Those Gen Y’s ….

Those Gen Y’s ….

from The eloquent page by Caitlin Prescott

On my desk is a zine titled, “Y Young?: a compilation, a discussion about Generation Y.” The zine’s author, Tasha, sought responses to a lot of questions regarding the attitudes of other generations to Generation Y on her Facebook and then collated the responses in her zine. This zine fascinates me because, although I am Gen X, I remember vividly my mother bemoaning my generation’s behaviour. Interestingly her criticisms seem to be similar to those leveled at Gen Y in this zine. My mum would have agreed that we “are becoming less literate population because of our overuse of slang in day to day discussions.”

Cover of Y Young zine

Y Young zine

I used to worry that maybe she was right until I happened upon a quote attributed to Socrates,

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”