcissistic parents are going through with this trend. We already know that narcissistic parents are trying to hurt their children more when the child chooses estrangement, and I've already covered that, so for another post, it will be about parents who are fine with their childrens' independence, and who are trying to make up with their estranged child or children.
In the meantime, some understanding that this issue may be partly attributed to over-work and economic woes may help a little in terms of understanding that generation and how much stress they can realistically deal with in their day-to-day lives.
Why Millennials and Gen Z are Going NO CONTACT with Their Parents - by Kati Morton (licensed mental health professional, USA) for her channel You Tube
Why adult children go no contact, according to science - by Dr. Ana (psychologist) for her channel on You Tube
THE CRASH: The devastating consequences of permissive parenting - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
What this estranged mom's book reveals about forgiveness - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
I read another estranged parent's book... and oh boy - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
This is what happens when you go no contact with a parent - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
This is what happens when you repeatedly invalidate a child - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
How estranged parents tell on themselves in the comments - by Dr. Ana (You Tube)
What Brooklyn Beckham just revealed about family estrangement - by Dr. Ana (psychologist) for her channel on You Tube
"No Future?" Why Gen Z Feels Doomed | EP517 | The Dr. Phil Podcast - by Dr. Phil (You Tube)
Why People Cut Off From Family? Here's What Psychology Says - by Mind Decoded (You Tube)
What Happens When Narcissistic Parents Lose Their Scapegoat - by Jerry Wise (You Tube)
Cutting Off Family: Why So Many Adult Kids Are Going 'No Contact' | Dr. Phil Primetime - by Dr. Phil (You Tube)
Psychology Of People Who Cut Off Contact With Their Families - by Apex Psychology (You Tube)
The Psychology of People Who Have Endured too Much Trauma - by Solentis (You Tube)
Toxic Parents? Gen Z Cuts Ties for Good | Dr. Phil Primetime - by Dr. Phil (You Tube)
Narcissistic Family: 9 Signs It's Time to Go No Contact - by Jerry Wise (You Tube)
The psychology of people who cut off contact with their families - by Koo Psychology and Pax Psychology
11 Signs You Have Traumatic Intelligence, The Rarest Form of Smart - by Turn Wiser (You Tube)
Psychology Says These 6 Habits Are Signs Of Childhood Neglect - by Mind Decoded (You Tube)
Anti-estrangement therapists are wild, dude - by Dr. Ana (psychologist) for her channel on You Tube
If Your Child Has Cut You Out of Their Life, Watch This | Jefferson Fisher Clips - by Jefferson Fisher (You Tube)
Young people have far less leisure time and money and everyone lives far more spread out, seriously what do these parents expect? Before I was disabled I worked 70 hours a week. [EASY] I remember the strain of even doing visits to my relatives and most back then when I was in contact for much of my adult life were within 120 miles though my siblings moved away further. So you are right about this. Also overworked kids who are "failures" to their parents and live nothing like the lifestyle their parents had when they were young was far far different. My father owned a suburban house by age 24/25, that's extremely rare now, he had a good government job by then. My mother was living in that house by age 21. She was basically just out of her teens. No milk crates, and going without groceries for her. For even younger people things are worse now.
ReplyDeleteGen X knew we were screwed but things are so bad, the young have to be angrier because the lack of money has forced them into dependency. Remember in my case I was able to get the 11-14 dollar an hour jobs in the early 90s, LOL I guess people make the SAME at those jobs now but the money goes a lot less far. The youth are sad, disappointed, and depressed, their parents look down on them and very few parents have any empathy for the economy of today. Some Generation Jones parents I have noticed are far more forgiving of impoverished adult children since they faced some financial setbacks, but older parents. I wrote that article about how the economic chasm has formed the estrangement. My sister is a rich woman, who understands nothing of my life. Maybe we would have parted ways even from having nothing in common even if she was not abusive or who she is. My mother never went without a dollar she wanted and sees every poor person as a "failure" and a "loser", this includes her brother "Uncle Narcissist", they never struggled for work and or money and just have NO understanding. Sadly, that's true of many comfortable parents out there now who enjoyed lux lives. They seem unable to admit the true state of the economy or the second Great Depression. I still read about clueless rich old ladies going on cruises while their children can't pay the light bill. The parents never adjusted their expectations, and the kids go out in the world where they feel like they got lied too and set up because the world works nothing like what their parents said it would. Some golden children who get family nepotism opportunities may be an exception but there's a lot of adult children with smoldering resentment. They leave their 2000 a month, 500 square foot, falling down apartment and go to their parents' large expensive suburban home, and hear about endless hobbies, vacations and trips and think WTF?!!
