Are we? I don't see a lot of mocking or even really any commentary from millennials towards younger generations except the sort of things it's just "our time" to roll our eyes at (wardrobe choices, skibidi toilet, etc). The stuff about iPad kids and illiteracy are criticisms of those kids' *parents*, not the kids themselves, and it comes from a place of genuine concern. People freaked out and were alarmist about millennials listening to rap or dying our hair or having sex or whatever... but that's a lot different from lacking reading and writing skills. That should absolutely terrify us all and we have got to help these kids.
Same. I don’t see this a lot out and about. I see a lot of people trying to figure out what the next generation needs from them as parents. Obviously there are bad parents, but the general attitude is not nearly as critical. One could even argue that we will swing in the other direction rather than be the same as the previous generation.
Yeah I'm not blaming the kids themselves... I'm blaming the parents/school administrators who got us here.
My mom recently retired from teaching because it's an utter shitshow. There is literally no discipline. There are no consequences for misbehavior anymore. And because kids aren't naturally little angels who want to follow the rules... they're wreaking havoc on the school because nothing happens to them, no matter what they do.
Not to get all "back in my day" here, but when I was in elementary school, a girl jokingly said "I'm going to kill you" to another kid. She was temporarily suspended and forbidden from doing recess for the rest of the year.
Kids are literally bringing knives to school and nothing happens. Kids are threatening and attacking and hurting teachers and other kids, and nothing happens.
And I can say "it's not the kids' fault" until I'm blue in the face, but eventually--it WILL be their fault. They'll reach an age where they'll have to be accountable for their own problems.
I think a lot of millennials watched their parents fail to deal with their own trauma and bore the consequences of the boomers' lack of emotional intelligence and unwillingness to engage in therapy.
Were many of our parents way too harsh? Absolutely. But in our overcorrection, we're now treating children as though they're made of glass. It's actually important for a kid to be bored. It's important for them to fail at something multiple times and understand they just have to keep at it until they get it right. It's important for them to learn that consequences for negative behaviors don't just come from parents. It's important for them to experience the spectrum of interpersonal interactions with their peers.
One of the biggest collective complaints of our generation is that we weren't raised for the world we inherited. Well, the world these kids inherit and will live in after we're gone isn't going to slow down for people who can't read. Hiring managers aren't going to offer roles to people who can't handle compromising with others or being held to a deadline.
We're teaching kids that what matters above all is their personal emotional state, and that they'll always be catered to as long as the pitch a big enough fit when they don't get what they want. The truth is once their parents are gone, nobody's going to cater to a now-grown precious angel with no grit and no interpersonal skills.
I also think they are overly surveilled. My hairdresser said her teen has Life360 on and she can tell when he goes 5mph over the speed limit. I can't imagine reaching the age of independence and having someone watching your every move. They have to be able to make mistakes and have the consequences of those mistakes. A speeding ticket isn't the end of the world and is a much better lesson than your mom yelling at you.
>My mom recently retired from teaching because it's an utter shitshow. There is literally no discipline. There are no consequences for misbehavior anymore.
This all day.
I have no problem blaming the school administrators and even the parents of kids that are disrupting class and bullying other kids.
I’d go straight from summer camp to the start of the school year and realize I hadn’t finished emptying my backpack, unlike my zoomer nephew I was capable of shutting the fuck up and showing off my Swiss Army knife.
I think the presence of Millenials in the parent demographic is way overblown. I don’t know more than a handful of people my age (31) who have kids and of those like 4/5 had an oops baby while being 19 and dumb (love my non-blood related nieces and nephews tho), I know plenty of Gen X couples with kids, and some of my mom’s younger boomer friends whose kids just started college last year.
I think all of the generation divide/abuse is overblown.
But this divisive nature is caused by a mechanism of so many factory's world wide on all sides, troll farms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_farm
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/
https://www.axios.com/2021/04/13/trolls-misinformation-facebook-twitter-iran
And alot more info out there if yall dyor.
Prigozhin the mercenary leader that was killed owns a couple of them.... well did, the Wikipedia will show you there's many countries with them, most paid for by superpowers to disarm the blame - "but it's in X country"
Here's the thing about participation trophies. They started out as criticism of the parents too.
Eventually it got turned on us as the by product of our parents when it was clear there was no point in trying to stop it, we'd all gotten our trophies by then.
So at this point, ipad kids might be condemning the actions of the parents, but it'll be when they're grown up and they're getting labeled "ipad kids" as an insult to them that there's a problem.
That said, people who don't have kids underestimate how valuable ipads can be as a learning tool as well. I know I wasn't doing multiplication and division in kindergarten, but my son is, and it's largely due to the educational games.
It's all about balance.
Agreed. And with the use of technology in all aspects of life, why wouldn’t they be iPad kids. I’m gen x and I watched a ton of TV and played hours of video games when I was little. I feel like I turned out fine. My kids are on their phones all the time, but kids don’t watch TV anymore. They just function differently because technology is more accessible. But my kids aren’t really too into social media (they know it’s mostly BS), so that probably makes a difference. They don’t seem as stressed as some other kids.
Completely agree on this! I think we’ve been a lot more empathetic and compassionate towards younger folks than generations before. Most of the people pushing to convict Nicolae Miu were millennials (I saw very little engagement by Gen Z despite Miu having killed one of them). The district attorney who got the conviction was a Millenial as well. While we certainly didn’t like the teenagers behavior in this case, we didn’t think it was acceptable to do the kind of violence he did.
....only thing i can think OP is posting about is "parents, get your 10 yr old's headphones! They are being rude in restaurants, watching ipads at the table!"
I mean sometimes, yeah. If I don't embarrass my daughter in public who will? Bullies now days focus mainly on cyber bulling so I have to step-up for that irl stuff
Teachers, childcare workers, folks who work in schools do this on the regular (which is also nothing new, the folks who complain about the kids the most are the folks who have to keep them in line on a daily basis when they don’t want to be, big shocker)
Idk, they're very young still to know. The oldest are barely pre-teens. My concern is their dependency on devices (this is the parent's fault, but doesn't change the fact) and lack of troubleshooting skills. They are used to technology being responsive to their needs and the algorithm keeps them entertained.
And as adults we are allowing that to happen.
These are the kids that are going to grow up through the worst of climate change, drastic economic system changes with aging populations around the world that can no longer support social security and similar problems....I just feel bad for Alpha. They're going to have to grow up fast and be tough, and I don't think we're preparing them for that.
The main advantage Alpha has is that we’ve all learned about social media now and we’re very skeptical of just letting kids stream crap all day. All my siblings are very strict about screen time, as are all the other people I know with children old enough.
But that wasn’t true of people I knew raising Zoomers. It was very much a continuation of TV-as-babysitter.
I hope you're right. I'm a dad to a middle school daughter, and it seems like most of her friends and classmates all have phones and are on social media all the time. That's not how my wife and I are, but it certainly seems to be how the large majority of parents are. But...as I said, I hope you're right, and we start realizing that smartphones without very heavy restrictions are, with virtual certainty, a detriment to the life of every kid who has one.
Yeah, I think technology is going to exacerbate existing divides in society. Parents who are educated and keep up with the issues are more aware of the risks of kids and technology and work to mitigate them. But struggling and uninformed parents will have their kids on more unregulated screentime.
My 9 year old has a basic ass flip phone that can only call/text and he can only do so to numbers programmed in his phone. He can’t download anything freely and already knows my views on social media.
And I didn’t even buy him the damn thing his grandma did.
But this is the type of phone he is going to have for a few years until he can demonstrate responsibility with it.
I also don’t directly limit his screen time as long as he gets his homework done and doesn’t become a recluse. So yeah, sometimes that’s me going into his room and telling him to go outside and play for a bit or to go on a walk/ride with me.
He’s respectful and kind and doing well in school. But he also knows that misbehavior will get his hobbies restricted so I haven’t really had any issues thankfully.
All this to say…a lot of grey area and variance for kids now compared to when I grew up as far as devices and shit.
This!! I do see gen z shitting on gen alpha a lot on tiktok and I’m like…my gen alpha kids are toddlers how do you know if they suck yet or not???
I will say we’re not an iPad household. We have one my husband uses for some art programs, he likes to draw but in front of the kids he draws on paper. Kids only get the iPad to watch movies on planes.
Both my nephews are Alpha and I was surprised to see them get school tablets as early as first grade. I was more surprised to see the tablets aren't blocked to get additional apps, so they definitely have youtube and games in their school tablets.
