Entitled millennials? More like hamsters in a wheel

Robert Shrimsley:

Like middle-aged men through the ages, I have long worried about the character of the country’s youth while privately hoping my own spawn would be the exception. Sadly, events at home have now provided incontrovertible proof that this generation is veering badly off track.

Our saga began last Thursday, when the girl underwent an unpleasant tooth operation in which two molars that had failed to grow through were removed under general anaesthetic, in a procedure that involved cutting into the gums. All went well and she returned home later that day in good spirits, enjoying the attention and the copious amounts of ice cream we had bought while under the mistaken impression that this was the same as having your tonsils out.

I had taken the next day off work to look after her as the painkillers wore off and the side effects of the anaesthetic kicked in. So it was with some surprise — and indeed irritation — that I learnt she intended to go into school the next day. I know that a loving parent should have welcomed this speedy recovery. But as a concerned father I was, well, concerned. Clearly this was a sign of delirium. This was the drugs talking. Surely no child of mine would turn up her nose at the chance to miss school — on a Friday too? This is not a big exam year, so there seemed no justification for this display of diligence. But she was adamant: “I’ve already missed one day. I don’t want to have to catch up on two days’ work.”

Now, the girl has many virtues but a fanatical commitment to schoolwork has never been one of them. She will do what is expected, but keen is not a look she cultivates. She is also — how can I put this? — not one of those kids who is unknown to the school nurse. So her insistence was a surprise and, if I’m honest, a bit of a disappointment. I had always believed we had raised the spawn with strong principles and yet here she was, spurning a legitimate sick day. Where, I had to ask myself, did we go wrong?

The next morning, still only half-awake, I heard her leaving for school, abandoning me to a day of nursing duties bereft of a patient. I could, I suppose, have scrapped the day’s leave and headed into the office but the lure of a long weekend was too seductive and, anyway, I didn’t want to risk a reaction to the anaesthetic.

But the more I reflected on her action, the more it bothered me. The boy, in his A-level year, is working flat out but she, at 14, has only just reached what one might call the business end of her education. Her school, while good, is certainly no hothouse, and yet missing just two days is seen as falling impossibly far behind. Something has gone wrong when young teenagers dare not take a day to recuperate after an operation.

Increasingly, it feels that the pressure never lets up. From 14 on, they face GCSEs and then it’s straight into the lower sixth, where end-of-year exams determine university predictions and, finally, A-levels. We hear a lot of talk about entitled millennials — but all I can see in my children and their friends is the terror of the world into which they are moving, and the sense of being on a hamster wheel that never slows. They face job insecurity even if they are smart enough to know which of their possible chosen professions might still offer a viable career path in 10 years’ time. They feel an intensity of competition that I certainly never felt, hailing from a cohort in which fewer than 10 per cent went on to university.