If Gen Z sucks it's Gen X's fault.

An increasingly popular topic for Gen X to rail about is: Why Gen Z sucks.

Given that these are our kids, it’s a little weird. Right? I mean, take a little responsibility, if they do in fact suck. (I don’t think they do, but I’m biased having two of my own.)

Jodie Foster recently complained about working with Gen Z. She said in an interview with The Guardian: “They’re really annoying. They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30 a.m.’”

In a mini-debate titled “Fight Club,” Peter Savodnik (Gen X) and Julia Steinberg (Gen Z) of The Free Press go head to head on what’s wrong with the other’s generation. Savodnik writes:

“You can’t trust anyone under 30. They have negative attention spans. They’d rather go back to the womb. They don’t want to have sex. They don’t want to drive. They have weird neuroses. They know nothing about the Western canon. They think work is an affliction imposed on them by richer, older people who apparently never had to work.”

There’s some truth to what he says. But guess who raised Gen Z? We did. So, if these criticisms are in any way valid, it’s our fault. And it might be time for a little introspection.

Look . . . no one likes blaming Boomers for Gen X’s problems more than me. But as a person who has often said if you’re still complaining that it [whatever it is] is your parents fault after the age of 30, that’s on you, I think it’s time for us to turn our gaze inward.

Let’s stop pointing fingers at our progeny, pretending we had nothing to do with who they are.

Why do we suck? (And before you get all I didn’t do that! I’m not suggesting that every single Gen Xer is guilty of every criticism levied below. I’m talking broad strokes here. Broadly speaking, Gen X did this stuff. I dare you to argue otherwise.)

Ok here goes . . . my top 5 on why Gen X — my generation — sucks.

The College Admissions Scandal

In 2019, Lori Loughlin (of Full House fame), Felicity Huffman (of Desperate Housewives and lots of other stuff) and Jane Buckingham (ex-wife of cheesy corporate motivational speaker Marcus Buckingham, who I have had the displeasure of enduring on more than one occasion) were indicted in a college admissions cheating scam along with many, many others. If you weren’t paying attention or don’t remember it, I don’t know what you were doing. I was obsessed. And not only because I knew someone indicted — Diane Blake, who I used to work with at Levi’s.

Here’s the top line for those living in caves: Wealthy parents were so desperate for their children to get into USC (and other colleges) that they cheated by: paying bribes to whichever university; having other people take the SAT for their kid; and faking athletic credentials (my favorite). They did it all through a guy named Rick Singer. He was the fixer.

BOSTON, MA - Varsity Blues mastermind William Rick Singer leaves the Moakley Courthouse after being sentenced to 3.5 years in jail on January 4, 2023 in , BOSTON, MA. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Singer orchestrated various levels of cheating. He euphemistically called his “program” the “side door” — the “front door” is getting in through merit (SAT scores, grades, extra curriculars) which apparently is for suckers and racists (merit is racist); the “back door” involves getting in because the parents are so rich they donate an entire building.

Voila! The Singer side door was born . . . just another legitimate way to get into college!

Singer offered a ‘tweener for parents who were rich but not donate-a-building-rich. I’ll admit, I know a lot of these kinds of folks. Corporate executives with nice 401ks. But not many many millions lying around such that donating an entire building would be no big deal. Buildings aren’t on the table for these folks. I don’t know Bill Ackman. I know Chief Marketing Officers who can easily pay for private school and a fancy vacation a year, but not a new gym facility or science building at Stanford or University of Pennsylvania. Singer was for them and their not so academically inclined children.

All these well-to-do but not obscenely rich just pretty rich parents had to do was pay Singer some money — a few thousand or sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. And then he’d broker a deal with the school of their choice.

Some of the money might go to grease the palm of some bought-and-paid-for school admissions employee. Or some might go to some coach or other who would pretend he was recruiting the kid (though the kid had never played a day of anything in his life) to help the kid get in but then the student never had to come to an actual track practice. In some cases the scheme went so far as to orchestrate fake photos, photoshopping the head of the teen with mediocre grades and no athletic ability onto an accomplished rower or volleyball player. I kid you not.

Sometimes a cockamamie complicated scheme was put in place where the kid was suddenly declared to be ADHD and in need of more time on the SAT. The kid just had to take the test in one very specific testing facility — all alone except for the moderator. In that facility, Singer paid the monitor to look the other way when a paid test-taker came in to take the test in the student’s name.

Sometimes it was all of the above.

I was captivated by this whole affair. I read the entire affidavit. I went to a comedy/improv show in New York City where the actors did live reads from the affidavit (it was pretty hilarious and I hate improv.) I couldn’t get enough.

Why was I obsessed? I think it was because I saw it as so emblematic of what I disliked about parents of means of my generation. I think for many of my peers — like Diane Blake — a scheme like this was not unthinkable. There was nothing these parents wouldn’t do to get their kid what they thought that child rightly deserved. Except of course demand the child work for it.

