Quoted:
Millennials gave birth to 'Generation Alpha.' Are these kids already doomed?

Born between roughly 2010 and the end of 2024, "Generation Alpha" is the demographic successor to Gen Z. Its oldest members are not quite ready for a quinceañera, while its youngest will be conceived in the coming weeks.

When the last of them arrive this December, they'll close the largest cohort of children ever to exist on Earth. There are already concerns that the kids aren't "alright." The overwhelming majority have yet to graduate elementary school, and 1 in 5 are still in diapers, yet they are widely being called "feral," illiterate" and "doomed" on YouTube and TikTok — where alphas themselves make up a large and growing share of users.

Blame bad parenting by millennials or tech companies or both — but many of those responsible for setting the discourse online agree we should be worried for them.

'I need to ask millennials — why are your kids so awful?'

Alphas are overwhelmingly the offspring of millennials (those born 1981-1996), who have famously been accused of destroying such beloved American establishments as the department store, the housing market and the institution of marriage.

Now, according to wide swaths of the internet, millennials are ruining childhood for the next generation.

"I need to ask millennials — why are your kids so awful, and more importantly, why do you think it's so funny?" TikToker Alanna Dinh said in a viral video in November.

When it comes to school-age alpha children, the concern has been focused on the much-maligned "iPad kid" — a child who cannot sit through a restaurant meal or a brief ride on public transit without mainlining YouTube from a tablet in a plastic case.

A whole generation of failure'

Illiteracy is among the most frequent and damning critiques leveled against Gen Alpha online. It is also empirically true of a demographic whose median age is 6½.

In California, children are expected to be able to read around December of first grade, meaning the majority of alphas should have been literate by New Year's Day.

Yet thousands are still struggling, making reading among the starkest reminders of a pandemic most teens and adults would prefer to move past.

Alphas "are some of the hardest-hit kids when it comes to reading," said Shervaughnna Anderson-Byrd, director of the California Reading and Literature Project. "Only 43% of our students are on grade level in California."

Today's average L.A. Unified fourth-grader spent half of kindergarten and the entirety of first grade at home, learning the foundations of reading on a Chromebook. By the time that same student returned to the classroom as a second-grader in August of 2021, they had effectively reached the end of formal phonics instruction.

"That's why we have so many third-graders whose scores look abysmal [on last year's state assessments]," Anderson-Byrd said. "We've set up a whole generation of failure for these kids."

Reading is essential for all academic work from late elementary school forward, she said. Yet, even English teachers aren't trained to teach phonics and other remedial skills beyond the early grades. That's left fourth-graders who were somewhat behind when the pandemic hit in 2020 still functionally illiterate in eighth grade.

"Teachers are complaining they have 14-year-olds who can't read," Anderson-Byrd said.

Quoted:


A day in the life of a Boomer.

Be me.

Boomiest of Boomers.

Hate wife.

Work same Union job that I got out of High school.

Drive 1 of 55,000 Limited Edition Mustang Convertible in Raving Yellow with 6 Cylinders of THROBBING American horsepower.

Drive in to work at 6 am to rearrange paperwork from alphabetical order into historical order.

See fellow Boomer Robert "Bob" Hopkins and proceed to spent hour chatting about how Sports are so much worse than were in our day.  

8 am the first millenial FINALLY makes it in.  "Good to see you part timer!"  Bob laughs so hard he farts.  Millenial rolls his eyes like they all do.  

9 am and it's time to start the line up.  Line starts moving and spend a SOLID 45 MINUTES inspecting the parts as they go on by.  Not a single out of spec part makes it past me. Record is so good that the last out of spec part I found was in 1994.

945 and it's time for a 15 minute smoke break.  See millenial again and start playing ACE OF SPADES at full blast on my phone.  

"BETCHA WISH YOUR GENERATION HAD REAL MUSIC LIKE THIS"

Millenial again rolls his eyes and heads back in.

10:30 and its time to check my hours for this week. Check hours and sure enough it's Tuesday and I already have 12 hours from yesterday and 4 and half hours from today at $40 per hour.  Well on my way to another PRODUCTIVE 60 hour week.  God damn millenials can't be bothered to show up fro more than 40 hours.

11:00 and the lines going at full blast. A huge amount of parts are sitting there waiting to be inspected.

The fuckin millenial didn't shut down and now I have to shut down everything down and inspect the parts.

Berate the dumb mother fucker at full volume since he knows that the line should have been slowed down when the parts started to build up.