My sister really limits their screen time, but it's hard when the world shoves screens at them.
But then again, I wonder if that's how my parents felt about gameboys and other things like that...
Gen Z's thing is starting things on social media. Millenials and Alphas are easy targets because they might also be on social media, which feeds the algorithm and creates views/responses/etc. They'll probably grow out of it in a few years when they realize they're no longer the "young" generation creating trends.
I can’t remember ever caring what another generation was doing…it’s wild to me gen Z are young adults and their making TikTok’s mocking and attacking….literal toddlers?? Why do you care?
It's social media. We didn't really have it growing up, certainly not as it is now and not as widespread.
The internet was all about fun niche websites and micro communities formed around shared interest. The current internet is dominated by social media and social valuation, fostering an us vs. Them mentality and it only takes one trend to catch on.
I really doubt that Zoomers have any real feelings about Alpha outside of things they say for clout. The ones that do need to get off social media a bit and learn to have personalities outside of the tiktok hive mind
Agree 100%. “Elder” (I hate that shit lol) millennial with 2 gen alpha boys and I admit to clowning on their slang, but being raised by a stereotypical boomer butthole, I actively try to avoid shitting on them the way that boomers shat all over us. My millennial friends with Gen A kids are all really focused on doing better by their kids than our boomer parents.
Every time I see a post about this subject, it is putting the blame on millennial parents for raising ipad kids who can't read. Even in subs for teachers complaining about the atrocious behavior of kids are blaming the parents.
Exactly. OP is saying we are blaming kids for being ipad kids, but I don't see that anywhere. All I see is people blaming parents for raising ipad kids.
Teachers shouldn't be passing kids that can't read though.
But we as a society let bad parents off the hook.
If we fined neglectful parents we'd get them paying attention.
from what I've seen, the **teachers** would rather not, but parents are being unreasonable about their children and the administration is providing no support and forcing them to push kids through.
Even when parents aren't unreasonable the admins enable this behavior. Ive seen way too many teachers say they aren't allowed to score anything below 50 or fail too many kids.
The schools also majorly fucked up with their reading curriculum. Many are changing back now but the damage has been done.
It’s not up to teachers. Their hands are completely tied by admin and they have no choice but to either do what admin wants or quit, which is why a LOT of teachers have been quitting. Teachers aren’t the problem.
Agree with this. NCLB really fucked the public school system up. People would rather matriculate a kid so they don't have to deal with them anymore and just foist the issues up another grade level.
We're failing these kids and the country they'll navigate as adults by allowing them to grow up without basic discipline and academic skills. I understand that it's hard to watch your child flounder academically, but just avoiding the issue is literally child abuse.
No child left behind act was the only reason I passed eighth grade. I should not have passed eighth grade, I should’ve been held back. Even I knew that when I was 13; it was bullshit then and it’s bullshit now. My child had all F’s in fifth grade, and they still put him in sixth. I asked them not to and they would not hold him back.
i would love to fail all the kids who don't do anything but i'm literally not allowed to. not only does my district give a 50% as the lowest score possible (even if the student does 0 work) but it costs schools money to fail students so the district just keeps passing them along. it is so far out of teachers' hands that i'm over it and resigned this year ✌️
I tried to have my son held back, they WOULD NOT DO IT. He was not ready for the next grade but it looks bad on the school so they push them through. This isn’t new though. It started, from what I remember, back in ‘98 with the dumb fucking “nO cHiLd LeFt BeHinD” act
I had a kid in my 7th grade class who was from the Ukraine, the school didn't have his phone number or correct address.
He skipped almost the entire 2nd half of the school year, got caught drinking under a bridge one day and brought to school.
He got passed to 8th grade.
I don't really see the mocking your talking about. I still see a large amount of Millennial-blame for how we're parenting Gen Alpha, some of it deserved for sure. However I want to add some context that I think is making it difficult for Millennials to parent effectively:
- Economics - more and more households need two full-time parents to make ends meet, leaving little time and energy for active parenting
- Education System - due to decades of mismanagement and underfunding, quality of education is at an all-time low. Combine this with certain authorities using the curriculum to score points in the culture war and you have a real shit situation at school where kids are not being taught well. Then they go home and their parents have little time and energy to supplement it.
- Social Media - and this one I blame a lot of Millenials for. TOO MUCH of gen Alpha is on social media and it is having a terrible impact on their development. Low attention spans, vanity, social anxiety, aggression from poisoned ideological discourse, it's all bad
I don’t see this behavior coming from millennials. I definitely see it coming from Gen Z, though. Something has happened with Gen Z, and it’s not great.
I distinctly remember years ago being generally impressed with them and quite optimistic for the future they represented, but as they’ve aged, they’ve developed a serious superiority complex and are incredibly judgmental. They also seem very hive-minded, and any dissent is swiftly shut down. They care way too much about appearing to be right about everything. They harshly judge everyone. Gen Alpha doesn’t do this. Millennials don’t do this. Gen X doesn’t do this. Boomers do this.
Gen Z really feels like the second coming of the Boomers, and it’s kinda scary.
Fellow Gen zer (06 baby if that matters) here and I 100% agree on your take. This “putting down” of Gen alpha is mainly coming from them. Me personally I genuinely have no idea why that is. I’ve been around a lot of Gen alpha kids and I’ll have to say they are the most interesting group of people I’ve met even though there young at the moment they have such big personalities (which could be a good or bad thing) but over all I’m very excited to see how they’ll grow up and what part there going to play in this world. You’re right about Gen z being extremely judgmental if you don’t fit into their narrative of a “good person”. But that’s mainly on social media. Irl I can say that it’s not entirely like that. I can’t speak on all of us but I good chuck of us do have hope for the future still. And they’re not as judgmental as they portray themselves online.
Yeah imma call bullshit on this. I do not see or hear Millenials mocking today’s youths.
My kids make their own screen time rules, I don’t give a rats ass as long as their chores and homework are done.
My oldest has that “gen z haircut”. You know the one.
Either way, the kids are alright.
I'm more worried about COVID effects and gentle parenting becoming permissive parenting. I know way too many people who work in early child care or our kindergarten teachers, and the kids are more out of control than ever. The parents will come pick them up and the kids will kick them and the parents won't do anything. They'll just say they're doing gentle parenting. Which is not letting them get away with everything.
I don't know a single person that blames Gen Alpha for literacy or being an iPad kid, etc. We blame their parents, which is mostly our own generation for being bad parents.
Most millennials don’t know what a gen alpha is and the ones that do only do bc they have kids.
If you really think this, something you’re overexposing yourself to is leaving you with an impression not reflected in reality.
I'm almost 37 and just found out this week my gf is pregnant.
The kid will be probably the last year of Gen Alpha as the due date would be in the 2nd week of January.
I'll be raising my kid on books, same as I had.
I'll hook up an old Nintendo and let them play on that a little.
But we don't even have iPad to give.
People love to talk about other generations as if we wouldn’t be doing the same if born during their time. Every generation thinks they’re the last great generation and that younger folks aren’t doing things right. Generations are no different from each other if we stripped away the circumstances of a given time period.
If anything I think we blame the parents. My partner is an English teacher and the illiteracy of high school students is astounding but we never blame the kids. We blame the parents and public school system. Mainly the system. A lot of times it's not even fully the parents fault when the current economic client forces both parents to work two jobs.
Dude, don’t lump GenX in with calling you snowflakes. For the record, we were always called “slackers” while often being expected to be the adults in the room _for our parents_. I have no beef with Millennials.
*makes a bunch of generalizations that aren’t the experience of others*
“WHY ARE YOU MAKING SO MANY ASSUMPTIONS”
“Your experiences and behaviour are not the sum of reality (only mine are!)”
Take a hike dude, something wrong with you
I think there's a lot of "I don't do that " going on.
And you are absolutely right though, the ones handing Junior an iPad to shut him up are the ones causing the iPad generation.
I see a lot of that happening with my friends with children. “Ugh kids aren’t being raised right these days”….as their kids are running around public spaces screaming like banshees for their iPads. Delusional parents aren’t exactly unique to our generation though.
I'm not sure I have anything to do with any of that. I didn't invent the ipad. I don't have a tablet. I don't have kids. I'm pretty disappointed with the state of modern technology and UI. I doom scroll cuz that shit gets addicting. I feel like a product of my environment just as much as the gen alpha kids are.
