We all have been brought up with some aspiration about our careers. Since childhood we get a sketch of a career we want to adapt, which we have to be in throughout our life, once we choose it either through interacting and responding to the environment we are brought up in, or through some circumstance or episodes; which we have a rendezvous with, in our early childhood. Whatever the case, the sketch is quite clear in our minds; either we want to pursue medicine or engineering or have a management degree or be a lawyer or in judicial services or want to be an entrepreneur and we all set our trajectory accordingly. Many of us succeed in our path and get set on the journey (another important topic which needs some full dedicated discussion). Some of us sail through and some who don’t get the first career of choice have to settle for another, which we feel is handy and set sail throughout our life. This has been a procedure and practice we used to follow for our careers till millennial kids.
In 1987 the world was introduced to the term millennial, named for the high school class that would graduate in 2000. Commonly portrayed as idealistic and overzealous, a class that talks more about their passion than the jobs, the folk for whom what matters was happiness and fulfilment. This overzealous lot had passions which they had set once they were in the dream world designed by their parents. A kid who had an expensive car to ride once he stepped into a degree college, had a pocket money which is more than the average take home for an entry level management graduate, had an iPhone and many many more fringe benefits of being the off springs (if I may take the privilege of calling it that). Once he had to face the general realities of the work place – one in which no one is special and you have to put in time to advance and prove your mettle, one in which starting take home is lesser than the monthly pocket money he used to take in his degree college days and won’t suffice even three luxury dinners, the millennial kid started to feel unhappy at work and slowly started to confront.
The world the millennials are now introduced to is far from what he had dreamt while in the castles made by his parents, a job world which is crude and hostile, where you need presence of your wits, skills and patience every time to over-wit a competitor and secure a place where you become indispensible and benefits start pouring/ all of a sudden starts being alien and hostile and the millennial starts showing signs of intolerance, unhappiness and dissatisfaction and either quits the race to turn to ground zero or is laid off to be sent to ground zero. After all it is the world where grounded people, who show more maturity and realistic approach in their work, survive and reap benefits. Now the parents of the millennial kids start to worry, they see themselves ageing and no more being a support to their kids, in the very near future. They want their kids to settle down and start their Career Trajectory. They are in confusion what went wrong where; after all they had kept all the facilities and all the resources at their kid’s disposal.
So where was the mismatch, was it in the aspirations of this millennial, was it the approach the parents had used to bring the millennial kid up or was it the mix of two or was it something else.
Our generation, as parents, have some unique set of traits. We want to keep our children all the facilities, available nowadays, at their disposal, which we haven’t had when we were of their age. The best of the best. In the process we often tend to forget that we are depriving them of the natural instinct. We forget nature has made them the warriors and hunters to hunt and eat. Our support and helping hand at every step denies them an opportunity to polish their natural instincts.
A sight of a father helping a toddler to get up and quarantine him from other toddlers, once he falls, is just the beginning of this vicious phase, this phase spares none. On the contrary we have seen toddlers who get up on their own leading the toddler group very next day. We often wonder why our baby doesn’t show these traits, but miss the real culprits who has denied our baby this opportunity, after all it is an old saying “wanne chan yaeran khodasabun sagg”. All through his schooling, to his college and graduation we are there to offer him more than a helping hand at even the slightest of hiccups he faces and once he is out in a job, after graduation, we expect him to sail on his own in the highly hostile job/ career environment. How fair is it? Only if it was possible to go with him to his job/ career desk every day could we have helped him here even.
So in our own quarantined environment, in our own limited ways, slowly, one part at a time, let’s not deny the Millennials the opportunity nature have to offer them to polish themselves to sail through the journey of life, nature has brought us to sail through.
PS: Out of my two children, the younger one outwits the elder, any guesses why?… Well, I have been a protective parent to the elder one and when the time of younger one was there, I was too busy in my mid career.
Author is the Head Business Development for McDonald’s for North, East and Central India region
mutaher@gmail.com