Prompt: Write about an aspect of your identity that confuses you.
At the school where I work, we have been doing a lot of work this year on identity, intersectionality, and how to make room for everyone’s voices. It’s work that is immensely rewarding, incredibly important, and also just plain exhausting.
It’s also been making me think a lot about the different aspects that make up my identity. I’m pretty much what I look like: a (mostly) white, middle-class, straight woman. I’m also a mom, a teacher, a wife and a writer. And, perhaps most confusingly, I’m a Millennial.
I mean this in the sense that “Millennial” is a label that I have never been totally comfortable with. I was born in 1986, so yes, I am squarely in the range of this generation. But I’ve never felt like I really fit in with the supposed characteristics of my generation.
Millennials have gotten a bad rap over the years: we’re called lazy, narcissistic, technology-obsessed, irresponsible, basement-dwellers who can’t make (or handle) money. It is said that Millennials are less likely to get married, have kids or buy houses, and that they aren’t dedicated to their jobs.
Well, as a fully employed, married, homeowner and mom of one, I can’t really identify with this description. I haven’t lived at home since I was 16, and I certainly don’t need anyone’s help to manage money. I’m not particularly into social media (and becoming less so over time), and I can’t honestly remember the last time I took a selfie.
All of this probably explains why, when I took a quiz that purported to identify which generation I “should” be in, I got Baby Boomer. (I am officially becoming my mother.)
So what’s to be done with this? Well…not much, honestly. As I see it, every aspect of identity is a spectrum, and this is the same. I’m not ashamed to be a Millennial, but I also don’t put that much stock in this identifier. But as a member of the “largest generation in Western history,” I will say this much: Millennials are gaining more power and prominence, and we have a lot of work to do to move our society forward (especially at a time when some generations I could name seem to want to take us backward!). And I’m pretty confident that as we start pulling the levers of power in society, the characterization of our generation will change.