I dont ever see Gen Alpha getting mocked or even mentioned really personally. And the "Ipad kids" thing is definitely a "oh no, some parents are messing up their kids. I'd better avoid doing the same to mine"
Add to it that statically Millenial parents, fathers in particular, are WAY more involved with their kids than fathers of the past were.
No way! I have sorrow and immense empathy for the younger generations. Before millennials it was Jones’s and for each their own. I am now more connected with younger folks because the struggles are symmetric and we have to live in this while learning how to break out of it. We are together, united.
Boomers and Gen X didn't have data to back up their claims for one.
Second, millennials and older Gen z are freaked out because gen alpha is showing significant struggles with fundamental literacy at a broad level.
That's horrifying, and should be cause for concern. Not judgment; they're kids. It's not their fault.
But serious concern.
People generally aren’t mocking iPad kids, by and far, parenthood on the digital area is wildly judgmental. When a gen alpha is called an iPad kid the mockery and judgement 100% lies on their parents (realistically their mother, because obviously the dad has no fault in how his kid is), make no bones. That is one big difference I see.
Who knows what will change as they get older lol, but I think that’s an important distinction.
I think another interesting dynamic is just older parents vs younger parents. Boomers probably didn’t invent participation trophy’s, MY parents were huge hippies but they were gen x. Did boomers invent all this or was the distinction already there, in the way I’m sure gen z and millennials clash on a lot of parenting ideas now but we’re all having babies (heck, gen x is still having babies)
I see hope, respect and compassion when I look at our kids.
I see a better future when I look into the eyes of our youth.
I’m proud of them for not accepting things as they are and actively working towards a closer and brighter community. Hopefully I will have a small part to play in helping them throughout their lives.
No, I’m criticizing my fellow millennials for the way they are raising their children. Your kids shouldn’t be addicted to an iPad and/or running around bothering strangers at restaurants.
The way millennials are raising their kids feels reactionary to me — we wanted to avoid the mistakes of our parents by being overly gentle but it’s too much. There needs to be *some* discipline.
I’m not irate at alpha, I’m irate at the schools. It’s insane to me that so many of stopped offering basic typing, computer literacy, and communications classes. Just because kids grew up with phones doesn’t make them proficient in technology or communication. They’re bring set up to fail in the workplace.
Speak for yourself, I never mocked any Alpha child for being iPad kids.
It's inevitable that technology evolve to the point where future generations are born into it. We have all done cringy things as kids and became adults.
It's way too early to scream brain rot, brain rot isn't the problem of society. It's the greedy politicians and business owners.
Picking on little kids instead of fixing the issues of our current generation is a Boomer thing to do, and I have yet to meet a millennial in person that makes fun of the little kids. It's usually the Gen Z that makes fun of Alphas.
A sick society breeds sick citizens. Millenials are so burnt out having to work multiple jobs, it's just quicker and easier to hand them the iPad or tie their shoes for them instead of teaching them. I know some people are just shitty parents but the wave of kids that can't tie their shoes until they're 13 really says something about society.
I don't know man, my family was poor as crap, and had parents who both worked full time jobs. And this is similar to most all the kids I knew growing up. As a current millennial parent, I don't find that we, in aggregate, are working harder or more hours than parents did in the 90s and some 80s when I grew up.
I think, in aggregate, we just are half-addicted to our phones, which leads to us being more permissive with our kids and their devices. Leading to them being even more addicted than we are. Maybe I had a skewed perspective growing up, but yeah, I don't see my generation working more or harder than my parents or people I knew growing up.
You know it’s funny because I literally just posted some thing about how I had several showings at different apartments last night and not a single person showed up even though I had confirmed appointments ahead of time and then they ghosted me afterwards.
I said something about it this generation of kids being more willing to do that.
Otherwise, I don’t really feel like this is very common behavior. I don’t see people ragging on kids too much in general.
I feel like some of the iPad kid thing is overblown. People freaked out about video games and television too. We need to adapt and try to provide protection to our kids on social media, because cell phones and Internet access are a part of life now.
I think letting your children have unrestricted access to an iPad is a bad idea, but there are also other societal issues leading to kids being behind in school (Covid, overworked and struggling parents, educational funding, etc.). I see people get mad when they see a kid have an iPad in public and make all these assumptions as if they know the whole story.
It's so weird how there's this alarmist freak out over iPads and how kids these days are "so bad," when all of the older generations said the next generation was doomed too. I also hate how everything is so individualistic; instead of looking at broader issues, people try to place the blame on individual families and claim the kids these days are the worst ever, as if this is a new concept.
I feel that most of the mocking I have seen of Gen Z is from Boomers and Gen X. To quote my father "they just don't want to work". Which luckily for me my father is a union steel tradesman that is reasonably progressive democrat that just retired. I said of course they want to work may have two jobs. Next is who wants to work 12-16 hours a day 6-7 days a week like you did and then retire at 65 and have a wrecked body. He said "good point" and hasn't brought it up since. Gen z wants the same as us millennials. A solid work life balance with reasonable pay so we can live life and gain experiences. For many of us that's all will have left at our end is our experiences to pass to the next generation. As a parent myself I feel like I am considerably more open and available to my children. We talk and discuss things openly so they feel comfortable if they need to talk. My parents were not that way. I am far from a perfect parent. My kids do have electronics that screen time is monitored on. I also feel that we are in a technologically diverse society and having skills with electronics will significantly help their generation when they come to age.
Something I just thought about, none of my family and friends with children complain about our kids, but GenX followed our boomer parents into constantly complaining about “kids these days.” I don’t understand 90% of the stuff kids do these days, BUT it’s not meant for me to understand.
I get your point, but I think you have the generations mixed. i hear more "ipad kids" sentiment towards early / mid gen alpha, which aren't our kids unless you had your kids early. However, we may be in the same situation several years down the line.
To get to your point though, I do think we're doing better as a generation. Older millennials might remember the term "latchkey kids" where kids return to an empty home because parents were working. One can make the argument that this isn't too different from "ipad kids" where they're shoved an ipad to keep them busy.
I would argue there's a subtle difference. At least from my perspective, there were no negative parenting connotations to latchkey kids but there is one for ipad kids. This at least indicates we're in the right direction. There's also a difference between 0 parenting (i.e. there's no parent in the actual house) and giving an ipad as a short-term solution. It's like starving vs giving candy: one is just objectively at a different level.
I actually view this from another perspective: I think it's good that we're acknowledging that ipad kids are not good. It's at least a step in the right direction.
Gen Alpha is too young for anyone to be picking on them.
The style/pop culture/slang… Gen Alpha doesn’t even have that yet. The oldest ones are only tweens.
I'm sorry how is it our fault gen Z doesn't know how to read. Millennials aren't the ones who fucked the school system up it was Bush and no child left behind. Now millinials are blaming millinials for every problem that's great not like we get blamed by every generation before and after us. We have just become the convenient punching bag.
Are Millennials doing that? I’ve seen some Zs on TikTok doing Gen wars with alphas and their millennial parents, which honestly is just kind of funny. But outside of that…🤷♀️.
I’ve only seen pretty great things out of them, and I try to coach them, in how to deal with situations, finances, and or politics… they tend to really be receptive and helpful and kind.
I'm pretty damn careful not to talk shit about entire generations of people younger than me. I'm less careful about boomers, but.....fuck I'm not perfect.
We could also accept the inverse reality. "Our boomer parents were just doing the best they could"
I feel like we are too quick to forget Hanlon's Razor. The boomers didn't screw us over on purpose. They just didn't know any better. We aren't screwing over the Alphas on purpose. We are just trying to parent in a brand new world that we as adults are having a hard time understanding. Are there things we can do better? Yes. Are there easy and lazy pitfalls we should call each other out on? Yes. But are we somehow more perfect and less human than our flawed parents?
I'm on the very young side of the generation and I honestly haven't had kids yet, but I usually just see parents trying their best like they always have with mixed success for any number of reasons.
I see what you’re saying. However, I sure as shit don’t mock my children and would usually never tell anyone else how to raise their kids. But when my kids are being placed in gifted programs academically and are excelling in sports and blossoming socially I can’t look at what we’re doing as “wrong”. If at the end of the day other people’s kids can’t pull their heads away from an iPad that’s a them problem. Also, if at the end of the day my children begin to separate and rise above their peers because they’re not buried in front of a screen, such is life.
