Opinion: Millenials doing better than we think

Local columnist

I have a niece who will be graduating from college soon, and who, like my daughter, is a “millennial,” the collective name of the generation born from the early 1980s through the early 2000s, and often criticized as being self-absorbed, wasteful, even lazy.

After a week with these two millennials in the house (not to mention years of being with them and knowing their peers), I have to say that those criticisms don’t ring true.

On the contrary, I find many of these young Americans to be passionate, well-read, deeply informed about issues across the board, and determined to make the world they’re inheriting a better place. They’re concerned about gender equality and social justice and poverty and hunger.

This week I’ve also had the opportunity to learn about City Year, an organization that is devoted to bridging the gap “between students and their potential,” according to its website. My niece has accepted a job with City Year that starts at the end of the summer. She’ll be one of nearly 3,000 young adults working in high poverty communities in 27 cities across the United States as “near-peer” mentors with at-risk students.

That doesn’t sound self-absorbed, wasteful or lazy to me.

I am especially captivated by the pledge that all of these City Year millennials will take. In part, they promise to “lead by example and be a role model to children; to celebrate the diversity of the people, ideas and cultures around me; to serve with an open heart and an open mind; to be quick to help and slow to judge; to do my best to make a difference in the lives of others; and to build a stronger community, nation and world for all of us.”

It seems to be human nature for each generation to be critical its offspring, and worry that society is headed straight to the nether regions in a hand basket.

I don’t see that happening. I would much rather anticipate a future where my community, this nation, and our world followed City Year’s example and lived by the words of their pledge.

Every time I read that pledge I also have a pipe dream: I wish all presidential candidates had to recite — and mean — those words.

Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Betty Williamson is hopeful for the future, but not necessarily the 2016 presidential campaign. You may reach her at [email protected].