Parents just don't understand

Wow, my last post lit quite a little fire.

First, let me explain that not all the people I was with are vain crazies. Just a few. There were other people there as visibly disgusted as I was. I would say the age range was mostly gen x with older boomer parents.

Second, and I hate to break this to you, but materialism started with boomers. In 1987, the movie Wall Street said "Greed is Good" and, I believe, coined the phrase "Yuppie Greed". I didn't get to see this movie because I was only 11 at the time, but I believe that the 80's were all about the boomers being proud that they were able to not only provide for their families (which their parents struggled to do), but give them a little more, a nicer car, a better vacation. Right now, most of marketing is for the boomers, who have most of the money power in this country.

The "more" that people provide for their families has grown in definition through the generations. Being able to provide your teenager with insane things is now the height of success. But how will your teenager ever grow up?

We watched this great movie called The Last Kiss this evening. It's about a group of twenty-nine-year-old friends going through early mid-life crisis. This raw, emotional movie was so dead-on that it was hard to watch. These guys are not materialistic, but very afraid of the future, of making mistakes, of making decisions, of screwing things up.

I can't really explain generation y to you, as I am not one and equally do not understand them yet. But I can tell you about generation x. We are not selfish, materialistic or ignorant to the ways of the world. We were supposed to have easy lives because so much was given to us, but life will be difficult regardless of what you start out with.

We are doing the best we can.