I had calmed down from my rant about the millennial who made a bacon cheeseburger at the local Cenex by cooking the hamburger and slapping raw bacon on top of it and serving it. He thought the hot hamburger would someone make the raw bacon ok. Then I got worked up again when I heard about the 25 year old who thought that the minimum payment on a credit card was a fine idea. Never looking at the balance or realizing the 18% interest rate that would be paid this person in in some serious trouble unless he can shame the credit card company for being mean to him. He wants a pass which means that my credit card interest will go up to “forgive” his debt. Then I heard about a mom and pop operation that hired two millennial women to work one job because their “therapy sessions” synched up so that when one was at the therapist, the other could work.
About the time I think I have seen it all I came across the Adulting Schools that are popping up all over the country that are meant to get millennials up to a basic understanding of what it takes to live outside of mommy and daddy”s basement. We find from millennials themselves that they do not think of themselves as adults until they are 30 so…..
Basic questions remain. They need to learn the basics of handling money we are told. I learned how to make change when I was in some grade somewhere. I remember the teacher saying that I would need to learn how to make change to make sure that I wasn’t getting ripped off at the comic book store. She also said I needed to learn if I worked in a store someday. My grandmother made me walk to a store to by bread. It was about ten blocks from our house. She said “be sure to bring back the change”. I got the bread and walked home and was told that the change was a nickel short and I would have to go back. The store owner was angry at me and asked if I thought he couldn’t count change? I walked back home and snuck into the house and up to my room and took a nickel out of my piggy bank and gave it to my grandma. (For anyone reading this that was born during or after the “80’s” that means that I walked 40 blocks without a GPS app because there were no cell phones.) I have counted change ever since. What were the millennials taught in the public school system up to now? I suppose giving someone $20 in change for a $15 purchase was applauded because they were trying. Approximation and guessing is ok as long as you feel good about yourself. The employers feelings don’t count. My guess is that for many millennials employers are considered the enemy because their teachers went to college and learned about the evils of Capitalism.
What did or do millennials learn in college? It looks like mommy and daddy spend $50000 a year for their darlings to learn about medieval women’s issues and environmental imperialism. Who cares if you can make change as long as you can learn about cool stuff like the “Politics of Kanye West: Black Genius and Sonic Aesthetics.” How about “Whiteness, the Other Side of Racism”? Here is one that is truly fascinating – “Taking Marx Seriously”. I thought we were all taking Marx seriously for some time now. All the while the generation that raised me thought we were in a “long twilight struggle” against the tyranny of Marxism, their children and children’s children seem to think that flirting with Marzism is pretty cool. We seem to be desperately trying to become a Marxist state. Maybe a course like this is offered because if we get to be actual Marxist’s we won’t need to make change because no one will have any money anyway. By the way the long twilight struggle remark is from the inauguration speech of John Kennedy. He was the 35th President of the United States.
I know it sounds like I am angry at those who think that they are children until they are thirty. It is not anger, but I am dismayed that they will be the ones operating on my body, caring for me in my dotage, making our wills, giving us change at MacDonald’s, flying great big airplanes, and running big institutions of finance (that means dealing with money and making change). I can’t be angry with 29 year old children because Jesus says that we have to become like children to enter the Kingdom of God. But I also agree with Luther when he asked God; “do we have to be such idiots”.