Many who are growing older too have let go of the dream that age will bring them the same lifestyle, [the young start out poor, that whole saying goes but hard work etc., is supposed to bring in the American Dream] By 40 you get the drift that your life is not going the same direction as one's parents. I'm disabled I never expected to swim in money, I probably am better off than a LOT of single disabled people who live on nothing but their check but a lot of hardworking adults, are realizing their parents blame them for something they had no control over.
continuing...
Add in the energy side of things. I know some family stuff was affected when I was still working holidays and weekends always taken up, group homes are open 24/7. Some of these adult children with 2-3 jobs and children of their own can barely find time to do anything nonetheless go to their parents' house which is often far away. Many have no money to travel. I talked about that in the distance article.
ReplyDeletehttps://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-demise-of-american-family-4.html
I was severely disabled and mine expected me to be able to sit up 10-12 hours for a visit, no bed to lay down in, I often did get sick. It occurred to me I would not have the stamina now for old family visits and barely could do it then. We often rented our own hotel room if there for over 24 hours or went to the bookstore constantly to decompress, and I would lay down in the van and we would get food they denied us. [weird rules like if she fed us a 3:30pm meal there was no food for the rest of the day which didn't go with diabetes]
Now take some adult child, 30s-40s, maybe a few kids, life is CONSTANT work. An average couple now, they are always pushed to the wall with duties, responsibilities, childcare, medical, house maintenance, cleaning.. Family is another obligation and if they are an abusive family, or don't help or don't support and only criticize, and the adult children are already exhausted, even if they haven't officially gone no contact, many are going to check out. Add in a rich mother and father who stare down their nose at the "failed" adult child, the kids are going to ask why are we bothering? The visits will ebb away as the years go by.
There were times years after my no contact where I thought "Sheesh at least we don't have to make those trips anymore!" [an hour in the car is very hard for me, I have like a 100 mile limit where pain will begin] Like I felt relief. We had to come up with at least 80 bucks for gas to get to my mother's house and this was years ago and make sure there was 300-400 for towing money [which I didn't always have] in case the car broke down. For the people with kids add in packing them up and arranging their schedules, and well, unless the motivation is there and one is making POSITIVE MEMORIES with people, the relationships are doomed for failure. I sometimes would show up and mine would be at church [Catholics go Sat night] or some other place, and everything else was always a higher priority after I pushed to even get out there. Once I visited her in 2011, and we had to go to the local library for three hours, to wait for her to get home from some party. She knew we had been coming for some weeks.
The lack of empathy out there is off the charts, and the adult children don't want to put up with it anymore. People are too pushed to the edge, to spend time with people who don't treat them right, "family obligation" or not.
Here's the article I wrote about how the economic differences were creating the estrangement.
https://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-demise-of-american-family-3.html
Also here's an article I wrote years ago, so I am not sure if you have seen it, it is a very early article where I talked about what it felt like to go to the rarefied suburbs and how out of touch my family was.
https://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2013/09/money-snobs-and-narcissists.html
Hi Peep,
DeleteYes, I remember those posts of yours and they inspired me to look into the issues between generations myself.
However, I also know that older generations have viewed younger generations as wayward, lazy, wild and rebellious for thousands of years:
https://www.google.com/search?q=have+young+generations+always+been+seen+as+wayward+and+wild
This tells me that there have always been generational differences and even types of arguments, which can turn into generational animosities and varying degrees of separation (not always estrangements, but leaning away from parents and their sets of expectations on their children, which parents might interpret as "rebellion").
It did seem like baby boomers put up with their parents ("warts and all" as the saying goes) more than the generations that followed. But there were just as extreme differences between them as any that exist now. If I had to describe the differences between the Boomers and the Great Generation and Silent Generation in one word, it would be about "dogma" - turning away from dogma into more "free thinking".
If I was to describe the differences between the Jones Generation and the Silent Generation and the Boomer Generation, I would describe it as "freedom of choice" - away from hierarchical structures, including choices of mates, and hierarchical thinking.
