Generation Y Does Know How To Love, Despite What This Professor Says
Written by Elaine Wilson, Posted on
The term “Generation Y” often elicits the image that many researchers have given it of late: Digitally-obsessed, sex-crazed, underachievers who are returning from a short stint in college to their parents’ basements.
Books are being written about Generation Y and their lack of success in relationships; recently, a Towson University professor even suggested classes on how to love. Because, apparently, Generation Y is completely incapable, and this man knows all about it.
In an article written for The New York Times published just a few days ago, Professor Andrew Reiner titles it “Love Actually” and insists, “Since early childhood [Gen Y’s] ears have been subjected to thumping messages in the popular culture that sex confers social cachet and, more than anything else, belongs front and center in their identities”(nytimes.com). They are, he explains, conditioned to think this way.
In addition, Dr. Reiner notes, the Millennial generation has failed to experience what makes relationships work in the first place: emotional vulnerability. “Their romance operandi—hooking up and hanging out,” he writes, “flouts the golden rule of what makes marriages and love work.”
Well—says who? Dr. Reiner? Dr. Reiner is not Generation Y. Dr. Reiner is a professor to those who are Generation Y, and has decided on his own terms that they are incapable of real love. Quite honestly, this sounds like the typical older generation chastising the younger, and that hardly makes for a comparable dialogue. His generalizations are very broad, and while he has a few student statements to back his opinions up, they are not representative of the entire Net Generation.
Gen-Y has learned to take their time. The children of multiple divorces, they see no reason to rush into marriage. It often seems that many of their parents’ generation, Generation X, was encouraged to marry right out of high school, begin having children, and work hard to maintain the American image of four kids, two parents. Generation Y feels no need to speed such a committed process along, and recognizes the need to get it right the first time. Dr. Pamela Smock, a gender studies and sociology professor at the University of Michigan, agreed with this very thing:
Smock says that in almost every interview she conducted with young adults, they cited the 1-in-2 divorce rate (although it is slightly lower now) of marriages that began in the 1970s and '80s. “Gen-Y is very aware that divorce may be right around the corner,” she says. A 19-year-old woman she interviewed, who was not dating at the time, said she wanted to live together before getting married so she would know what to expect in the future. “When I get married, I want it to happen one time, once,” one 19-year-old responded, in Smock's survey. “That's it. I just want to do it one time. I don't want to be divorced and looking for another one and going through all that. I just want ... the perfect guy, and that's it" (Modern Romance: Gen-Y is late to the wedding, but wants marriage” csmonitor.com).
This holds true for most Gen-Ys, who maintain that marriage, while something they look forward to, is not something to step through so casually.
I was born right at the end of Gen-X and the beginning of Gen-Y, and have seen both sides of the marital dilemma. I was raised to believe that marriage was the first step to beginning any sort of adult life, and I married the second man I ever dated. I was his first girlfriend. We were encouraged to start having children right away, even made to feel guilty for wanting to wait a little bit, and we eventually had four. Then we were criticized for refusing to have more, so we could care for the ones we had. The marriage ended in divorce after 13 painful years of trying to make a relationship work that had a very rocky start. Now, at 34, I have had a few years to reflect on what really matters to me in a marriage, and refuse to settle for anything less. Even more, I was not afraid to reject those who did not offer what I wanted. I will be married in a few more months to another Gen-X/Gen-Y combination, who also experienced the same awakening that I did.
The Millennials are not incapable of knowing and showing true love and commitment just because they wait longer to go for it. The casual sex that Dr. Reiner condemns so heavily does not make them—or us—void of the correct emotions, but rather gives us a sense of just exactly what we want in a serious relationship—and not just sexually.
One young woman, a pure Gen-Y and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, wrote that she adores, “the Millennial approach to love. We love our partners (and yes, we prefer the word 'partner') deeply and with intention. Nearly every couple [my husband] and I hang with has been together for years. Years and years and years,” (“The Generation Y Way of Love, tensquaremiles.wordpress.com).
Still, Dr. Reiner insists that Gen Y is nothing but a “hook up” culture and quotes from the book The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy (Freitas, Basic Books), adding that, “This trend is creating the first generation in history that has no idea how to court a potential partner, let alone find the language to do so.”
Dr. Reiner’s view on the maturing generation is rather grim. His idea that the only way Gen Y will survive “appropriately” is to take classes from Gen X, and is both pompous and rather insulting. First Digital’s ideas of making the right choices in marital partners the first time shows maturity and even more commitment. Of course there are going to be mistakes. Of course there are going to be pitfalls. But as those of us who welcomed in the Millenium with hope and zeal will tell you, it is a new century. There is no better time for distinct change than now, and we will do it. Because we want to.