Responds "Ok boomer".

Not In My Fucking Shop.

Absolutely tear into him and call him an entitled little shit.  Tell him I've been on this line for 40 years and have never heard such disrespect in my life. Get Bob the supervisor who fires him on the spot.

Go to lunch at noon and pull lunch pail out with Ham Tomato and cheese sandwich.  Bob comes in and we talk about how lazy this generation is and how without us the would be completely helpless. Bob says he was so glad to be rid of that "renter" since he kept throwing the line off with all his bad timing and this was the last straw.

Ha. "Renter".  That's hilarious.  I'm going to call my son that when I get home.

2:30 hits and we have to clean up the mess the Renter made and it's going to take the rest of the day to get all the parts out.

3:15 hits and I pop into Bob's office for a drink and we reminisce about the time when we had to fight for our pensions and the union was able to guarantee 75% of salary after retirement.  He pulls out a bottle of whiskey and we share it celebrating our hard fought win.

Finally it's 530 and about time to wrap up the shop.  Leave Bob's office and the Renter fucked up do bad we won't be able to finish it today.

5:45 and some corporate suit walks in. Looks like another one of those renters.

Gathers all of us in the room and says they are closing the plant because it's not productive or profitable enough to keep open.

Doesn't matter because I've got a full pension and social security.

Leave and head to favorite restaurant Applebee's with horrible wife.

Call the waiter a Renter and laugh so hard I pee a little. Tip 5% and leave a note about how the harder you work the more you earn.

Put the top down in Convertible and drive home with Crazy Train going full blast.

Get home at 8 and hit the hay.

Another great day of the greatest Generation.

Quoted:
Be me.

Hardest working Millenial.

Wake up at 930.

Take Adderall, Xanax and 12 other medications prescribed by my therapist.

Pull up imgur and latest Steven Trollbert Quote.  Mild smile.  Scroll through 200 more images and get out of bed at 10:15.

Take SpongeBob pajamas off and put on skinny jeans and Avengers T-Shirt. My favorite is Black Panther.

Look in the mirror and my right arm which is covered in my favorite quotes and characters from my childhood.  My Star Wars quotes are starting to fade and I'll need to get them redone before too long.

Check credit cards and I have $25 left to spend which is just enough for a Starbucks and Avocado bagel.

Charliesheenwiining.jpg

Get into early 2000's Ford Fiesta with rear window covered in Superhero, Palestine and BIPOCLGTBTQIA+++ stickers and instantly back into my elderly neighbor.

She proceeds to berate me for not looking at where I'm going but SHE saw that I was in the car so it's her fault.

Roll down my window and yell OK BOOMER at the top of my lungs and drive off.

Get to Starbucks and have hots for the cashier.  She is also a millenial but she never shows up on Tinder so I have no way of getting to know her. It's my turn to order and remember what my therapist said to be confident and yell "EXTRA GRANDE AND AVOCADO BAGEL"

While store looks up at me and she takes my order and tells me my total is 24.95.

Tells me to enjoy my latte and toast and I go "You too"

titanicjackandrose.gif

Definitely had a connection and will look extra hard for her on tinder tonight.

12:30 and Im ready to start the day and get to my marketing job at Big Tech Marketing Co.

Have huge writers block because I can't think of 10 things that make linkedin a great social networking tool.

Take a break to smoke some pot to get my creative juices flowing and feel a lot better.

2:45 and I'm back in my seat ready to knock this list out but just 15 minutes later I've only added 2 items to my original 3.  get frustrated and decide to take a lunch break.

Crap my credit cards maxed out.

Steal Michelle's lunch and write an IOU.  

What the hell even is this.  It's bread with some kind of meat in the middle.

Take a bite and toss it out.

Call my mom and ask for some money for lunch but my dad catches her and says ABSOLUTELY NOT.

He's such an asshole. Tell him that I guess he wants me to starve to death and angrily hang up.

Feels.jpg.

Make it back to my desk and it's 4:00 and the days almost over.

Some boomer fuck walks in and days he has a big announcement.

Says that we haven't been able to push out enough articles and a new tool can write our articles for us.

Our office will be closed down and we will receive 6 months pay as severance.

Wow what an asshole.  Blame him for creating a toxic work environment and state that he will hear from my lawyer.

Get home crying see that my 6 months severance has been paid out already.

SpongbobIdea.gif

Book 6 month backing trip in Europe which eats up all my severance.