If I was to desribe the differences between Generation X and the Jones and Boomer Generations, it would be adopting both "free thinking" and "freedom of choice", but pointing out the hypocrisies seen in these older generations, i.e. older generations' stance on "free thinking" and "freedom of choice" is and was not given to Generation X, only to themselves. This would account for the psychologists of Gen X (Dr. Ramani & many others) studying narcissism, which is really a disease featuring hypocrisy. So the simplistic version of Gen X is the focus on hypocrisies in society. But hypocrisy can also translate into noticing a lack of ethics, and lack of compassion too, also narcissistic traits. It created a generation that started to out-right reject parents, especially parents showing heavy duty narcissistic traits. You have written that you are part of this generation, and I think that this applies, yes?
For the Millennials, the differences have been more about survival, surviving in a world that previous generations have built, full of technology, pollution, destruction of the ecological and economic environments (translating into a "rejection of excess", a world full of the most deadly weapons that have ever existed, oligarchs and authoritarians or ineffective leaders in power, deadly diseases (the pandemic really effected them in a huge way - many of them graduated into a working world with a pandemic to deal with), and the grueling waste of money and resources on things that are not going to make their futures better. In terms of interpersonal relationships of previous generations, dealing with the destructive forces of narcissism that Gen X made very public is part of "the estrangement trend". "Dealing with destruction" is the main emphasis in this generation. Tiny houses, trying to right the ecological and economic destructions, and a full scale rejection of toxicity in the family (including rejection of narcissism in parents) would point to this, yes?
Continued ...
As far as Gen Z is concerned ...
DeleteThey have been described in some circles and on their own as "the nihilistic generation", a generation that has lost hope, and also the generation that is self destructing. I think Dr. Phil's presentation on this was good, though I don't appreciate his advertisement for the Preserve Gold company in the middle of such a sensitive subject (really bad, bad taste!!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1TaiIcrTBc
He does talk about his own life about being "down and out" in poverty. But he's also coming at this issue like a psychologist: "How do you change your thoughts out of the ones shown to you by 'doom-scrolling' and 'rage baiting' on the internet, and which is doing you 'no good', preventing you from taking your life and situations into your own hands?" - that is not a direct quote, but it is the basic message ...
I'm not convinced that just changing your mind-scape is going to help everything about this issue (certainly not), but it is clear they have decided to rid themselves of "toxic people" and "toxic dynamics" because dealing with narcissism just feels like more "doom-scrolling" and a lot more stress - all of the criticisms, all of the high expectations when they are working 90 hour weeks with no reward other than basic survival, adopting "work-a-holism" when in past generations it was seen as a type of addiction that could cause severe mental illness, anger and depression (and was voluntary, unlike today).
So not only are parents being rejected, but the generation is also rejecting themselves with very high suicide rates (especially when they get the feeling that "they can't make it" and all that the heavy work load is doing is providing undue stress, severe depression, isolation with competition, and schedules they feel they can no longer handle).
Then the political atmosphere that they are called on to endure where their tax dollars are further biting into their income are going to foreign wars, oligarchs, ultra friendly meetings with despotic tyrants, and so on, is causing a general consesus of generational hopelessness.
The video of going from house ownership for baby boomers, to small houses, condos and trailers in trailer parks for Gen X, to tiny homes for Millennials, to dreadful one bedroom apartments that are owned by oligarchs has a lot of truth to it.
I recognize the disparity of wealth is part of what is causing some issues between all generations, as well as expectations about work and being "super functioning" in world that Millennials was found to be "falling apart" in a lot of ways.
Not only has Gen Z adopted the Millenials view that "the world is falling apart" and that "we're being squeezed from every corner", they've adopted hopelessness about it. A tiny home doesn't even seem possible, even building one. How would they ever afford the materials needed for one, or the time to make one?
Having relationships or a family doesn't seem possible with heavy work schedules either. Dealing with any sort of narcissism in other people seems very much to be a hopeless endeavor, thus adopting estrangement as the only way to have hope of better mental health and a better future (not being depressed all of the time).
And this is for the Gen Zers who are able to work ... You've pointed out in some of your blogs that hopeless poverty and even food deprivaton awaits for anyone with serious medical or disability issues. Exceptionally sad.
Is it any wonder that generation gaps are so big, and that estrangement has become so rampant?
Hi Lise,
DeleteI'm glad you remembered those posts, yes it is true the younger generations have always been seen as lazy and rebellious, back to Ancient Greece.
