A very interesting a disturbing trend seems to be emerging. Young people seem to have been conditioned to believe that materialism is extremely important, and that financial success is a birthright. There is nothing wrong with wanting financial success but today’s younger “entitled� generation has it wrong. It appears that youngsters have heard about the Hollywood salary types as well as the high paid executives and athletes and now believe that this is what they want.
UCLA came up with its annual survey of college freshman, released last Friday. It found that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in 2006 thought it was essential or very important to be “very well-off financially.� That compares with 62.5 percent who said the same in 1980 and 42 percent in 1966, the first year the survey was done. Nothing wrong with this per-se as financial literacy is sorely lacking in this country. But consider another poll:
Pew Research Center found that about 80 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds in this country see getting rich as a top life goal for their generation.
Researchers say materialism is an obsession that cuts across socio-economic lines for American youth.
David Walsh, a psychologist who heads the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis. Is quoted saying, “Our kids have absorbed the cultural values of more, easy, fast and fun,â€? He’s also author of a new book, “NO: Why Kids – of All Ages – Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It.â€?
Mr. Walsh believes parents have played an integral role in encouraging their children’s materialism. His research found that, when adjusted for inflation, parents are spending 500 percent more money on kids today than just one generation earlier. This fact is staggering and is clearly one reason why many parents are struggling to get ahead financially. Mr. Walsh suggests that parents have capitulated to the whims of their spoiled children. Parents are apparently giving their kids more “stuff� to supposedly keep them out of trouble, or to stop them from whining about what they don’t have.
Apparently many in the younger generations are believing that they deserve far more than they really do Jean Twenge says psychologist says, “There are a lot of young people hitting 25 who are making, say, $35,000 a year, who expected they’d be millionaires or at least making six figures.� These goals are attainable, but it requires hard work and discipline.
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