How They Approach Midlife – Deseret News

The generation known for its obsession with avocado toast and selfies is approaching midlife – and power. The oldest of millennialsa generation born between 1981 and 1996, are now in their early 40s, and some are challenging the stereotypes that have long defined them.

The generation that came of age during the advent of the Internet, weathered the Great Recession and pioneered the gig economy is now stepping into leadership roles and taking on more responsibilities at home and at work. They include JD Vance, 40 years old and about to be the third youngest vice president in US history, and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35, who is being considered for a key House leadership role. “Is this the AOC’s moment?” Washington Post recently asked.

The rest of the millennials are wondering if this is their moment too.

For many millennials, myself included, aging comes with a ton of pressures: financial instability under the weight of student loan debt, increased anxiety and depression, and complex decisions about having children and navigating the demanding juggling act of career and child care. Baptized to “burnout generation”, many millennials feel stretched to their limits.

But they are also in a unique position to make a significant impact in the coming decades.

Millennials have surpassed baby boomers are booming in numbers and make up the largest voting and workforce demographic in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. They are also the most ethnically and racially diverse generation of Americans; more than 40% of millennials are minorities.

Demographer William Frey, who has studied the cultural generation gap, calls millennials a “bridge” generation between the older and less diverse generations and more diverse post-millennials. This is why, he believes, the millennial generation is well positioned to understand and build relationships with people from different backgrounds and outlooks on life. (Vance demonstrates this; his Indian-American wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.)

“Moving into middle age, what their experiences will be — both because of their different backgrounds and their ability to move across different racial and cultural lines and interact with people — is certainly a positive thing in terms of our economy and ability to move into the new future,” said Frey, who is a senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

As more of the cohort rise in their professions and accumulate wealth, they are poised to impact cultural, political and economic landscapes in profound ways over the coming decades, analysts say.

The ‘burnt out’ generation?

I turned 40 last week, and with that milestone came a strange and unsettling realization: I’ve officially entered middle age — defined by Brittanica like a period between 40 and 60 — and I’m not sure I’m prepared for what lies ahead.

Now that I’m 40, midlife no longer feels like a distant horizon—it’s here, and I’m in it. With middle age comes an unspoken expectation that everything should be figured out by now: a stable career, financial security, family and children, and a clear sense of who you are.

But for many millennials, who make up more than 70 million other Americans, the picture feels more hopeful than real. Many millennials I know navigate financial uncertainty, struggle with mental health challenges, and strive to maintain a healthy family dynamic. Other millennial friends are going through divorce and grieving the loss of parents. Many rely on decisions they made in their 20s and 30s, and now armed with greater clarity and self-awareness, they make adjustments for the years ahead.

Despite being the most educated generation in history, millennials entered adulthood at a time of financial instability, and many are still playing catch-up. Student loan debt, the housing crisis and stagnant wages delayed wealth-building milestones for millennials and put them in a weaker financial position compared to previous generations of the same age. Anne Helen Petersen, author of “Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation,” points to precarity and “hustle culture” that have contributed to widespread burnout among the generation.

“The burnout experienced by millennials is structured by how we interact with digital technologies and some of our ideas about work and the fetishization of overtime,” Petersen said in a Vox interview. “There’s a sense of instability that’s the basic economic condition for many, many millennials, and it’s amplified by these other components of our lives that make it harder to turn away from.”

This burnout may also explain why some millennials are delaying marriage, choosing not to have children, or redefining traditional markers of success. For many, the feeling of precariousness and burnout has overshadowed the milestones that older generations saw as the right of passage.

But psychologist Jean Twenge, the author of “Generation Me,” argues that millennials are actually in a better financial position than it seems. “The data on income, on median incomes, is extremely clear: Millennials are actually making more money than previous generations of the same age,” Twenge said in a Washington Post interview.

Lindsey Memory, a librarian in Springville, Utah, who turns 40 this summer, told me that for years she felt financially and professionally behind. She was trained in a narrow field – academic librarianship – which takes time to advance. Meanwhile, her husband resumed his career in his 30s, and the couple faced mounting expenses from infertility treatments. But the year 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, felt like a breakthrough: they had their first child, her husband started a new job as a software developer, and they were able to buy a house.

A year later, Memory was promoted to head of a library department. “This pay raise allowed us to pay off our car and finally let our hair down … without looking too hard at our groceries every week,” Memory told me. “The best part of aging for me has been finally reaching financial and career stability.”

While members of Generation Z have been criticized for their laissez-faire attitudes towards work, millennials have been characterized as perfectionists and called “the hardest working generation”, channeling their ambition and adaptability to navigate an uncertain world. But the question remains: At what price?

Parenting and Aging

As the first generation shaped by the Internet and digital technology, millennials spend a significant portion of their lives online. Yet they are very aware of their compulsive scrolling habits. Actually “Out: rolls” — reducing time spent online — was a recurring theme among New Year’s resolutions shared by millennial influencers on Instagram — a self-aware nod to their love-hate relationship with technology.

For millennial parents, the challenges are even more pronounced. With children entering their teenage years, they navigate dilemmas their own parents never had to face: When is the right time to give a child a phone? Is it safe to let them roam the neighborhood unsupervised? What is the most effective way to discipline in an age of constant digital connection?

Memory and her husband often talk about how they want to help nurture healthy phone habits for their three children, even though their children are still young. “Knowing that they will model their behavior after mine also makes me quite conscious of how often I’m staring at my screen in front of them,” she told me.

The rapid development of technology over the past two decades has left parents of young children without a road map. Millennials go their own way and often feel as if they are improvising through uncharted territory.

At the same time, aging raises existential concerns in a culture more obsessed than ever with youth and its preservation. Teenagers flock to Sephora, fueling a multibillion-dollar beauty industry, while the average age of Botox customers continues to drop. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have invested millions in research into longevity and immortality, chasing the dream of completely defying aging. The Netflix documentary about centimillionaire Bryan Johnson’s extreme anti-aging regimen — complete with more than 100 daily supplements and gene therapy — highlights how far some of us will fight death.

“When you’re young, your body does (most) things you want it to do—you are your looks, your strength, and your energy,” Memory told me. “But as you get older, your body no longer does the things you want it to do … and you begin to understand that maybe the ‘you’ of your youth was never real.”

In the midst of this relentless fixation on youth, embracing the grace and depth that comes with aging feels countercultural, a quiet rebellion.

Opportunities for change

But despite the challenges my generation faces, millennials have unique opportunities to drive positive change in ways that previous generations could not. Having embraced technology as it evolved—but without being fully shaped by it in childhood—millennials are uniquely positioned to model healthier digital habits for their children.

The dual responsibility of juggling caring for boomer parents while caring for Gen Alpha children could help millennials advocate for policies that address the realities of modern family life, such as extended parental leave, elder care and workplace flexibility. Millennials have the power to redefine family structures and set new standards for intergenerational care.

Millennials make up the largest voting bloc, meaning that this generation’s priorities and values ​​will continue to shape public policy and electoral outcomes for decades, even though the older generations still make up the majority of Congress, despite the increase in the share of millennials and Gen Xers in recent years year, according to Pew Research Center.

As leaders and employers of the most diverse generation, Frey says millennials know how to “come together.”

“The bottom line is (millennials) are open to interacting with people from different backgrounds because they understand a lot of them and they themselves had a hard time growing up,” he said. “How they go forward and how they are able to succeed will do a lot to help the generations behind them because they will be the role models for this kind of new diverse America.”