I do think there's always been disagreements with the generations but yes things are far worse now like you wrote.
I've read Baby Boomers were "spoiled" by their parents well if they could spoil them because they saw the hardships of WWII and vowed to spare their children. It's just a theory I've seen so many there was more loyalty? Of course some were damaged by vet Dads who came home with PTSD and other problems from combat, you can see that in the books of many.
I think the Baby Boomers were more "free thinking" from the 60s but something changed [talking in generalities here] with the greed filled 80s and then later, some seemed to put this aside as they aged, going to the other side. It is weird I do see Generation Jones folks as sticking closer to the "free thinking" and antihierarchical outlooks.
You know some claim the Boomers went "degenerate" and you know I've complained about some of the changes that came in the 60s. Sadly, it seems the "hippie" ethos was lost with some for something much darker.
Gen X yes does question the hypocrisy, we didn't get the helicopter parenting as bad as the millennials, but I found myself asking why these people so much into freedom were so against freedom as they got older? Why was everything so cracked down on? I've mentioned "The Thirteenth Generation" book a few times about generations, they make a prediction that the "hippies" would turn fascist. This book was written in the 1990s. I wish I still had my copy, I was planning to get ahold of one and take a picture of the quote I remember.
https://www.amazon.com/13th-Gen-Abort-Retry-Ignore/dp/0679743650#:~:text=In%20commentary%20and%20quotations%2C%20computer%20dumps%20and%20cartoons%2C,interviews%2C%20editors%27%20picks%2C%20and%20more.%20Read%20it%20now
And you are exactly right the things they advocated for themselves they took away from Gen X and other generations. It's like they didn't want the young to do better or enjoy the benefits. [Generalizing here, this does not apply to all] I noticed when I was young, that while the world of the boomers was expansive and brought better things everything got more locked down, and harder the older I got. if you want to understand the building resentment between generations there you go. I do think things became a lot less free.
DeleteLets be real this hypocrisy has fueled a lot of anger towards boomers and younger people are upset that there was so little empathy for their economic and other situations. It's hard, a lot of boomers are good people, I'm friends with some but you can see the endless older people calling younger people "losers" and failing, with rants about Communism and Socialism, and ignoring all the bad things that have happened in post-capitalism. That "OK Boomer" stuff didn't come out of a vacuum. Their existence was so different from my own. Life for Gen X is kind of weird, some Gen X did succeed but it's a thinner sliver, they are the golden children I suppose, but much of Gen X disengaged [as I have written about too] and this feeling of "never being enough" I think permeates the generation. That one Gen X guy on Youtube, talks about how Gen X are the workhorses, no one listened to us and how they checked out. I understand where he is coming from. I know I tired of wealthy boomers bragging about their vacations etc, around here. Some of them had adult children living in poverty [some Gen X-millennials] There was such a huge disconnect. Their lives were so different. Gen X is kind of the invisible generation, I've referred to it as the scapegoat generation that sees the false masks in the room.
Remember that book "A Generation of Sociopaths", he definitely addressed the problem of narcissistic and other traits rising up in the Boomer aged generation. He had some kind of theory related to Greatest Generation parents at war etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781
Narcissism has definitely grown. I think one issue that changed was how money was dealt with and America was made into a very materialistic and consumer society during their hey-day, and now that has been snatched back by the powers that be basically shoving the young back into poverty as peasants basically, it's destroyed any understanding between the generations.
So yeah it would apply. I know other Gen X have gone no contact. I noticed many in my generation moved far away from family too and low contact with many seems to be the default. There are the golden children types who did succeed and who stuck closer to parents, but many were seen as failures by wealthier parents who kind of checked out. One reason I think Gen X has checked out from social organizations and churches, etc, is the boomers dominated so much, they felt they had no voice. I noticed that, even as I grew older, Gen X still didn't get a voice. It is weird to me how I wrote articles 10-15 years ago complaining about this and it never changed. I think the Unitarian Universalist Association will fail with time, unless millennials take over, it is an extremely boomer dominated church, but then I noticed this in the evangelical world. It is interesting to note, church attendance among my peers compared to older people.
So Gen X, has struggled some more than others, but Gen X was the first generation that was poorer than it's parents, when before for centuries, life was always made better for each succeeding generation in America. Millennials yes life became more about brute survival. They worked hard but didn't get the results. They do seem more engaged, than Gen X by far, but survival takes up most of their time. I would see a few in various organizations but their numbers were still lower. They also called out the problems in the world like you listed.
