“When are you getting married?”

“When you are going to buy a house?”

“When are you going to have kids?”

 If you’re a millennial, you probably hear these questions from older relatives all the time.  You probably get uncomfortable, smile awkwardly, and say “we’ll see.”

Oddly, these are often the same people who say things like:

“Millennials are so lazy and entitled.”

“They think they deserve everything and should just be handed things!  I started out with nothing.”

“Millennials don’t deserve affordable college.  They don’t deserve anything!  In my day, people believed in the value of hard work.”

Every time someone asks me when I’m going to buy a house or have kids, I awkwardly say “we’ll see.”  The honest answer is “not until I’m in my 30s – if even then”.  Why?  Like many millennials, I can’t afford to purchase a home or have children.

Baby boomers like to talk about how entitled, lazy, and spoiled millennials are.  They say millennials don’t deserve anything.  So why do I deserve to purchase a home or have children I can’t afford to provide for?  I don’t.  Owning a home and starting a family are luxuries I cannot afford.

My parents, in-laws, and many of my relatives purchased their first homes and started families when they were in their early 20s.  To them, this was the norm. Why?  Because they weren’t buried in student loan debt.  They graduated from college with minimal student loan debt or none at all.

student loan debt

When millennials bring up the out of control student loan debt situation in the U.S., many people like to scream about personal responsibility.  There’s certainly some truth to this.  I signed the papers that would financially ruin several years of my life.  No one put a gun to my head and forced me to go to college.

If I could do it all over again, I would do things very, very differently.   I wouldn’t waste my money on a master’s degree or even a bachelor’s degree.  I would get a two year degree at a cheap school and focus instead on gaining as much relevant work experience as I could.  But it’s too late for that now.

When people scream about “personal responsibility”, they conveniently ignore that our parents graduated with little student loan debt, if any.

My mom finished college with a grand total of $1,000 in student loan debt.  The average millennial has over $40,000 of debt.

Our parents didn’t have to choose between an education and financial freedom.  College wasn’t free (and I’m not saying it should be), but it was affordable.

To baby boomers, a college degree, a home, and a family were things that they deserved for their hard work.  “The American Dream” was within reach.

But I guess millennials don’t deserve an affordable degree, homes, or families.  Millennials are entitled whiners who deserve nothing.