Cut the Zoomers some slack

Every generation loves to give the next one a hard time. Socrates famously called youth lazy, disrespectful, and decadent, starting a tradition that continues today. Although these criticisms sometimes hold truth, elders rarely acknowledge their own role in fostering the conditions that led to spiritual and cultural decline.

Generation Z — or Zoomers — may seem alien to older generations, but they face unique challenges their elders can barely imagine, let alone solve. Issues of identity, spirituality, family, and economics have shifted beneath the feet of this younger cohort. Rather than disparage Zoomers, the right should offer them leadership and solutions.

I am not a Zoomer. I was born only a few years into the Millennial generation, while Gen Z ranges from ages 13 to 28. Many of the problems Zoomers face originated long before they were born.

When young people complain about job prospects and financial stability, the standard response is to work harder and “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” On an individual level, this advice is sound. No matter how dire one’s circumstances, effort and attitude remain personal choices. At a societal level, however, this stance can be disastrous. As a nation, we have a responsibility to foster an environment where young people can succeed, start families, and invest in a brighter future for their own children.

When Baby Boomers came of age, America was flush with opportunity. Most jobs did not require a college degree, and a store manager could afford a home and support a family on one salary. Grandparents still tell stories of paying for college by working part-time and picking up extra shifts in the summer. Starter homes existed in decent neighborhoods and often cost less than one year’s tuition at many modern universities. Most important, the majority of children came from intact families that modeled stability, and parents felt an obligation to pass wealth and opportunity down to their children.

At 14, I rode my bicycle to work my first job at a Subway in the neighborhood. I believe holding a menial job as a teenager is a critical rite of passage, teaching humility and an ability to connect with average people. However, most employees were high school kids, and every manager or assistant manager was an adult with little ambition. No one there was paying for college, let alone buying a home or supporting a family, just by making sandwiches.

Today, many entry-level positions that would have offered much-needed job experience go to undocumented immigrants willing to work for less without the same labor restrictions. Meanwhile, Zoomers hear that college is the gateway to a middle-class life, but many white males quickly learn they do not meet diversity requirements. Those who make it into university pay tuition that can exceed the down payment on a home, only to land an accounting job their parents once secured through an apprenticeship.

After graduation, many discover that jobs not yet shipped overseas are granted to foreign labor brought in on H-1B visas. The path to financial security that their parents once took seems increasingly out of reach.

For Zoomers, dating and marriage seem bleak. They often come from broken homes, with few positive examples of healthy relationships. Churches — once crucial for moral guidance, meeting potential spouses, and helping couples through marital struggles — have been abandoned. Instead, young people turn to dating apps they find degrading, with low chances of success. Young women, burdened by college debt taken on to secure a job, hesitate to start families because they cannot rely on a husband’s income alone.

The American dream once revolved around becoming middle class. Rather than attaining a certain salary, middle-class status represented independence. Wage workers depended on employers for daily survival. Typically renters, they had little security and lived paycheck to paycheck. Aspiring to join the middle class meant freeing yourself and your children from dependence on the system.

A middle-class family owned its own home, its own car, and often a small business. The capital they accrued allowed for investing, saving for retirement, and creating new opportunities for their children. Civic organizations, fraternities, guilds, clubs, and churches formed a network of social institutions that kept government small while communities prospered. This leisure time and extra capital among the middle class fostered institutions that freed generations of Americans from depending on corporations or government.

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