They too continued what Gen X called out with the narcissism and more.
I worry about Gen Z, they are very nihilistic, and how can I say this? Depressed. [I know I am one to talk] but there does seem to be a self-destructive thing there. One thing I noticed about Gen Z it seems is an escape into fantasy. That's one thing I noticed about them, they seemed really into fictional things, you know I love anime, and some of this stuff but it seemed like for some it became their whole life, because real life was so miserable, it was easier to focused on that. [if they could afford it]
DeleteI know to Gen Z I am just some really old woman on a walker but they worry me. THEY DO NOT SEEM TO TALK. LOL Maybe this is unfair, but when I do run into people in that age group, it's kind of weird to me. I hope they talk to each other when I am not around.
They have lost hope. I also believe they have been preyed on in various ways, their health is far worse, I notice how many of them have autoimmune diseases, it's off the charts, with extreme stuff like POTS and they just seem more ill in general which worries me for the future. I point to vaxxes doing this of course and then I think some of the trans stuff as having a very negative effect on them. I noticed in the zine world, they seemed far less verbal, which worried me. Zines went from being packed with heavy writing--I miss those to now a few drawn illustrations, some were good artists but I noticed that change. One thing worries me about them, you can see the effects of the helicopter parenting and endless rules, like they don't seem to have intiative and they don't rebel. I once wrote an article about millennials not rebelling but it seems worse with Gen Z, like they are in a prison cell [hmmm in many ways they ARE] and have given up in an air of resignation. They don't have the sarcasm and the "I'll go do what I want anyway" attitude of Gen X but a more worrisome one, like they had the spirit totally crushed out of them. [One can blame the predatory oligarchy here, not just narcissistic parents]
Oh Dr. Phil is full of crap. Sorry. He's pushing the usual boomer message, "Change your mind, and it will change the world". I got tired of that stuff, when I wrote about the positive thinking crap. That's one thing I had to learn not to share problems with some boomers as they would give you that spiel. It's almost like a religion in America, and something I think they used to clean the tills out while teaching the population to gaslight themselves, problem is Gen Z is too poor with too few prospects to buy into that crap.
Sadly too many of the psychologists and counselors push that "positive thinking" crap instead of dealing with the real problems especially when it comes to economics with their clients. Even I arrived at the conclusion that middle class and above counselors weren't going to understand my life especially if they held philosophies like that one.
DeleteHonestly I'm scared for them. I never had kids but I think young people have it so bad now, that I know how life goes [first hand] when poverty ruins it. How at 20 something the world can be a little forgiving when you don't have your own apartment or family or job yet, but at 40, its a whole other story. Many of them don't want children. Why would they? Even if they can get work, they know they can barely afford anything, and can barely take care of themselves. Yes lives for the disabled ones are far worse. Well disability is it's own world. You are crushed by costs and thrown away.
Housing shows the deterioration of economic lives. Even a small ranch, looks like heaven to a Gen Z who knows they will never own one. Also when life is always deferred due to no money it takes a negative toll on people. I went to a bookstore 20 miles away, I wanted to go to this bookstore TWO YEARS ago. LOL I guess that may tell you how low on money I've been. You don't get to live life, and well with the young, at the time when people should have more eagerness and happiness about the world, it is very scary when you see young people so beaten down, and allowed NOTHING, that they are already giving up and not fighting back or in the case of some escaping into fantasy which I get that, I do it via books myself a little bit.
Sure the disparity of wealth is impacting everything. The older boomers see younger people as lazy but don't understand, we don't have money to go do things. You need money to be busy and to achieve. I get more done when I have some money. We don't have yards or homes to work on. There is DEFINITELY a loss of skills among the young, and I point to myself there just so you know.
continuing...
DeleteSure younger people including me are fed up with the world situation. They feel like they have been handed a poop sandwich by a bunch of psychopaths. This adds to the unhappiness. Many are worried about war, collapse, and other things like this. Some say why bother, we won't get to live that long anyway, I've seen this written multiple times. They won't have children, and who can blame them, they will look around and I've seen many of them write on places like reddit, "Why should I bring children into this hellscape?" I don't think the stupid psychopaths in charge understand how this is going to impact society in the long run.