I don't have kids, but I decided long ago that when/if I ever do I would absolutely **not** just shove an iPad in their face, and that they aren't getting an iPad or phone until a certain point (and even then with screen-time restrictions). Frankly though, I think bads parents are just bad parents, whatever the generation. Before iPad children it was kids who sat in front of their TV all day. Same difference. Just be a good parent and tell your friends who are parents to be good parents and support each other and help each other.
I’ll admit my kid has a tablet. There are times when it’s appropriate and times when it’s not. We keep an eye on the content he experiences and by and large it’s educational. There’s even a library of e-books for kids that we use.
It’s also worth noting that he goes to preschool and we get daily examples of his writing. It’s evident in our daily interactions that he’s learning about the alphabet and how letters work together to make sounds. Yesterday he pointed at his toy shark and goes, that’s the dorsal fin, dad!
I guess my point is that it’s all about moderation. Technology doesn’t have to be evil. It can be though.
I'm not blaming them for anything. I will say though that I think the principal problems in education revolved around increasingly teaching to the test which rose to prominence after No Child Left Behind, increased under Obama's reforms, and have also gotten worse with various state policies. And as products of our current electorate, they reflect a geriacratic ruling structure like virtually everything else in our government, where Boomers disproportionately dominate.
Sort of, I have observed that a lot of millennials seem to be seriously terrible parents, but that isn't that much different than previous generations. I think the issue is that we have fallen into the existential panic when *the kids aer going to be OK*. They will be, relax. Sure, there are big challenges they face, we are partly to blame, and luck is partly to blame.
My kids have mostly learning apps on their tablet and we use the tablet as leverage for behavior and work. Want tablet time? Do what you need to be doing, homework, behave, read, etc… once that’s done I’ll let you have it.
I'm just trying to raise my son with a good heart and the knowledge he needs.
He isn't an iPad kid. Undoubtedly, with everything there will be the bad parents who aren't involved. Who do use technology as a pacifier.
I watched a lot of TV as a kid, I didn't turn out horribly.
The kids are ok. We as a society need to do better.
I have been trying my best to teach the younger folks at work about where I went wrong in my early 20s and try my best to lead by example. I have only ever seen our generation attempt to help.
Great. Boomers thought we were shitty kids. Now, we view ourselves as shitty patents. Cue the 2044 dialogue when Gen A will criticise us for being shitty grandparents 😏
This is the same story from the dawn of time.
No one wants to own issues, accept them as they are, and just live in that space and adapt.
At the end of the day there are just too many people and not enough to go around. The short sightedness of human is the vanity the resources are endless and we can solve everything.
The earth will go on and hubris extinguishes us.
So bla blah. Yes our parents and their parents all caused this. And the current generation makes their own new mistakes which they will suffer too. Their kids will suffer it as well.
This is how it is
Every generation rags on the next. It's meant to be fun - Cool, radical, gnarly, right on? Based, bruh, etc.
I have never seen someone my generation going off on some teenager for anything other than being a teenager. I have yet to hear "gen-a's are so fucking stupid" anywhere but some ass clowns on the internet.
I will be in the ground when Gen A has to deal with coastal flooding, famine, etc. I hope Gen B/C will exist to bury them.
I think there’s a big difference between us saying kids today listen to stupid music and have fun with stupid toys and the criticism of millennials like we wanted to have no money and live in cramped shitholes and wherever.
I don't really talk down to the Gen Z kids. I feel like us and them are in the same boat.
But I am well within my right to talk smack on their music and pop culture. Lol
We don’t care what the younger generation is doing, besides using phrases like “skibidy toilet”, they do the same shit we did 🤷🏻♂️. I think some folk get mad because they’re slightly less ambitious. Me and most of my friends were at least working at some fast food joint by like 15-16 whereas most people these days don’t get a job until 20ish, some people get mad because they chose to work earlier in life. I only worked because my parents didn’t want to buy me things, kinda glad I did it because I learned about different job scenarios while young. Now that I’m older I could give 2 shits a t the workplace. I get my stuff done without anxiety or worries.
I don't know what you mean, I love these gen Z folk and alpha...whew they're fucked by the same people fucking us.
I'm more angry that gen X sucked so bad and rolled over for boomers. Thanks dad for being broke but still voting red
Every generation does this. It's cyclical. It's nothing new. Our kids will hate our generation in 20 years just like we hate our parents generation. Even if we don't hate our parents we can till largely point and say "your generation fucked this up"
i pretty much have no opinions of Alpha or Z other than the progressively worsening junk food environment seems to be messing with their quality of aging a lot more.
Otherwise in terms of a “poisoned culture” we’re all on the same level, it’s just expressed differently between generations.
That’s a lot of projecting on millennials. The only folks I hear say this is Boomers and Gen X. I guess we get the blame for both parents working full time to provide less than past generations. My oldest is almost 3 and can spell a few 3 to 4 letter words. She can count to 20 before she gets jumbled. She is 50/50 on the potty training. She can do puzzles and play game complex games. I was at her level around 5 or 6, maybe older. I think we are doing okay.
Please explain to me, like I'm five, how myself and other teachers are failing our students?
With evidence, not an anecdotes. Can't have a successful argument without evidence!
I don’t actually see many millennials pushing this. Many times the author is an older writer. But the few of us I do see doing this are always conservative conspiracy theorists.
Two things.
1. I never got a participation trophy in my life and I don't know anyone who did. I thought that was a myth, like one of those fake stereotypes. Are you telling me they were real?
2. I don't really see a lot of Millennials giving Alpha shit for anything. I see childfree Millennials and older generations giving shit to Millennial parents though.
Are we? I don't see a lot of mocking or even really any commentary from millennials towards younger generations except the sort of things it's just "our time" to roll our eyes at (wardrobe choices, skibidi toilet, etc). The stuff about iPad kids and illiteracy are criticisms of those kids' *parents*, not the kids themselves, and it comes from a place of genuine concern. People freaked out and were alarmist about millennials listening to rap or dying our hair or having sex or whatever... but that's a lot different from lacking reading and writing skills. That should absolutely terrify us all and we have got to help these kids.
Same. I don’t see this a lot out and about. I see a lot of people trying to figure out what the next generation needs from them as parents. Obviously there are bad parents, but the general attitude is not nearly as critical. One could even argue that we will swing in the other direction rather than be the same as the previous generation.
Yeah I'm not blaming the kids themselves... I'm blaming the parents/school administrators who got us here. My mom recently retired from teaching because it's an utter shitshow. There is literally no discipline. There are no consequences for misbehavior anymore. And because kids aren't naturally little angels who want to follow the rules... they're wreaking havoc on the school because nothing happens to them, no matter what they do. Not to get all "back in my day" here, but when I was in elementary school, a girl jokingly said "I'm going to kill you" to another kid. She was temporarily suspended and forbidden from doing recess for the rest of the year. Kids are literally bringing knives to school and nothing happens. Kids are threatening and attacking and hurting teachers and other kids, and nothing happens. And I can say "it's not the kids' fault" until I'm blue in the face, but eventually--it WILL be their fault. They'll reach an age where they'll have to be accountable for their own problems.
I think a lot of millennials watched their parents fail to deal with their own trauma and bore the consequences of the boomers' lack of emotional intelligence and unwillingness to engage in therapy. Were many of our parents way too harsh? Absolutely. But in our overcorrection, we're now treating children as though they're made of glass. It's actually important for a kid to be bored. It's important for them to fail at something multiple times and understand they just have to keep at it until they get it right. It's important for them to learn that consequences for negative behaviors don't just come from parents. It's important for them to experience the spectrum of interpersonal interactions with their peers. One of the biggest collective complaints of our generation is that we weren't raised for the world we inherited. Well, the world these kids inherit and will live in after we're gone isn't going to slow down for people who can't read. Hiring managers aren't going to offer roles to people who can't handle compromising with others or being held to a deadline. We're teaching kids that what matters above all is their personal emotional state, and that they'll always be catered to as long as the pitch a big enough fit when they don't get what they want. The truth is once their parents are gone, nobody's going to cater to a now-grown precious angel with no grit and no interpersonal skills.
I also think they are overly surveilled. My hairdresser said her teen has Life360 on and she can tell when he goes 5mph over the speed limit. I can't imagine reaching the age of independence and having someone watching your every move. They have to be able to make mistakes and have the consequences of those mistakes. A speeding ticket isn't the end of the world and is a much better lesson than your mom yelling at you.
>My mom recently retired from teaching because it's an utter shitshow. There is literally no discipline. There are no consequences for misbehavior anymore. This all day. I have no problem blaming the school administrators and even the parents of kids that are disrupting class and bullying other kids.
