I am one of those weird ones. Not quite a Gen Xer, definitely not a Millenial, there have been several words used to describe this very particular niche of folks who grew up before the internet was a thing, but still know how to use a rotary phone.
One of the broadest brushes my generation has been painted with though has been Participators.
I am not sure when this shit began, it feels like it was in the late 2010s but at some point, a bunch of old rich white people felt that my generation was entitled.
I am assuming this was because they thought, we could afford to work a part-time job while we paid for the college that we were told absolutely had to go to, and then, once we had that degree we could take the $3000 dollars we had saved and put that down as a downpayment for a single-family home that was reasonably priced, in a nice neighborhood where we could raise a family, live our lives and continue the American dream because we would always have a job, thanks to our college degree and therefore have no problems.
And you know what? I generally believed that bullshit for a very, very long time. Then some towers fell down, then the housing market collapsed, then I was told I couldn’t cut it because people gave me participation trophies. Oh, also the cost of that education had and continues to skyrocket. No one is hiring and you are an idiot for going to college, why didn’t you learn a trade like your grandpa?
Do you know what was the greatest participation trophy ever? BEING A WHITE PERSON BORN BEFORE 1980! I grew up in a lower-middle-class household in St. Paul, my family made sacrifices for me (they joined a goddamn Catholic Church for reduced admission, fuck I even went through Catechism for this stupid fucking privilege) so that I could do things like play hockey and go to a private school until 7th grade. My parents didn’t have the money to do that as well as give my sister figure skating lessons and everything else we wanted to do. I was adjacent to a lot of the privilege and benefited from a lot of it. Hell, my parents got jobs at the university so that we had the opportunity to go to good schools because they did not have the ability to save money for us to go to any school we wanted to, just the schools we got a discount to go to and even then I mostly paid my own way (shouts to my mom and dad for picking up a couple of very small loans).
I was a good student, so for many years I truly believed that I made my own way, and maybe I did, but how the hell would I know? I mean I know some of the dum-dums I went to school with… and yet, how many equally if not more qualified people didn’t even get the opportunity to apply or go to the schools I was able to.
At some point there is going to be a reckoning for all of our boomer families who were more than happy to throw us under the bus as they voted for politicians who only want to destroy the social safety net that we are all contributing to with every paycheck (and honestly don’t plan on ever seeing), the same politicians who demonize our friends and family for wanting to live their lives as their truest self. Yes, the LGBTQ+ friends and family members in our lives who, and I am sorry to say, so many people voted against their own and loved ones’ interests for so long!
The reckoning is their participation trophy. They made up this bullshit to explain away their failures as generational leaders, telling us we were too soft, not fit, and not right. And at the same time sucking away at the teet that was gifted to them, while telling the rest of us to fuck off.
I am not a religious man, but I know what I’ve read and if even half of that shit is right, I know a lot of people who think they are headed for the pearly gates that are going to be at least slightly disturbed by the wrath She will rain down upon them.
Now, if there is a god, I would very much like her to help Kissinger shuffle off this mortal coil.