They know their future is slaves under oligarchs who hate them and see them as chattel. Sometimes I want to throw up even myself seeing what was thrown away. I remember the days when life was being made better and how much richness there was to life. Was young and not in charge of any of it, but people were HAPPIER. When young people are depressed, there's a big problems on one's hands. Probably another sign of a dying empire.
The judgement about not achieving in the world place or financially has never ended. Too many boomers never got it or cared to noticed or understand what was happening to young people and yes the anger is there. I think it's fueling all the estrangement. Decades of being put down as a "failure" in a crazy society who only sees financial worth as your entire worth, has been like gasoline poured on this problem. What is family to me but a competition club that slammed Loser on my forehead? They were nothing and the young realize in too many cases they are not loved for being fellow humans but only for whatever success or narcissistic supply they can bring. So wonder they are depressed. I think it's rarer people now who have real families. This is why they are done talking to people who treat them like dirt and estrangement is off the chart. The lack of understanding even for what has been done to younger generations is horrific. There's something that switched to selfishness and just sheer exploitation some time ago that really changed this country for the worse.
Peep,
DeleteMaybe I'm a little biased here because I remember as a kid when boomers talked about how their parents "never listen" and "lecture them constantly when they don't understand a thing." Let's not forget there was a huge generation split (where the phrase, "Don't trust anyone over 30" came from).
The boomers are very much an anomaly in that they were the most educated and wealthiest generation in the history of the country. Maybe Millennials have surpassed them in education now, though.
The attitudes towards workers in the 1960s - 1970s were different too: CEOs only made 20 times more than their workers made, and often shared the wealth to keep their workers in the company.:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Most+baby+boomers+got+good+paying+jobs+in+the+1970s
Compare that to today where the average CEO makes 290 times more than their workers and rarely shares the wealth.
How workers were treated in the early 1970s was entirely different than the way workers are treated today. Most Boomers got good jobs, good pay, good vacation packages and good bonuses - speaking in an overall way about the average early 1970s worker. With that kind of pay, they were able to afford houses and raise children.
Once that generation passes away into history, it will look like a blip on a screen in terms of "a different lifestyle" than most Americans have had, especially if the country keeps going in the same direction that it has.
The Jones Generation could afford houses too, but many of the Jones generation folks that I know personally moved into fixer-uppers, and smaller houses than the Boomers.
cont ...
cont ...
DeleteOn PBS, there are professional interviewees (people with graduate school educations who teach at higher ed institutions that pay attention to statistics) who say we are a country with considerably more wealth disparity than the Golden Age (which eventually led to The Great Depression).
So the huge difference between the Boomers was that there wasn't a huge wealth disparity when they entered the workforce as compared to Gen Z, although the wealth disparity started to grow as Boomers worked into their senior years.
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+boomers+didn%27t+experience+as+much+wealth+disparity+as+gen+Z
Houses were quite a bit more affordable too for Boomers. Now whole neighborhoods of houses, apartment buildings, and trailer parks, are being purchased and hoarded by multi-millionaires, billiuonaires, and oligarchs, so educated Gen Zers have very little options than to live in them and pay exorbidant rents, especially if they move to the larger cities. There is little affordable housng any more.
A mnority of Gen Zers are opting to build their own places (if they have the money and know-how), or more likely, to buy into really depressed cities and towns where crumbling houses are very inexpensive and the occupants can work on them slowly.
But then the job markets in depressed areas of the country mean giving up on what they were trained to do in colleges and universities. Apparently, some areas of the country are so depressed that the oligarchs have not thought of them as "good investments" yet, so these characters haven't purchased absolutely everything.
We follow quite a few Gen Z influencers on You Tube, ones that are finding work-arounds to low pay, or leaving the country entirely. Some are learning carpentry skills and turning shacks slowly into homes, and one old influencer we like from Italy lives entirely on his own home grown food and carpentry skills, and is making some extra money teaching Gen Zers how to do the same, however I recognize that the majority are not going to do this, and probably couldn't because of different skill sets and the inability to get out of an economic hole of living paycheck to paycheck.
Anyway, this is all a very interesting conversation, even though it has moved away from why Gen Z being the "estrangement generation".
I appreciate your thoughts on this, even when we disagree on some things. It's always good to have a dialogue on issues effecting the people of our country.
I meant "Gilded Age", not "Golden Age", and I see some misspellings even though I tried to look over grammatical and spelling errors before I published. Oy.
Delete