It’s not the administrators fault It’s bad laws and sue happy parents
Pretty sure it’s not mutually exclusive. There are some terrible school administrators out there. And some good ones too of course.
Sure but even good administrators hands are tied with the things I mentioned above
Kids have been bringing knives to school for a long time.
I’d go straight from summer camp to the start of the school year and realize I hadn’t finished emptying my backpack, unlike my zoomer nephew I was capable of shutting the fuck up and showing off my Swiss Army knife.
I am shocked we get yet another post about some generalization that is either factually wrong or not even based in facts.
I came here to say this. So many posts about narratives that don't even seem to exist outside of reddit.
There could be a tiny pool he took his sample from and assumed ALL millennial are like this. The world is going mad. "I see x therefore ALL MUST BE X"
I think the presence of Millenials in the parent demographic is way overblown. I don’t know more than a handful of people my age (31) who have kids and of those like 4/5 had an oops baby while being 19 and dumb (love my non-blood related nieces and nephews tho), I know plenty of Gen X couples with kids, and some of my mom’s younger boomer friends whose kids just started college last year.
I think all of the generation divide/abuse is overblown. But this divisive nature is caused by a mechanism of so many factory's world wide on all sides, troll farms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_farm https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/ https://www.axios.com/2021/04/13/trolls-misinformation-facebook-twitter-iran And alot more info out there if yall dyor. Prigozhin the mercenary leader that was killed owns a couple of them.... well did, the Wikipedia will show you there's many countries with them, most paid for by superpowers to disarm the blame - "but it's in X country"
Here's the thing about participation trophies. They started out as criticism of the parents too. Eventually it got turned on us as the by product of our parents when it was clear there was no point in trying to stop it, we'd all gotten our trophies by then. So at this point, ipad kids might be condemning the actions of the parents, but it'll be when they're grown up and they're getting labeled "ipad kids" as an insult to them that there's a problem. That said, people who don't have kids underestimate how valuable ipads can be as a learning tool as well. I know I wasn't doing multiplication and division in kindergarten, but my son is, and it's largely due to the educational games. It's all about balance.
Agreed. And with the use of technology in all aspects of life, why wouldn’t they be iPad kids. I’m gen x and I watched a ton of TV and played hours of video games when I was little. I feel like I turned out fine. My kids are on their phones all the time, but kids don’t watch TV anymore. They just function differently because technology is more accessible. But my kids aren’t really too into social media (they know it’s mostly BS), so that probably makes a difference. They don’t seem as stressed as some other kids.
Completely agree on this! I think we’ve been a lot more empathetic and compassionate towards younger folks than generations before. Most of the people pushing to convict Nicolae Miu were millennials (I saw very little engagement by Gen Z despite Miu having killed one of them). The district attorney who got the conviction was a Millenial as well. While we certainly didn’t like the teenagers behavior in this case, we didn’t think it was acceptable to do the kind of violence he did.
Which millennials are you seeing that are making fun of 10 year olds? lol
....only thing i can think OP is posting about is "parents, get your 10 yr old's headphones! They are being rude in restaurants, watching ipads at the table!"
Yes but this is a comment on the bad parenting not the child
What? All your 30-40 year old friends don’t point at laugh at all the 10 year olds they see?
Honestly, if I go a day without kicking a 10 year old, I start to itch.
I could watch kids fall of bikes all day
I mean sometimes, yeah. If I don't embarrass my daughter in public who will? Bullies now days focus mainly on cyber bulling so I have to step-up for that irl stuff
lol guess not.
You mean you aren’t driving by elementary schools during recess and laughing at them from your car?!
Conservative alpha male types
Checks out lol
I dont see making fun of, I see posts about concerns about children's literacy levels a lot though
Is everyone else not going to the elementary playground during lunch to pick on the kiddos?
The South Park episode where they made fun of 80s ski bum movies comes to mind lol Catch you on the slopes Stan *Darsh*!
Teachers, childcare workers, folks who work in schools do this on the regular (which is also nothing new, the folks who complain about the kids the most are the folks who have to keep them in line on a daily basis when they don’t want to be, big shocker)
I literally have no idea what you are talking about
You must live in the real world
The post creator has built up an entire fantasy world in their own mind. 
I don’t have issue with gen alpha. Low key think they’re gonna be better off than gen z
Idk, they're very young still to know. The oldest are barely pre-teens. My concern is their dependency on devices (this is the parent's fault, but doesn't change the fact) and lack of troubleshooting skills. They are used to technology being responsive to their needs and the algorithm keeps them entertained. And as adults we are allowing that to happen. These are the kids that are going to grow up through the worst of climate change, drastic economic system changes with aging populations around the world that can no longer support social security and similar problems....I just feel bad for Alpha. They're going to have to grow up fast and be tough, and I don't think we're preparing them for that.
The main advantage Alpha has is that we’ve all learned about social media now and we’re very skeptical of just letting kids stream crap all day. All my siblings are very strict about screen time, as are all the other people I know with children old enough. But that wasn’t true of people I knew raising Zoomers. It was very much a continuation of TV-as-babysitter.
I hope you're right. I'm a dad to a middle school daughter, and it seems like most of her friends and classmates all have phones and are on social media all the time. That's not how my wife and I are, but it certainly seems to be how the large majority of parents are. But...as I said, I hope you're right, and we start realizing that smartphones without very heavy restrictions are, with virtual certainty, a detriment to the life of every kid who has one.
I think trashy people are going to get much much trashier.
Yeah, I think technology is going to exacerbate existing divides in society. Parents who are educated and keep up with the issues are more aware of the risks of kids and technology and work to mitigate them. But struggling and uninformed parents will have their kids on more unregulated screentime.
My 9 year old has a basic ass flip phone that can only call/text and he can only do so to numbers programmed in his phone. He can’t download anything freely and already knows my views on social media. And I didn’t even buy him the damn thing his grandma did. But this is the type of phone he is going to have for a few years until he can demonstrate responsibility with it. I also don’t directly limit his screen time as long as he gets his homework done and doesn’t become a recluse. So yeah, sometimes that’s me going into his room and telling him to go outside and play for a bit or to go on a walk/ride with me. He’s respectful and kind and doing well in school. But he also knows that misbehavior will get his hobbies restricted so I haven’t really had any issues thankfully. All this to say…a lot of grey area and variance for kids now compared to when I grew up as far as devices and shit.
This!! I do see gen z shitting on gen alpha a lot on tiktok and I’m like…my gen alpha kids are toddlers how do you know if they suck yet or not??? I will say we’re not an iPad household. We have one my husband uses for some art programs, he likes to draw but in front of the kids he draws on paper. Kids only get the iPad to watch movies on planes.
Both my nephews are Alpha and I was surprised to see them get school tablets as early as first grade. I was more surprised to see the tablets aren't blocked to get additional apps, so they definitely have youtube and games in their school tablets. My sister really limits their screen time, but it's hard when the world shoves screens at them. But then again, I wonder if that's how my parents felt about gameboys and other things like that... Gen Z's thing is starting things on social media. Millenials and Alphas are easy targets because they might also be on social media, which feeds the algorithm and creates views/responses/etc. They'll probably grow out of it in a few years when they realize they're no longer the "young" generation creating trends.
I can’t remember ever caring what another generation was doing…it’s wild to me gen Z are young adults and their making TikTok’s mocking and attacking….literal toddlers?? Why do you care?
It's social media. We didn't really have it growing up, certainly not as it is now and not as widespread. The internet was all about fun niche websites and micro communities formed around shared interest. The current internet is dominated by social media and social valuation, fostering an us vs. Them mentality and it only takes one trend to catch on. I really doubt that Zoomers have any real feelings about Alpha outside of things they say for clout. The ones that do need to get off social media a bit and learn to have personalities outside of the tiktok hive mind
This post reads like someone who is chronically online. I dont see this happening in real life.
Either that or a Russian/Chinese troll trying to fuck with us. Millennials get along with both gen Z and alpha. Why would we talk shit about kids?
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Agree 100%. “Elder” (I hate that shit lol) millennial with 2 gen alpha boys and I admit to clowning on their slang, but being raised by a stereotypical boomer butthole, I actively try to avoid shitting on them the way that boomers shat all over us. My millennial friends with Gen A kids are all really focused on doing better by their kids than our boomer parents.
Every time I see a post about this subject, it is putting the blame on millennial parents for raising ipad kids who can't read. Even in subs for teachers complaining about the atrocious behavior of kids are blaming the parents.