This is not good. The kids of these privileged people — admittedly “my people,” who I don’t like very much — become leaders of their generation, whether they deserve it or not. This is an impending shit show.

A boss at work once asked me how many tutors I brought in for my high school junior (who has now finished college and is in the process of completing graduate school).

“None,” I said, and furrowed my brow in judgement. He was astonished.

“How does he get good grades then?”

(You might be thinking: She’s making this up. I’m not. This is how they are. Baffled by the notion that a child might actually work to get good grades.)

I don’t think I dignified his stupid question with an answer.

(For what it’s worth - my child did actually work for the good grades. He got them the old fashioned way. I guess I’m old fashioned, insisting that he do as much. And that’s why now, I get billed as a Conservative. Fine. So be it.)

Here’s how you get a Rick Singer situation — well-heeled parents of my generation get the tutors, then it escalates and they’ve got someone “helping” (they call it “editing”) write the essays for college applications. Then they hire a college admissions consultant to “help” with all of it. It’s just one more little tiny step across the line to get to: Can you just take the test for junior? He really deserves to go to Georgetown even if he has a C average and got a 950 on the SAT. I know him! He deserves it! And that’s basically what Singer did. He simply offered them more of what they wanted.

If some of these kids are lazy and entitled there is a reason for it. And it can all be summed up with the College Admissions Scandal.

The Sephora / Skin Care trend amongst tweens

You may not be aware of this (I wasn’t until yesterday) but there’s a trend amongst kids as young as ten and twelve years old — they are buying very expensive skin care products at Sephora and being rude to the sales associates. (I know these youngsters are technically Gen Alpha not Gen Z, but in many cases their parents are Gen X so it fits with my criticism of Gen X.)

There are so many things wrong with this. As a 54-year-old woman who doesn’t wear sunscreen — much to the dismay of my mole-removing dermatologist, I find this utterly confounding. I barely wash my face, let alone apply $200/ounce La Mer moisturizer.

Why do 10-year-olds think they need wrinkle cream?

Because social media influencers are telling them so. Well, they may not be telling ten year olds directly but skin care and beauty companies are hiring influencers with a large tween audience and so the message is reaching them.

Here’s the thing though: brands and business are always going to find a new consumer target that will enable them to expand their share and reach and sell more stuff. That’s the game. Just like Juul targeted teenagers, skin care brands will try to convince 13-year-olds they need to start a skin care “regimen” early if it increases the lifetime value of a single customer. Think of how many more years of purchasing that is! I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that is how it works.

Parents are the last line of defense. And this is, once again, on Gen X parents (and some Millennials). We had our kids late, so yeah, Gen Xers have tweens.

Don’t give your 12-year-old a smart phone. Don’t let your 10-year-old have social media. And don’t give your daughter $80 to take to Sephora to buy Retinol based products she shouldn’t use. And, lastly, teach them to be polite and not act like entitled jerks.

You can watch the pre-teen antics on TikTok here (#sephorakids).

Gen X - this is on you. Us. But there’s still time! These kids are young. We can fix this! Take away their phones and Instagram for starters!

We started self-help

Now we’re stuck with a generation obsessed with the self. I wrote about this before. To quote myself:

“. . . we said putting focus on ourselves was the selfless thing to do and had to be done. It was better for our children, in fact, if we practiced self-care. Or so we told ourselves. That whole put the oxygen mask on yourself before your children thing took hold — because of us.”

Now we’re annoyed because Gen Z are self-obsessed, and won’t show up to work if they don’t feel like it. Everything is burdensome. They “set boundaries” which can include not working, not being nice, not calling us, and not doing basic stuff because it’s just too taxing. Self-help gibberish touting boundary setting for emotional well-being was endorsed and gobbled up by Gen X. Then we raised our kids with this toxic mindset. We shouldn’t be surprised that they can be a tad self-obsessed. (I say this as a person who has written two memoirs. I am not immune to self-focus.)

We are Prozac Nation

We loved Elizabeth Wurtzel. We medicated ourselves. We therapized ourselves. Then we did it to our kids. Better living through pharmaceuticals, or so we thought.

(Note: I’ve never taken any medication for mood or anxiety or depression, so again, not bragging here, and not pointing fingers — but I’m speaking broadly about Gen X as a generational cohort. Not you, or me, specifically. So don’t get all bent out of shape if it’s not you. It is easily provable that we were the first generation to gobble SSRIs in droves. And then put our kids on them at the first sign of adolescent angst.)

Gen Z is the most medicated, least happy, most depressed generation ever. As writer and journalist Abigail Shrier writes:

“Gen Z is receiving unprecedented levels of mental health treatment. They seem only to be getting worse.”

