Book Review: Generation Me
- Author
- Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D.
- Grade
- B
An interesting read, even if the author comes to some odd conclusions and often seems to be giving “Generation Me” a pass.
The full title of this book, Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before, is a tongue-twister which may give you some idea of how confident, assertive, and entitled the self-described Generation Me author is herself. Generation Me, according to her, are those born after the Baby Boomers, more or less from the late sixties to the early 2000s. “GenMes” are those who were raised with self-esteem movements, who heard Whitney Houston sing that “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all,” and who have adopted a “me-first” attitude that society at large sometimes has difficulty coping with.
Even the Army, an organization hardly known for supporting individual self-esteem and ego, had to adopt “An Army of One” as its motto, says Twenge, because marketing to Generation Me must remind them that they are singularly special. A sunless tanner advertisement shown in her book relates to consumers that the product is “individual,” “unique,” and “yours alone.” This is Generation Me: everyone’s unique.
Though Twenge mentions some of the downsides to Generation Me, such as people who have terribly unrealistic goals (becoming CEO of a company within five years, or becoming a famous musician without having any musical talent — see almost any episode of American Idol for evidence of the latter), most of the time she seems to be taking it easy on them. Clearly, she sympathizes strongly with people who have been told they can achieve anything without also being told how hard they’ll have to work to get it.
Twenge contrasts Generation Me with the Baby Boomers in at least one interesting way. Baby Boomers wanted to rebel, but they had their own style of doing it. “And when [they] sought self-knowledge, they took the ironic step of doing so en masse – for all their railing against conformity, Boomers did just about everything in groups, from protests to seminars to yoga,” says Twenge. But Generation Me? “We take it for granted that we’re independent, special individuals, so we don’t really need to think about it.”
One movie that demonstrates this difference, according to Twenge, is The Big Chill, which depicts multiple Baby Boomer characters in crises of moral uncertainty. They wanted to change the world, but in the end, they “sold out.” Jeff Goldblum’s character may be teased by his friends because he writes for People, but a Generation Me member who wrote for such a magazine would be lionized. Twenge writes, “For GenMe, there is no such thing as “selling out,” since we never aspired to change the structure of society in the first place.”
A positive about Generation Me, Twenge says, is their acceptance of difference. Who cares if Hillary Clinton is running for president? GenMes don’t remember the times when women were officially barred from certain jobs, so the fact a woman is running for president does not seem particularly unusual to them. The older women foaming at the mouth because people want Hillary to quit her campaign can remember when women were told to mind their place and stay out of a man’s world, but the GenMes don’t have that background. And so what if gays want to marry? Twenge quotes a high schooler who says, “People make homosexuality into such a big deal, but I just don’t understand why anyone would care if two people want to be together.” Twenge notes that violence and prejudice against gays haven’t gone away, but things are changing, and as the GenMes replace the Baby Boomers in positions of authority and in the voting booths, things are likely to change even more.
Toward the end of her book, Twenge gets into the practical side of “Where do we go from here?” Two of her three proposals seem like solid plans — ditch the self-esteem movement, and provide better career counseling for young people. I certainly don’t have any qualms with these ideas.
However, her third proposal (which is broken down into four sub-proposals) is the one where Twenge falls down on her ass: create more support for working parents. Er…what?
Twenge wants to see 1) a nationwide system of paid parental leave. “Of 168 industrialized nations around the world, 163 guarantee paid leave for new mothers,” she writes. She does not, however, mention the taxes paid by the citizens of those 163 countries. She mentions that California is starting a program funded by payroll deductions, but insists federally-mandated leave would be a better idea. Just why the rest of us should be paying others to stay home with their children is not truly explained.
Twenge also wants to see 2) a nationwide system of preschools. Now that might be a good idea, since children in school at least won’t be plopped in front an electronic babysitter all day, though current programs like Head Start have not proven to be an unqualified success. Still, this idea might have merit. Similarly, Twenge’s idea to 3) change school hours to match the work day sounds like a good idea — but the juggling it would require with transportation would be a nightmare, not to mention no one’s claiming most parents even work the same hours.
Twenge’s other idea is to 4) make child care expenses tax-deductible. Yeah, right. Quite frankly, parents already get more than enough of their taxes back (try giving yourself a couple of kids the next time you do your taxes to see what a sweet deal this is), and the fact they can’t budget even with government hand-outs is not my problem. Twenge claims the amount of money parents get back is “pitifully small,” without justifying why it should be anything. Nor does she explain why a parent’s decision to reproduce is my responsibility to fund or why my tax burden should be heavier than a parent’s. Twenge’s argument is not helped when she uses Ann Crittenden, author of The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued, as her go-to tax “expert.”
Still, except for this stumble, Twenge’s book is an intriguing look at a generation that’s going to shape the future of the United States for decades to come. You could do worse than pick up this book to find out more.
Copyright Martha Kneib. Published 1 May 2008 in What’s New.
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