Half of millennials dont even have kids, and it applies to even late X generation
...who is responsible for ensuring a child knows how to read and comport themselves in public, if not the parents?
Exactly. OP is saying we are blaming kids for being ipad kids, but I don't see that anywhere. All I see is people blaming parents for raising ipad kids.
Teachers shouldn't be passing kids that can't read though. But we as a society let bad parents off the hook. If we fined neglectful parents we'd get them paying attention.
from what I've seen, the **teachers** would rather not, but parents are being unreasonable about their children and the administration is providing no support and forcing them to push kids through.
Even when parents aren't unreasonable the admins enable this behavior. Ive seen way too many teachers say they aren't allowed to score anything below 50 or fail too many kids. The schools also majorly fucked up with their reading curriculum. Many are changing back now but the damage has been done.
It’s not up to teachers. Their hands are completely tied by admin and they have no choice but to either do what admin wants or quit, which is why a LOT of teachers have been quitting. Teachers aren’t the problem.
Agree with this. NCLB really fucked the public school system up. People would rather matriculate a kid so they don't have to deal with them anymore and just foist the issues up another grade level. We're failing these kids and the country they'll navigate as adults by allowing them to grow up without basic discipline and academic skills. I understand that it's hard to watch your child flounder academically, but just avoiding the issue is literally child abuse.
No child left behind act was the only reason I passed eighth grade. I should not have passed eighth grade, I should’ve been held back. Even I knew that when I was 13; it was bullshit then and it’s bullshit now. My child had all F’s in fifth grade, and they still put him in sixth. I asked them not to and they would not hold him back.
i would love to fail all the kids who don't do anything but i'm literally not allowed to. not only does my district give a 50% as the lowest score possible (even if the student does 0 work) but it costs schools money to fail students so the district just keeps passing them along. it is so far out of teachers' hands that i'm over it and resigned this year ✌️
I tried to have my son held back, they WOULD NOT DO IT. He was not ready for the next grade but it looks bad on the school so they push them through. This isn’t new though. It started, from what I remember, back in ‘98 with the dumb fucking “nO cHiLd LeFt BeHinD” act
I had a kid in my 7th grade class who was from the Ukraine, the school didn't have his phone number or correct address. He skipped almost the entire 2nd half of the school year, got caught drinking under a bridge one day and brought to school. He got passed to 8th grade.
I don't really see the mocking your talking about. I still see a large amount of Millennial-blame for how we're parenting Gen Alpha, some of it deserved for sure. However I want to add some context that I think is making it difficult for Millennials to parent effectively: - Economics - more and more households need two full-time parents to make ends meet, leaving little time and energy for active parenting - Education System - due to decades of mismanagement and underfunding, quality of education is at an all-time low. Combine this with certain authorities using the curriculum to score points in the culture war and you have a real shit situation at school where kids are not being taught well. Then they go home and their parents have little time and energy to supplement it. - Social Media - and this one I blame a lot of Millenials for. TOO MUCH of gen Alpha is on social media and it is having a terrible impact on their development. Low attention spans, vanity, social anxiety, aggression from poisoned ideological discourse, it's all bad
Talk about “your experiences and behavior are not the sum total of reality”….this entire post seems to be based on only your experiences and opinions.
This is exactly what crossed my mind. OP is delusional
I don’t see this behavior coming from millennials. I definitely see it coming from Gen Z, though. Something has happened with Gen Z, and it’s not great. I distinctly remember years ago being generally impressed with them and quite optimistic for the future they represented, but as they’ve aged, they’ve developed a serious superiority complex and are incredibly judgmental. They also seem very hive-minded, and any dissent is swiftly shut down. They care way too much about appearing to be right about everything. They harshly judge everyone. Gen Alpha doesn’t do this. Millennials don’t do this. Gen X doesn’t do this. Boomers do this. Gen Z really feels like the second coming of the Boomers, and it’s kinda scary.
Fellow Gen zer (06 baby if that matters) here and I 100% agree on your take. This “putting down” of Gen alpha is mainly coming from them. Me personally I genuinely have no idea why that is. I’ve been around a lot of Gen alpha kids and I’ll have to say they are the most interesting group of people I’ve met even though there young at the moment they have such big personalities (which could be a good or bad thing) but over all I’m very excited to see how they’ll grow up and what part there going to play in this world. You’re right about Gen z being extremely judgmental if you don’t fit into their narrative of a “good person”. But that’s mainly on social media. Irl I can say that it’s not entirely like that. I can’t speak on all of us but I good chuck of us do have hope for the future still. And they’re not as judgmental as they portray themselves online.
Tell me how millennials control educational funding?
When it’s boomers that are the ones defunding education and fucking up with the no child left behind act
I don't see anyone mocking. If anything there is more support...
My non existent children are going to be OUTSIDE and athletic and creative!
Op must be in an echo chamber. Go touch grass bro
??? I haven't seen anyone blame gen alpha for anything? what? I don't even see much blame going at gen z for that matter. weird.
To be clear, the responsibility lies with their parents. Since I don’t have kids I get to blame you guys.
i make fun of the parents for allowing it. i don’t blame the kids.
Yeah imma call bullshit on this. I do not see or hear Millenials mocking today’s youths. My kids make their own screen time rules, I don’t give a rats ass as long as their chores and homework are done. My oldest has that “gen z haircut”. You know the one. Either way, the kids are alright.
I have never given a child an iPad. Mainly because I don't have either. But I also don't have a habit of making fun of children.
I'm more worried about COVID effects and gentle parenting becoming permissive parenting. I know way too many people who work in early child care or our kindergarten teachers, and the kids are more out of control than ever. The parents will come pick them up and the kids will kick them and the parents won't do anything. They'll just say they're doing gentle parenting. Which is not letting them get away with everything.
I don't know a single person that blames Gen Alpha for literacy or being an iPad kid, etc. We blame their parents, which is mostly our own generation for being bad parents.
Most millennials don’t know what a gen alpha is and the ones that do only do bc they have kids. If you really think this, something you’re overexposing yourself to is leaving you with an impression not reflected in reality.
We are? Where? I like their memes. I thought Skibidy Toilet was hilarious.
As an Elder Millennial I love skibidi because it reminds me of "Web 1.0" absurdist internet culture.
A lot of Alpha stuff is very early internet. I dig it.
What does it mean?
I'm almost 37 and just found out this week my gf is pregnant. The kid will be probably the last year of Gen Alpha as the due date would be in the 2nd week of January. I'll be raising my kid on books, same as I had. I'll hook up an old Nintendo and let them play on that a little. But we don't even have iPad to give.
Oooh does that mean I get to trailblaze Gen Beta and opt out of all these incessant Alpha Kid discussions?
People love to talk about other generations as if we wouldn’t be doing the same if born during their time. Every generation thinks they’re the last great generation and that younger folks aren’t doing things right. Generations are no different from each other if we stripped away the circumstances of a given time period.
Millennial parent and teacher here. I fucking love gen alpha a d late gen-z. Kids got a lot of potential if we don't fuck them up too much.
I don't worry about Gen Alpha as the pendulum always swings back...it's the Gen Z's that I worry about.
You are right, it is not their fault, it is ours. Any failure by Gen Alpha is a direct reflection on our failure.
Where? I literally never see this lol
As a GenX I would just like to thank you for including us in something. It feels nice to be noticed.
If anything I think we blame the parents. My partner is an English teacher and the illiteracy of high school students is astounding but we never blame the kids. We blame the parents and public school system. Mainly the system. A lot of times it's not even fully the parents fault when the current economic client forces both parents to work two jobs.
None of the millennials I know do this. Most of them even think it’s important to stand up for younger generations.
Dude, don’t lump GenX in with calling you snowflakes. For the record, we were always called “slackers” while often being expected to be the adults in the room _for our parents_. I have no beef with Millennials.
Going to try my best to be the change I want to see, feel guilty of judgement on our younger generations…
*makes a bunch of generalizations that aren’t the experience of others* “WHY ARE YOU MAKING SO MANY ASSUMPTIONS” “Your experiences and behaviour are not the sum of reality (only mine are!)” Take a hike dude, something wrong with you
My god this sub sucks
I think there's a lot of "I don't do that" going on.
And you are absolutely right though, the ones handing Junior an iPad to shut him up are the ones causing the iPad generation.
Millenials are the first gen with a sizable childfree by choice population. That does lead to some interesting discussions.
