Robin Marantz Henig's Blog, page 8
May 14, 2013
When a Magazine Stereotypes a Generation
Maybe the best outcome of the brutally stereotypical article about the narcissism of Millennials is this: it's brought out a lot of folks eager to defend young people.
May 2, 2013
Making Big Decisions in Your Twenties
A fascinating piece in The New Yorker about deciding whether to go to grad school (in English literature, in this case, but it would apply to almost any field, especially in the job-challenged humanities) mentions a recent paper by L.A. Paul and Kieran Healy on what they call "epistomological decision-making."
April 30, 2013
No More Youthy Grandparents?
With young people waiting until their late 30s and even 40s to have their babies, the idea of a grandparent being alive and mobile when those babies walk down the aisle is almost laughable, or would be if it didn't make me so sad about my own non-existent grandbabies.
April 24, 2013
Parenting a Twentysomething
I was desperate in my twenties for my parents to think of me as a co-adult, especially during one night that's seared in my memory. I was 22 years old, two and a half years out of college, and had just started working as a reporter for a small magazine for which I was traveling on my first-ever business trip.
April 12, 2013
Getting Older Might Not Be So Bad
People think the elderly are sad, unattractive Luddites who feel lonely and financially strapped. But it turns out that people who actually ARE old don't feel nearly as bad as younger people expect. That's the reassuring news for all of us who are aging that came from results of new a poll conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion.
March 13, 2013
The Trickiness of Adjectives
People in their sixties, the graying Baby Boom generation so often cast in opposition to Millennials, are having a crisis of identity these days -- or, at least, a crisis of adjectives. Is there a way to describe them collectively without offending them? Would they balk at being called "old"? And do twentysomethings mind being called "young"?
February 28, 2013
The Younger Generation Is Always Right
My daughter Samantha and I did another bit of publicity for our book Twentysomething yesterday: a taping of an upcoming episode of Katie Couric's new afternoon talk show, "Katie." But when Katie asked me what I thought of the Millennials, I gave the wrong answer. Here's what I should have said instead.
February 22, 2013
Young and Old Alike Show Less Empathy Than the Middle-Aged
I'm always made uncomfortable by studies that assert that Millennials are the most narcissitic generation in history. To me, being young has always meant being self-absorbed; in many ways, that's what youth is for. But a new study that reaches a similar conclusion is less offensive, since it's not just the very young who are self-absorbed; the very old are, too.
February 7, 2013
It's Tough to Be Young
Young adults feel more stress about their lives than people who are older, according to a new poll reported last week by Harris Interactive. According to an article in USA Today, nearly 4 in 10 Millennials (in this study, defined as people aged 18 to 33) say their stress has increased in the past year, and about half say it keeps them awake at night.
January 25, 2013
Sixtysomethings and Twentysomethings
I've been thinking recently about sixtysomethings and how much they're like twentysomethings. (I can say "they" instead of "we" for just another eight months; I turn 60 myself next October, a birthday I'm definitely not looking forward to.) It's been called -- with a certain amount of relief -- the Post-Anything-Is-Possible stage.