#I deserve this

Dad calls me and says he was sorry to hear I got fired.

Tell him it's okay and that they paid me 6 months severance which I will be using on a backpacking trip.

Hits the fuckin roof and tells me that I've maxed out my cards and that I still owe them 14,000.

Cannot (but can) believe his toxicity and tell him I don't need that in my life.

Hang up phone and start looking for Starbucks gal on Tinder.  Only a matter of time.

Another great day of the greatest Generation.

Quoted:
In my locale homeschooling and church attendance is growing hugely.

All the millennial families I know consist of dads who make good money in some kind of traditional field with stay at home wives raising lots of kids.

All these kids are constantly socializing via home school co-ops and church. All are very smart, very conservative, and very religious.

The gap is going to be massive in a decade.

Quoted:
Do you not what I love about being a millennial

low fucking bars.

Sounds like I can raise kick ass feral kids and just ride dirt bikes and shoot shit with a shotgun off the deck and still be above average.

Quoted:
They’ll be fine as long as they have master race Gen X grandparents looking over them.

Quoted:
Dang gen alpha.

I mean look at him, can't read or write or even speak coherently, no shoes let alone know how to tie em, shits his pants and this was probably the first time he even wore them in like a week, throws his food, sticks everything in his mouth and drools on it...

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/295050/20240321_084459_HDR_jpg-3166700.JPG

Quoted:
Silent Generation laughing his ass off, then suddenly remembering we're responsible for the Boomers.

Quoted:
Dang gen alpha.

I mean look at him, can't read or write or even speak coherently, no shoes let alone know how to tie em, shits his pants and this was probably the first time he even wore them in like a week, throws his food, sticks everything in his mouth and drools on it...

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/295050/20240321_084459_HDR_jpg-3166700.JPG

Quoted:


He's gonna have to learn to pick him self up by the Velcro straps, stop buying avocado puffs, and quit buying designer formula. Then one day he'll be able to afford a Fischer-Price playhouse.

I got mine at 1 1/2 while paying off my teddy bears preschool loans and riding in a 15 year old stroller with 150k steps on it.

Quoted:
Millennials are roughly 40 years old and were born in the 80s. They grew up in the 90s with a childhood very similar to Gen X, with the addition of the internet/technology boom. They also fought the longest war in American history with a 100% volunteer force.

Also, the majority of Gen Alpha currently in diapers belong to Gen Z parents not Millenials.

Millenials aren’t what GD thinks, but in for thread of generational bashing.

Quoted:


Yep. We complain about how divided we are now.... are kids are in for a wild ride.  

Quoted:
30y/o with an almost 5 year old. He’s about on par with where he should be for his age. Biggest issue was nobody’s fault. Accidentally born just before a pandemic that fucked everything up. His speech was behind until we got his tongue tie fixed and into speech therapy. But he loves trucks, planes, ships and working on shit with me.

But me and his mom limit his screen time, play with him outside as much as possible, be involved as much as possible, and send him to a Christian private school. It’s working well so far.

Probably gonna be starting him with water guns and a BB gun this summer until I’m sure he fully grasps gun safety.

Quoted:
All 3 of my kids turned out great, one is a Nurse Practitioner with a Master Degree and about to get her Certificate in Mental Health, one is an Air Traffic Controller, and one is a Computer Software Engineer. All 3 are conservative and supporters of the 2A.

Quoted:
Here's the beauty of it though. Those normal kids won't be able to complete basic adult functions,
making my six well adjusted homeschooled conservative Christians extremely high-demand assets.

Quoted:
In my locale homeschooling and church attendance is growing hugely.

All the millennial families I know consist of dads who make good money in some kind of traditional field with stay at home wives raising lots of kids.

All these kids are constantly socializing via home school co-ops and church. All are very smart, very conservative, and very religious.

The gap is going to be massive in a decade.

Quoted:




Tell me his Boomer grandparents aren’t active in his life without telling me.

Quoted:
My kid seems to be normal so far.

Quoted:
Dang gen alpha.

I mean look at him, can't read or write or even speak coherently, no shoes let alone know how to tie em, shits his pants and this was probably the first time he even wore them in like a week, throws his food, sticks everything in his mouth and drools on it...

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/295050/20240321_084459_HDR_jpg-3166700.JPG

Quoted:
Millennial here. 6 kids.

My kids are doing great, all very smart. My oldest (12) is better at math, grammar, and spelling than I am.


My wife also home schools them.