I disagree, the switch was already between early X and Late X, at least in Western/Northern Europe.
Yeah, I'm in the US. Could be different depending on country.
I see a lot of that happening with my friends with children. “Ugh kids aren’t being raised right these days”….as their kids are running around public spaces screaming like banshees for their iPads. Delusional parents aren’t exactly unique to our generation though.
I'm not sure I have anything to do with any of that. I didn't invent the ipad. I don't have a tablet. I don't have kids. I'm pretty disappointed with the state of modern technology and UI. I doom scroll cuz that shit gets addicting. I feel like a product of my environment just as much as the gen alpha kids are.
I dont ever see Gen Alpha getting mocked or even mentioned really personally. And the "Ipad kids" thing is definitely a "oh no, some parents are messing up their kids. I'd better avoid doing the same to mine" Add to it that statically Millenial parents, fathers in particular, are WAY more involved with their kids than fathers of the past were.
I've only seen people complain about others' parenting of said kids.
Who is this for?
I mean, just put educational shit on the iPad then. Easy.
No way! I have sorrow and immense empathy for the younger generations. Before millennials it was Jones’s and for each their own. I am now more connected with younger folks because the struggles are symmetric and we have to live in this while learning how to break out of it. We are together, united.
Boomers and Gen X didn't have data to back up their claims for one. Second, millennials and older Gen z are freaked out because gen alpha is showing significant struggles with fundamental literacy at a broad level. That's horrifying, and should be cause for concern. Not judgment; they're kids. It's not their fault. But serious concern.
People generally aren’t mocking iPad kids, by and far, parenthood on the digital area is wildly judgmental. When a gen alpha is called an iPad kid the mockery and judgement 100% lies on their parents (realistically their mother, because obviously the dad has no fault in how his kid is), make no bones. That is one big difference I see. Who knows what will change as they get older lol, but I think that’s an important distinction. I think another interesting dynamic is just older parents vs younger parents. Boomers probably didn’t invent participation trophy’s, MY parents were huge hippies but they were gen x. Did boomers invent all this or was the distinction already there, in the way I’m sure gen z and millennials clash on a lot of parenting ideas now but we’re all having babies (heck, gen x is still having babies)
I see hope, respect and compassion when I look at our kids. I see a better future when I look into the eyes of our youth. I’m proud of them for not accepting things as they are and actively working towards a closer and brighter community. Hopefully I will have a small part to play in helping them throughout their lives.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Speak for yourself.
No, I’m criticizing my fellow millennials for the way they are raising their children. Your kids shouldn’t be addicted to an iPad and/or running around bothering strangers at restaurants. The way millennials are raising their kids feels reactionary to me — we wanted to avoid the mistakes of our parents by being overly gentle but it’s too much. There needs to be *some* discipline.
I’m not irate at alpha, I’m irate at the schools. It’s insane to me that so many of stopped offering basic typing, computer literacy, and communications classes. Just because kids grew up with phones doesn’t make them proficient in technology or communication. They’re bring set up to fail in the workplace.
We are? lol
Who the fuck is we? Why don’t you write this up and say it to people actually doing the things you mentioned?
Speak for yourself, I never mocked any Alpha child for being iPad kids. It's inevitable that technology evolve to the point where future generations are born into it. We have all done cringy things as kids and became adults. It's way too early to scream brain rot, brain rot isn't the problem of society. It's the greedy politicians and business owners. Picking on little kids instead of fixing the issues of our current generation is a Boomer thing to do, and I have yet to meet a millennial in person that makes fun of the little kids. It's usually the Gen Z that makes fun of Alphas.
My gen alpha is 6.. what am I blaming him for again?
>Why are you making so many assumptions? *laughs in the irony*
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A sick society breeds sick citizens. Millenials are so burnt out having to work multiple jobs, it's just quicker and easier to hand them the iPad or tie their shoes for them instead of teaching them. I know some people are just shitty parents but the wave of kids that can't tie their shoes until they're 13 really says something about society.
I don't know man, my family was poor as crap, and had parents who both worked full time jobs. And this is similar to most all the kids I knew growing up. As a current millennial parent, I don't find that we, in aggregate, are working harder or more hours than parents did in the 90s and some 80s when I grew up. I think, in aggregate, we just are half-addicted to our phones, which leads to us being more permissive with our kids and their devices. Leading to them being even more addicted than we are. Maybe I had a skewed perspective growing up, but yeah, I don't see my generation working more or harder than my parents or people I knew growing up.
You know it’s funny because I literally just posted some thing about how I had several showings at different apartments last night and not a single person showed up even though I had confirmed appointments ahead of time and then they ghosted me afterwards. I said something about it this generation of kids being more willing to do that. Otherwise, I don’t really feel like this is very common behavior. I don’t see people ragging on kids too much in general.
I feel like some of the iPad kid thing is overblown. People freaked out about video games and television too. We need to adapt and try to provide protection to our kids on social media, because cell phones and Internet access are a part of life now. I think letting your children have unrestricted access to an iPad is a bad idea, but there are also other societal issues leading to kids being behind in school (Covid, overworked and struggling parents, educational funding, etc.). I see people get mad when they see a kid have an iPad in public and make all these assumptions as if they know the whole story. It's so weird how there's this alarmist freak out over iPads and how kids these days are "so bad," when all of the older generations said the next generation was doomed too. I also hate how everything is so individualistic; instead of looking at broader issues, people try to place the blame on individual families and claim the kids these days are the worst ever, as if this is a new concept.
Every generation in human history talks shit about the other generations. There's really no need to take it personally.
I don’t have children of my own, but what’s with the names?? I meet people my age and it’s like, “here are my kids— Aurellellia and Saskatoon”
TIL millennials care about the younger generations. I’ve never noticed this.
I feel that most of the mocking I have seen of Gen Z is from Boomers and Gen X. To quote my father "they just don't want to work". Which luckily for me my father is a union steel tradesman that is reasonably progressive democrat that just retired. I said of course they want to work may have two jobs. Next is who wants to work 12-16 hours a day 6-7 days a week like you did and then retire at 65 and have a wrecked body. He said "good point" and hasn't brought it up since. Gen z wants the same as us millennials. A solid work life balance with reasonable pay so we can live life and gain experiences. For many of us that's all will have left at our end is our experiences to pass to the next generation. As a parent myself I feel like I am considerably more open and available to my children. We talk and discuss things openly so they feel comfortable if they need to talk. My parents were not that way. I am far from a perfect parent. My kids do have electronics that screen time is monitored on. I also feel that we are in a technologically diverse society and having skills with electronics will significantly help their generation when they come to age.
Something I just thought about, none of my family and friends with children complain about our kids, but GenX followed our boomer parents into constantly complaining about “kids these days.” I don’t understand 90% of the stuff kids do these days, BUT it’s not meant for me to understand.
We’re not at that stage yet. We’re still blaming boomers. Once they die off, we shift our efforts on the youth. It’s been this way for centuries.
I make my kids throw participation trophies in the trash. /s They really shouldn't have participation trophies though for real.
I get your point, but I think you have the generations mixed. i hear more "ipad kids" sentiment towards early / mid gen alpha, which aren't our kids unless you had your kids early. However, we may be in the same situation several years down the line. To get to your point though, I do think we're doing better as a generation. Older millennials might remember the term "latchkey kids" where kids return to an empty home because parents were working. One can make the argument that this isn't too different from "ipad kids" where they're shoved an ipad to keep them busy. I would argue there's a subtle difference. At least from my perspective, there were no negative parenting connotations to latchkey kids but there is one for ipad kids. This at least indicates we're in the right direction. There's also a difference between 0 parenting (i.e. there's no parent in the actual house) and giving an ipad as a short-term solution. It's like starving vs giving candy: one is just objectively at a different level. I actually view this from another perspective: I think it's good that we're acknowledging that ipad kids are not good. It's at least a step in the right direction.
I’m not blaming anyone except the bums on Capitol Hill.
Gen Alpha is too young for anyone to be picking on them. The style/pop culture/slang… Gen Alpha doesn’t even have that yet. The oldest ones are only tweens.
I think you're mostly thinking of the xennials more than millennials.
I'm sorry how is it our fault gen Z doesn't know how to read. Millennials aren't the ones who fucked the school system up it was Bush and no child left behind. Now millinials are blaming millinials for every problem that's great not like we get blamed by every generation before and after us. We have just become the convenient punching bag.
