120: Do Millennials and Gen Z Really Have It Easier?

Roula (00:00)
I'm shorts today so it's so hot in this room. No!

Rosie (00:01)
⁓ I don't think I've ever seen you in shorts.

at those sexy legs!

Roula (00:09)
Even if I stand up, you won't see me.

Rosie (00:11)
see your legs stand

up. my god.

Roula (00:15)
⁓

Rosie (00:29)
you said something very controversial and you got my backup and I didn't have the opportunity to say anything. You said Gen Z and millennials have not experienced true hardship. You said this in the last episode. Tell me more because I know you said that with kindness. You're not a person who says it with hate. So I want to understand because it made me go, ⁓ excuse me. You don't know me, but

Roula (00:49)
⁓ yeah.

Rosie (00:58)
I want to understand.

Roula (01:01)
Millennial agencies are born in our rich times.

Rosie (01:06)
Mmm.

Roula (01:08)
Parents are working hard, yes. We're earning more. We have healthier life. We're eating better food. And we are mothering our children and fathering our children. Okay, the word is parenting.

Rosie (01:24)
parenting

yes you trying to sound intelligent and just making yourself sound a bit silly ⁓

Roula (01:32)
Absolutely. So we're parenting our kids in a way that we're taking away from them the possibilities of solving their own problems or facing problems because my generation, Generation X, wants to see their kids happy. So when they have an issue, we jump in to solve it for them. This resulted.

from us doing this over and over again is that our kids don't know how to solve the problems anymore. And when they have a problem, they shut down, they don't know how to solve it, they get angry or they call in sick, they don't want to face it. This is one part of the story.

Rosie (02:19)
Poor. Okay.

I have thoughts, but continue. I will bite my tongue.

Roula (02:23)
Okay.

The other part is social media. The one-on-one face-to-face conversations disappeared most of the time and everyone is speaking their minds or shutting their mouth behind the screen. So millennials and Gen Z, they have not learned what it is to have a good conflict or a bad conflict. Everything they see happening in the world is through their phones.

and not being in person dealing with these stuff. Of course, I'm saying this because now I'm living in a rich country. If I talk about the generation living in Lebanon, for example, where my family is, despite how hard it is to live there, the parents are raising their kids as I described. We're parenting them in a way that we've taken away all the trouble because we only want to see them happy.

Rosie (03:06)
Mm.

Mmm, you know what I think?

Roula (03:23)
What?

Rosie (03:24)
and I'm getting ready for you to be fiery. I think you're projecting a little bit.

Roula (03:30)
⁓

Rosie (03:33)
could be wrong. I agree with, I partially agree with what you're saying because I think there are a lot of parents who do that. They don't want their children to go through the struggles and the hardships that they went through. They just want to make it easy. Why would you want to see your child suffer? Right? I think parents do do that, but I

Roula (03:34)
Let's see.

Wrong.

What you're saying is right. The behavior is wrong.

Rosie (03:59)
okay. Yes, but it's wrong.

Agreed. Yeah. You're not helping anybody. But I think that parenting happens across generations. And I'm curious, because your daughters, that'd be Gen Z. Yeah. Are they Gen Z? Right. So do you feel, you don't have to answer this, do you feel they haven't experienced hardship? Because you just said Gen Z and millennials have never experienced hardship. So does that apply to your daughters?

Roula (04:14)
near.

I will answer. We're here in real talks and I mean, we have to do this. We owe it to our listeners to be transparent. The hardship that my daughters went through has been the divorce. So yes, they are going through hardship because of the divorce, having two houses, struggling, missing me, missing their dad. A lot happened in this period. And this is their hardship.

Rosie (04:43)
Mm.

Mmm.

Roula (04:57)
But in terms of level of lifestyle, the level of education, the activities, the friendships, going on vacation, all these things, we are giving them all the stuff.

Rosie (05:13)
Hmm.

So maybe then, because you've just said they've experienced hardships and you're right. think everybody has. It's all different, but we've all experienced hardship. But the other stuff you mentioned, maybe that's about quality of life. You're talking about vacations and things like that.

Roula (05:30)
Yes.

We're coming back to this quality of life is so important. I think the quality of life is the biggest driver in learning life skills. Because if you're because if you are I remember when I was 13, 14, I had one shoe. My sister was working full time. She stopped her education to work full time.

Rosie (05:46)
Cool.

Mm.

Roula (06:00)
We've been

in really hard times. It was time of war, et cetera. I had one shoe that I was wearing it day in, day out until I got a hole in it and got another shoe. Was I upset? Yes. Did I want more shoes? Yes. But I knew I cannot ask for more shoes because my parents at this moment cannot buy me this shoe.

Rosie (06:16)
Mm-mm.

Roula (06:27)
it's so many example in this lifestyle from the food we're taking with us to school, the ⁓ allowance that we're getting from our parents or not seeing our parents stressed and struggled and trying to have and meet. Our kids are not seeing this. They ask for something, they get it. And even if we tell them, yeah.

