"The tyranny of life milestones"

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https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20 ... milestones

It is fair to point out that for many of us "Boomers" who got married, bought a house, and had kids in our twenties, we also spent our 30s recovering from divorce and trying to deal with child support and visitation rights.  THAT may be the biggest factor in our children putting off marriage and parenthood until their 30s and 40s, if they do not avoid those milestones entirely.

Our parents were unbelievably spoiled. All I knew until I got away was pressure.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Us "Boomers" were raised on the idealism of our parents after they survived the Great Depression and WWII, with the full backing of their parents after they survived WWI, Prohibition, the Great Depression, and WWII.  All that optimism wasted on a generation that was first to take to the streets in protest against a war, racism, sexism, and conformity to outdated traditions... all at once.

Can you please provide me one example of the privilege we all enjoyed as a result?

I got nothing.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

While being born in the 1980s should make me a "Millenial", I don't really identify as such because the shared generational expriences here differ from shared generational experiences in English-speaking countries.
Being "Millenial" in Eastern Europe means a major transformation happened in your childhood and everything was changing all the time since then. Rapid changes, with their opportunities and dangers, are our "normal". My generation here does not really know stability.

It's also obvious we're living in entirely different world than our parents. It was also obvious that the previous two generations lived in yet another different worlds.
Economically, we're better-off. At my age, my parents still couldn't afford their own place or a car. Actually, they sometimes struggled to obtain the most basic goods. By this comparison, the apartament and old car we have are pretty satisfactory
Also, we don't have the culture of loans that seems to destabilize the West. It's better to go budget but clean than fancy and end up in unaffordable debt, by the dominant philosophy here. Maybe we were never rich enough for consumerism to gain momentum.

↑ Yeah, I got away from the "More and bigger is better" philosophy of my parents' generation, and I buy only what I can afford without coming up short on the essentials (except for the house; that required a bank loan).

I have a feeling that the parents of Baby Boomers - especially in the wealthier parts of the West - wanted very much to "live happily ever after". In reality, it's extremely hard to live up to expectations of being happy ever after.

I'm also thinking about Second Wave Feminism as a byproduct of the "happily ever after" myth. The role of women in old American ads - perfectly dressed and made up, smiling while cleaning their spotless houses and baking cookies for their handsome husbands and prefectly dressed and behaved, clean, smiling children - was another unachieveable expectation that had no other option but to backfire with a massive wave of frustration.

Gen Z here.

I think I'm somewhat unusual statistically speaking because my mother had me (the youngest child) at the age of 37. She had my sister six years earlier. My parents are baby boomers. I know I tend to have friends who have younger parents, but I have met a few who have similarly aged parents.

However, I know that in terms of employment and moving out I'm certainly living on a different timeline compared to my parents. My sister is having a difficult time, she's 27 and wants to move out and find somewhere to live with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend also lives with his parents. She wants to move out as soon as she can.

Throw in a pandemic and 'entry level' jobs that ask for five years or more of experience. It's rather daunting. Especially for someone like me who is finishing University in a couple of months. Sprinkle in the constant reminders that your social media must be up to standard because employers will use this to judge you.

Most people I know are in their 20's and living with their parents, it's quite typical these days here. I even know situations where people have to pay their parents' rent whilst working small retail jobs and attending university. The benefit system isn't great here. Fortunately I've never had to pay my parents' rent, but I do have to pay rent on student accommodation that I can't actually live in until the travel ban lifts. At least the box of cereal I left there is living comfortably!

Being a member of the forgotten X generation, I have been verbally shamed by my younger coworkers for not reaching life milestones. I am not married, have no kids and will likely never own a house. They look at me as being a complete failure at life because my route is much different than theirs. They all came from rich families and graduated with zero debt, so they had a good starting point to reach those goals. I was just not that lucky in life. What I do have I worked hard for and I am proud of that. They will live a lifetime and still never learn that lesson.

My parents were born in the 30s during the depression. They certainly didn't live large although they got married young. They waited 10 years to have children. My father built our first home by hand with his dad, who also built his own home. My brother and I were born in the 60s and we're both Generation X. We both bought houses straight away after our education. We both got married and divorced (him, twice). Our children born in the 90s (Millennial and Gen Z) are at a significant disadvantage because of the way the economy has shifted. I can't even fathom them having the same financial opportunities I had, or owning homes, or getting married and having children in their 20s. Even if the economy were better, I think the priorities and values of young people have shifted for the better - away from commercialism, herd mentality, and consumerism, and toward self-confidence, self-awareness, and personal wellbeing. I think the young people today are remarkable in their own right. Their skill set is very different than previous generations but they're free-thinkers and generally very socially-conscious individuals.

My daughter is welcome to live with me as long as she'd like. That may include me relocating to a home with a private entrance / nanny suite that she can call her own, for added privacy.

True. While the milestones can be good motivators for some, for others they can be like obstacles that they have to cross before they can feel like they're living the right kind of life.

To be completely honest, I've never really looked at the society's milestones as guides to how my life should go. Instead, I've made an example of my older sister, who's year and a half older than me. I'm physically disabled along with being on the spectrum, have been since I was born, so I don't think my parents ever exactly had the same expectations for me as they did for my older sister, but they've never said that out loud nor did I see any signs of it 'till my late teens (of course, I might've missed some things due to being on the spectrum), so I always ended up, and still do, comparing myself to her. Maybe I wouldn't if, at some point, my parents would've clearly said that it's natural if I can't get the same things done as her since she was born with big advantages compared to me, but they've never said that. I don't think anyone has. I think it might've been healthier for me to compare myself and my life to people with same disabilities, but the thing is, I've never met a single person (as far as I know) who'd have the same disability as me. And considering the fact that there's only about a handful of us born in this country each year, I probably never will, especially if I take in to account that I'm also on the autism spectrum. Just having the same physical disability as me but no autism or anything like that would mean they actually have a bit of an advantage on me, so it wouldn't be that clear of a comparison. But anyway, I also feel like if I had never compared myself to my sister, I wouldn't have tried nearly as hard in my life as I have. I think that everyone needs some kind of goal or direction to be motivated to do their best in life. To me, that direction just happened to be my older sister. To some, probably many, others it's the expectations of society. In other words, those milestones of life.

Petty confession: for years, I was proud of first moving out of my parents' house to live with a relative (split expenses and chores) and then on my own before my sister did. And then it left a dent on my newly built pride when she moved directly to a place of her own instead of renting like I did when she finally got out of our parents' house.
But to my defense, I had to move out due to being unable to drive because of my disability (where we grew up there was no and is no public transportation), but my sister could drive so she was able to go to work from our parents' place and save money.