It happens every few decades. The older generation looks at the kids and decides they’ve finally lost the plot. But right now, something feels different. We’re seeing a massive, structural indifference. Honestly, we don’t care about the young folks in the way we used to, and the data actually backs that up. It isn’t just about "kids these days" being annoying on TikTok. It's about a total breakdown in the social contract.
Remember when the "youth vote" was the holy grail of every political campaign? Candidates would practically trip over themselves to look cool. They’d go on MTV or try to use slang that was already three years out of date. Now? Look at the spending. Look at the policies. From housing markets that are basically gated communities for the over-50 crowd to a job market that treats entry-level positions like unpaid internships with ten years of required experience, the message is loud and clear. We’ve stopped investing in the future because we’re too busy protecting the present.
Why "We Don't Care About the Young Folks" is More Than a Meme
It’s a vibe, sure. But it’s also a policy. If you look at the Federal Reserve’s data on wealth distribution, the gap between Boomers and Gen Z isn’t just wide—it’s a canyon. In 1989, when Boomers were the age Millennials are now, they held about 21% of the nation’s wealth. Millennials? They’re hovering around 5% to 7%.
We say we care. We post about "the future is in their hands." Then we vote against high-density housing that would make rent affordable for a 22-year-old. We keep the minimum wage stagnant while the price of a starter home looks like a phone number. It’s a weird kind of collective gaslighting where we tell young people to "grind" while removing the ladder they need to climb.
The sentiment of we don’t care about the young folks manifests in the workplace too. We’ve moved into this "lean" era of corporate management where mentorship is a relic of the past. Nobody has time to train the "new kid." Instead, companies post listings for "Entry Level" roles that require a Master’s degree and three years of specific software experience. It’s an impossible barrier. It basically tells the younger generation: "Figure it out yourself, and don't expect us to help."
The Loneliness of Being Under 30
Let’s talk about the "Third Place." This is a concept sociologist Ray Oldenburg talked about—places that aren't home (the first place) and aren't work (the second place). Think coffee shops, parks, libraries, or even just a mall where you don't get kicked out for standing around.
They’re gone. Or they’re expensive.
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Most "third places" now require a $7 latte just to sit down. For a generation that is statistically the loneliest in history, according to various studies by Cigna and the Vivek Murthy (the U.S. Surgeon General), this is a disaster. We’ve designed a world where hanging out is a luxury. If you’re young and you want to exist in public, someone is usually trying to move you along or sell you something. We’ve optimized our cities for cars and commerce, not for the messy, unpaid business of being a teenager or a young adult.
The Economic Barrier to Entry
Economics is where the "we don't care" attitude becomes quantifiable. Rent is the obvious one. In cities like Austin, Nashville, or Boise—once the bastions of "cheap living for artists and young people"—prices have skyrocketed.
When people say we don’t care about the young folks, they are often talking about the lack of affordable "starter" everything.
- Starter homes? Gone. Developers only want to build "luxury" condos or 4,000-square-foot McMansions because the margins are better.
- Starter cars? The used car market is still a mess, and "cheap" sub-compacts are being discontinued by manufacturers like Ford and Chevy in favor of high-margin SUVs.
- Starter jobs? Replaced by the "gig economy" which offers zero benefits and zero stability.
It’s a cycle. If you can’t afford to live near the jobs, you can’t get the experience. If you can’t get the experience, you can’t get the pay. If you can’t get the pay, you stay in your childhood bedroom. And then, the older generations mock them for "killing" industries like napkins, diamonds, or casual dining chains. We didn't kill them. We just don't have the money to buy them.
The Education Trap
For decades, the advice was simple: Go to college, get a degree, get a job. It was a guaranteed path. Now? It’s a debt trap. The cost of tuition has outpaced inflation by some truly terrifying percentages since the 1980s.
We’ve created a system where a 17-year-old is expected to sign off on $50,000 to $100,000 in non-dischargeable debt before they can even legally buy a beer. That’s not caring. That’s predatory. We’ve turned higher education into a high-interest financial product rather than a social good. When young people ask for debt relief, the response from the "we don't care" crowd is usually a lecture about "personal responsibility." This ignore the fact that the people giving the lecture often had their tuition subsidized by robust state funding that has since been slashed.