Rosie (06:38)
Mm-hmm.

What about people?

What about the people though? Cause we're both, I would say, middle class, right? We're very comfortable. But there's lots of people who are living below the poverty line. There would be people who only have one pair of shoes, maybe none, who know their family can't afford things. So I think that hardship still exists. I know what you're getting at, but I don't know.

Roula (07:17)
show.

In majority, in the way the world became richer, hardship became less. And yes, there are poor, there is poverty, there is misery, there is so much going on, there is lot of hardship. It's just that the whole, I don't have statistics to prove with facts, but if I look around me, I have to go to a specific area to see poverty.

Rosie (07:27)
Mmm... Okay. Okay.

Mm.

Right.

Roula (07:50)
And

maybe it is also hidden. Poverty is hidden. People are hiding it.

Rosie (07:53)
Oh, totally. And I wonder too,

your experience is different. You grew up in Lebanon in a war zone and it was very different and you now live in the Netherlands. So that too is probably contributing to your worldview. Like I, I, my head is just churning all these thoughts. don't know. Listeners, do you agree? Do Gen Z's and millennials, like, do they just not know what hardship is?

I tend to push back against that, but I also hear what you're saying. We're living in a different time and again, we're generalizing. Don't come at us. Yes, we're talking from a position of privilege.

Roula (08:33)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And the episode is very short. We can't go into more details.

Rosie (08:39)
Exactly, we're just saying, just putting that out there, okay?

Don't eat us alive. But yeah.

Roula (08:45)
Like Chad GPT

says, thought provoking subject.

Rosie (08:48)
my God, chat GBT,

yes. Thought provoking. ⁓ And you, I've completely lost my train of thought. But yeah, I think quality of life does play into it and changes in parenting style. I think there's been huge changes between your generation and my generation. And last episode, you were also talking about how Gen X is just, they're acting from fear and they don't want to change. But I kind of push back on that too.

There's plenty of Gen X's who were like that, but there's plenty of Millennials as well. And they piss me off. These people piss me off.

Roula (09:23)
I think we have to

record Gen X in the next episode because I have couple of things. I mean, thank you for saying all this, Rosie, because you're helping me in going deeper into my thinking when I say they didn't they don't have hardship. Now I'm thinking is hardship the right word? Because it also could be that millennials and Gen Z. ⁓

Rosie (09:28)
Okay.

Hmm.

Yeah. ⁓

Roula (09:51)
are fed up with the crap that Gen X accepted and brought to them in a way of societal norms, work, way of living. They do blame us that we ruined the planet, the environment, the work environment. We have done a lot of wrong things, but we didn't know. We were thinking economically we're growing, we're going faster.

Rosie (09:57)
Okay.

Roula (10:19)
And I noticed that Millennials and Gen Z, they... I don't know what's the contributor in this, but when there is a problem...

They don't say, OK, I have a problem. I'm going to try to resolve it. Life goes on. What I see around me with the younger generation is that there is a problem. Who can help me solve it? Can you help me solve it? Can you solve it for me? If there is a problem, then the whole world is bad.

Rosie (10:48)
So maybe it's accountability.

It's accountability. we, okay, okay. Let me just one more thought and then we're gonna have to hit pause and continue in another episode. But are you saying?

It's almost like Gen X, your generation, some of that hardship was self-inflicted.

and millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, we are now realizing it's okay to push back and perhaps we are taking a bit more control.

Roula (11:19)
Absolutely.

I don't know about Gen Alpha. mean, Liam is 10. He's Gen Alpha, but I don't know yet. ⁓ Probably they're more emotionally intelligent because now the parents are starting to be conscious about emotional intelligence.

Rosie (11:26)
Mm.

they've learnt

from the millennials.

Roula (11:40)
Could be.

Rosie (11:40)
Because parents, there's Gen Z parents now, right?

Roula (11:44)
Yeah. No, more millennials than Gen Z. My kid is Gen Z and she's 22.

Rosie (11:45)
Mmm, okay. Now hang on, hang on. How old are Gen Z's?

There'd be, hang on, Gen Z, yeah. I don't even know. From 1997 to 2012. So someone who was born in 97 is 28. There'd be plenty of parents who were Gen Z,

Roula (12:02)
Yeah.

Yes, that's

true. Could be. You know, we're not here. What I want to say is that we're not here with the with the opinion that is rigid. We're just trying to understand because this conversation is happening everywhere. And I personally fed up with Gen X complaining about millennials and Gen Z. And I'm also fed up from millennial and Gen Z complaining about Gen X. And this is why we're doing this podcast, Rosie. So we bring this generation together.

Rosie (12:16)
Yeah.

the grade.

Roula (12:34)
And pinpointing stuff will help us think more. And I appreciate our listeners who would add value to whatever we're saying.

Rosie (12:43)
Yeah, totally. Alright, let's stop talking. And we're gonna talk about Gen X in the next episode.

Roula (12:50)
Yes, yes.