We pathologize everything. If a kid is a picky eater, he is labeled with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID); if a child is shy it’s obviously because she has Social Anxiety Disorder; if a child is fussy about her socks, it’s Sensory Processing Disorder. Difficult and stubborn? Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Bad handwriting? Dysgraphia. Weird? Yeah, that’s a disorder too. Maybe it’s ADHD or maybe it’s Autism Spectrum Disorder or maybe it’s trauma. But it’s definitely a definable, diagnosable something. And most definitely not that some people just walk to a different beat of the drum.

(Maybe some people are just weird? What happened to that? I like weird, for what it’s worth. I’m weird. My husband is weird. But weird doesn’t make you a victim so there’s no glory in it.)

In short, everything is labeled as a condition requiring therapy and, often, medication. Uncomfortable with your changing teenaged body? Gender dysphoria and you must be trans.

As de-transitioner Chloe Cole told Shrier:

“In general, this model of making everything a condition—if a child is different in any way, if they’re not focusing in school, if they’re a little bouncy in class and they won’t sit in their seat—it takes the responsibility off of the adults to say, ‘Okay, let’s just medicate them. That’ll fix the problem.’”

Yup.

Life can be hard. Sometimes we’re sad. Some people are just weird. Some don’t have a ton of friends. Puberty sucks.

Tell your kids to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Tell them to find something they love to do whether they’re good at it or not. Heck, you do the same.

We’re the helicopter parents

We had fewer kids. We had them later. We obsessed over their well-being. We wanted them to live lives free of pain and discomfort. So we intervened at every turn. Bad grade? Call the teacher and get it changed. Tussle on the playground? Break it up and blame the other child. No one loses a soccer game, everyone gets a medal! Can’t have anyone feeling bad that they didn’t win. So everyone wins! And gets in to the college of their choice through the “side door.”

And now we’re surprised that they don’t drive or have sex? Those things are dangerous. They both come with all sorts of risks — you could crash the car, or have your feelings hurt when the other person doesn’t want to see you again. Pain can be avoided, or so they were taught. By us!

I’m sorry, but everyone needs their hopes and dreams dashed every now and again to learn that they’ve got to pick themselves up and keep trying. We need to experience romantic rejection, bad sex, bad grades and getting fired or at least a really bad review to know that we want better for ourselves. And then go try and find it.

Look, your kid probably isn’t going to the Olympics. And she’s probably not going to Yale either. At a certain point, she needs to understand that she isn’t Aly Raisman or Simone Biles or Jodie Foster (one of the most famous Yale alumni) and she never will be.

I guess life makes it obvious soon enough. But we’ve bred a you can be whatever you want, you can do anything even if you don’t work that hard! mindset that is finding itself to be problematic as it manifests in young adulthood.

What do you mean I’m not getting promoted?! I’ve been here 2 months already! What do you mean I have to work for 40 hours a week and not have time to go to the gym and not have enough money to rent my own apartment?

Didn’t you all have like 5 roommates after college? If you lived in a city of any size, I know you did. And what do people think it was like if you lived on the plains back in the day? Haven’t any of these kids read Willa Cather!? (According to Savodnik no, and that’s part of the problem.)

People used to do nothing but work. And then work some more. Just to feed and shelter themselves. It’s way better now even if you have a really shitty job and live with a bunch of roommates. Chances are you still have an iPhone and some cool sneakers and get brunch on occasion.

But again, it’s our fault if our kids aren’t prepared for this. A life of work, with time on the side for socializing and “me time,” is normal. It can even be satisfying. It’s all about expectation setting. And I think we Xers dropped the ball on that.

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I know I’m talking about the problematic trends in childrearing of a particular class of people. The urban/suburban, upper middle class, over educated, etc. But there are a lot of them and their kids are the entitled complain-y ones that get talked about.

And I also know that there are lots of amazing young people out there entering the work force. I’d like to think (and hope) I raised two of them. I certainly had more than a few who worked for me during my time at Levi’s. We had incredibly hard-working interns and recent college grads in entry level positions who worked hard and moved up the ladder.

But generations are defined by trends — sometimes they become stereotypes — not because every single person embodies the behaviors but some do, and the behaviors stand out as unique, new and significant enough to stick. And come to define that generation.

Gen Xers were defined as disaffected slackers. I have to say, I know more than a few of those! It rings true! It’s not that every Gen Xer is a cynical, disengaged, angry child of divorce. Not every Gen Xer was an MTV-raised latchkey kid either. But they’re out there. And all that anger and cynicism led to all the therapy and medicating.

If Gen Z is in fact demanding, entitled and screen addicted, that’s on us. So rather than point fingers at them, we should take a little ownership of the situation. And try to steer them differently now.

Rather than cow to their demands of sensitivity training (for us) and safe spaces (for them), we need to demand more of them. We can’t allow them to cancel us. We need to tell them to stop complaining, get to work on time, and grow up.

Tough love, baby . . . better late than never.