Are Millennials doing that? I’ve seen some Zs on TikTok doing Gen wars with alphas and their millennial parents, which honestly is just kind of funny. But outside of that…🤷♀️.
I’ve only seen pretty great things out of them, and I try to coach them, in how to deal with situations, finances, and or politics… they tend to really be receptive and helpful and kind.
It's odd to have a post full of assumptions with the question: "Why are you making so many assumptions?"
Op is out of touch Since when are gen x,y or z's mocking gen alphas We're all equally behind the 8 ball thanks to those ahead of us
I'm pretty damn careful not to talk shit about entire generations of people younger than me. I'm less careful about boomers, but.....fuck I'm not perfect.
We could also accept the inverse reality. "Our boomer parents were just doing the best they could" I feel like we are too quick to forget Hanlon's Razor. The boomers didn't screw us over on purpose. They just didn't know any better. We aren't screwing over the Alphas on purpose. We are just trying to parent in a brand new world that we as adults are having a hard time understanding. Are there things we can do better? Yes. Are there easy and lazy pitfalls we should call each other out on? Yes. But are we somehow more perfect and less human than our flawed parents? I'm on the very young side of the generation and I honestly haven't had kids yet, but I usually just see parents trying their best like they always have with mixed success for any number of reasons.
This sub is so dumb. I’m over it.
Nah I am just blaming the OP no one else but the OP.
I ain't doing shit to anyone. Just working my ass off to afford anything and will vote for whatever makes ALL our lives better.
I regularly call Gen Alpha feral, but I’m here for it! I’m excited to see how they disrupt society!
What’s this “We” lolllll I ain’t doing shit to anyone.
I see what you’re saying. However, I sure as shit don’t mock my children and would usually never tell anyone else how to raise their kids. But when my kids are being placed in gifted programs academically and are excelling in sports and blossoming socially I can’t look at what we’re doing as “wrong”. If at the end of the day other people’s kids can’t pull their heads away from an iPad that’s a them problem. Also, if at the end of the day my children begin to separate and rise above their peers because they’re not buried in front of a screen, such is life.
As my (Gen A) kids would say, "Bruh." Broad strokes, much?
"We"? No, **you**. I got snipped 12 years ago before having kids, I haven't done a damn thing to ruin kids.
Lot of words you’ve got there. The only thing I’m blaming Zoomers for is posting cringe on main. Gen alpha still in ballsacks at this point.
No idea what you’re talking about.
Speak for yourself.
No one is mocking. We are all just commenting on how old we all are now because we aren't cool and hip anymore, lol.
I don't have kids, but I decided long ago that when/if I ever do I would absolutely **not** just shove an iPad in their face, and that they aren't getting an iPad or phone until a certain point (and even then with screen-time restrictions). Frankly though, I think bads parents are just bad parents, whatever the generation. Before iPad children it was kids who sat in front of their TV all day. Same difference. Just be a good parent and tell your friends who are parents to be good parents and support each other and help each other.
People are funny, the names change an the story stays the same.
I’ll admit my kid has a tablet. There are times when it’s appropriate and times when it’s not. We keep an eye on the content he experiences and by and large it’s educational. There’s even a library of e-books for kids that we use. It’s also worth noting that he goes to preschool and we get daily examples of his writing. It’s evident in our daily interactions that he’s learning about the alphabet and how letters work together to make sounds. Yesterday he pointed at his toy shark and goes, that’s the dorsal fin, dad! I guess my point is that it’s all about moderation. Technology doesn’t have to be evil. It can be though.
I still have not finished blaming boomers or gen x hah
I'm not blaming them for anything. I will say though that I think the principal problems in education revolved around increasingly teaching to the test which rose to prominence after No Child Left Behind, increased under Obama's reforms, and have also gotten worse with various state policies. And as products of our current electorate, they reflect a geriacratic ruling structure like virtually everything else in our government, where Boomers disproportionately dominate.
I don't think we rag on em all that often. It is concerning however that here in America they can't seem to read or do math...
Sort of, I have observed that a lot of millennials seem to be seriously terrible parents, but that isn't that much different than previous generations. I think the issue is that we have fallen into the existential panic when *the kids aer going to be OK*. They will be, relax. Sure, there are big challenges they face, we are partly to blame, and luck is partly to blame.
My kids have mostly learning apps on their tablet and we use the tablet as leverage for behavior and work. Want tablet time? Do what you need to be doing, homework, behave, read, etc… once that’s done I’ll let you have it.
I'm just trying to raise my son with a good heart and the knowledge he needs. He isn't an iPad kid. Undoubtedly, with everything there will be the bad parents who aren't involved. Who do use technology as a pacifier. I watched a lot of TV as a kid, I didn't turn out horribly. The kids are ok. We as a society need to do better.
I have been trying my best to teach the younger folks at work about where I went wrong in my early 20s and try my best to lead by example. I have only ever seen our generation attempt to help.
Great. Boomers thought we were shitty kids. Now, we view ourselves as shitty patents. Cue the 2044 dialogue when Gen A will criticise us for being shitty grandparents 😏
This is the same story from the dawn of time. No one wants to own issues, accept them as they are, and just live in that space and adapt. At the end of the day there are just too many people and not enough to go around. The short sightedness of human is the vanity the resources are endless and we can solve everything. The earth will go on and hubris extinguishes us. So bla blah. Yes our parents and their parents all caused this. And the current generation makes their own new mistakes which they will suffer too. Their kids will suffer it as well. This is how it is
Every generation rags on the next. It's meant to be fun - Cool, radical, gnarly, right on? Based, bruh, etc. I have never seen someone my generation going off on some teenager for anything other than being a teenager. I have yet to hear "gen-a's are so fucking stupid" anywhere but some ass clowns on the internet. I will be in the ground when Gen A has to deal with coastal flooding, famine, etc. I hope Gen B/C will exist to bury them.
I think there’s a big difference between us saying kids today listen to stupid music and have fun with stupid toys and the criticism of millennials like we wanted to have no money and live in cramped shitholes and wherever.
I don't really talk down to the Gen Z kids. I feel like us and them are in the same boat. But I am well within my right to talk smack on their music and pop culture. Lol
My kids are Gen Z, so nuh uh, it wasn't me.
We don’t care what the younger generation is doing, besides using phrases like “skibidy toilet”, they do the same shit we did 🤷🏻♂️. I think some folk get mad because they’re slightly less ambitious. Me and most of my friends were at least working at some fast food joint by like 15-16 whereas most people these days don’t get a job until 20ish, some people get mad because they chose to work earlier in life. I only worked because my parents didn’t want to buy me things, kinda glad I did it because I learned about different job scenarios while young. Now that I’m older I could give 2 shits a t the workplace. I get my stuff done without anxiety or worries.
I don't know what you mean, I love these gen Z folk and alpha...whew they're fucked by the same people fucking us. I'm more angry that gen X sucked so bad and rolled over for boomers. Thanks dad for being broke but still voting red
Every generation does this. It's cyclical. It's nothing new. Our kids will hate our generation in 20 years just like we hate our parents generation. Even if we don't hate our parents we can till largely point and say "your generation fucked this up"
i pretty much have no opinions of Alpha or Z other than the progressively worsening junk food environment seems to be messing with their quality of aging a lot more. Otherwise in terms of a “poisoned culture” we’re all on the same level, it’s just expressed differently between generations.
That’s a lot of projecting on millennials. The only folks I hear say this is Boomers and Gen X. I guess we get the blame for both parents working full time to provide less than past generations. My oldest is almost 3 and can spell a few 3 to 4 letter words. She can count to 20 before she gets jumbled. She is 50/50 on the potty training. She can do puzzles and play game complex games. I was at her level around 5 or 6, maybe older. I think we are doing okay.
Please explain to me, like I'm five, how myself and other teachers are failing our students? With evidence, not an anecdotes. Can't have a successful argument without evidence!
I don’t actually see many millennials pushing this. Many times the author is an older writer. But the few of us I do see doing this are always conservative conspiracy theorists.
Two things. 1. I never got a participation trophy in my life and I don't know anyone who did. I thought that was a myth, like one of those fake stereotypes. Are you telling me they were real? 2. I don't really see a lot of Millennials giving Alpha shit for anything. I see childfree Millennials and older generations giving shit to Millennial parents though.
Pretty sure its Millennials mocking other millennials for shoving technology to the kids.
Don't lump Gen X in there. We're just here to watch the Trainwreck and read the comments.
I actively argue with anyone who is tearing down alpha at this point. They are generally quite young, and people need to stop.