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The Digital Divide and Mental Health
We gave them the internet. Then we got mad when they used it.
There is a massive amount of judgment directed at the way young folks socialize online. But we have to remember: we built these platforms. We designed the algorithms to be addictive. We prioritized "engagement" over human well-being because it made the stock price go up.
Jonathan Haidt has written extensively about the "Anxious Generation," and while there’s a lot of debate about his specific conclusions, the core reality is undeniable. Young people are being raised in a digital environment that is objectively hostile to their mental health. And yet, what is the societal response? Usually, it's just "put the phone down." It’s a shallow answer to a systemic problem. We don’t care enough to regulate the companies or provide the real-world infrastructure that would make the "offline" world more attractive.
The Perception of "Softness"
You hear it in every breakroom and see it in every "opinion" piece. The idea that young people are "too sensitive" or "soft."
But is it softness, or is it a refusal to accept the bad deals their parents took? Gen Z and the younger Millennials are much more likely to set boundaries at work. They’re more likely to talk about mental health. They’re more likely to demand that a company actually stands for something other than "increasing shareholder value."
To an older generation that was taught to "shut up and work," this looks like weakness. But from another perspective, it’s a form of collective bargaining. They aren't "quiet quitting"—they’re just not giving 110% to a company that would lay them off via an automated email if the quarterly projections were off by 1%.
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The "we don't care" attitude is often a defense mechanism. It's easier to label the young folks as "entitled" than it is to admit that the world we’re handing them is significantly harder to navigate than the one we inherited.
What Actually Changes the Dynamic?
If we're honest, the only way to stop feeling like we don't care about the young folks is to actually start doing things that benefit them, even if it costs us something. This is the hard part. It’s easy to say we care; it’s hard to vote for a zoning change that might lower our property value but allow a teacher or a nurse to live in the neighborhood.
Real Mentorship Over "Networking"
Networking is transactional. Mentorship is an investment. We need to get back to the idea that the older generation owes the younger one a roadmap. This means:
- Bringing young people into the room where decisions are made.
- Accepting that "the way we’ve always done it" might be the reason things are breaking.
- Actually listening to their concerns about climate, housing, and AI without being patronizing.
Changing the "Grind" Narrative
We have to stop glorifying the struggle. The idea that you have to "suffer" to earn your place is a toxic holdover. We should want the next generation to have it easier than we did. That’s the whole point of progress, isn't it? If we aren't making things better for the ones coming after us, what exactly are we doing?
Actionable Steps for a Better Social Contract
- Advocate for "Third Places" in your community. Support the opening of parks, non-commercial community centers, and all-ages venues. Give the kids somewhere to go that isn't a parking lot or a Discord server.
- Challenge your own biases about "work ethic." Next time you see a young person setting a boundary or asking for a raise, don't immediately jump to "entitlement." Ask yourself if they're actually just demanding a baseline level of respect that you were told you didn't deserve.
- Support housing density. This is the big one. If you own a home, you have power. Use it to support developments that include entry-level housing. You can't say you care about the young folks and then "NIMBY" every apartment complex that gets proposed.
- Stop the "Generational War" talk. It’s a distraction. It pits people who are both struggling against each other while the top 1% continues to consolidate wealth. Most Boomers aren't millionaires, and most Gen Zers aren't "lazy." We have more in common with each other than we do with the systems that profit from our division.
- Listen without the urge to "correct." Sometimes, young folks just want to be heard. They are dealing with a set of global pressures—climate change, AI automation, a fractured truth-scape—that no other generation has had to deal with at this scale.
The truth is, we should care. Not because it’s "nice," but because a society that doesn't invest in its youth is a society with an expiration date. We're all on the same team, even if the music they're listening to is objectively weird and their pants are way too baggy. Or too tight. Whatever the current trend is—it doesn't matter. What matters is that we stop acting like their struggle is a personal failing and start seeing it as a systemic one that we all have a hand in fixing.