Not a Robot

No, I am not a robot.

This is what I said to a new acquaintance at a networking event when, after I self-identified as a millennial, she said “Oh! Can you help me with my iphone???”

I continue to be amused and irritated by headlines proclaiming the next big thing millennials have killed: cable, divorce, mayonnaise. Today I googled “Millennials love…” and the top search result was “plants”.

Millennials defined by the Pew Research Center were born between 1981 and 1996. The oldest are 38, the youngest of legal drink age, or as I like to say, are potential PhD candidates.

I am 31. I started using the internet in the 6th grade. I watched the planes hit the world trade center from my high school library. I applied for my first internships, literally, during the spring of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2009 I cast my first vote, for Obama, and that spring I entered the job market with 130k in student debt. Three years later, I moved to rural Vermont, jobless, at age 23. Amid the 2016 election cycle I opened my first businesses and bought a house — right here in the heart of Bernie country.

The socio-economic events that will define this century have also defined my life.

When I hear “gun control”, lines from recent Colbert monologues bounce off the bone deep recollection of my sweaty legs against my parents berber couch as I watched Columbine unfold as a latchkey kid in 1999. “Obamacare” spins me through the stress and relief of my 21st year, when I was dropped from my parents insurance, and then was granted 5 more years of grace, and access to affordable birth control.

In Vermont, I have a beautiful life. I have talented friends who are starting families and accelerating their careers. We are building our futures here. And, our hurdles to success are very real; Child care deserts, job-bound benefits, crushing student debt, a distorted housing market where we compete with cash buyers for depressed albeit unaffordable properties. Tell me, have you ever heard a young Vermonter say “starter home”?

The Oregon Trail Generation may have taken the Craft Beer Trail to Vermont — but young workers new to this state, or those who were born or educated here and choose to stay, are not following trends but responding to real world pressures that are unique to their time.

There are things Millennials want, like artisanal cheese, and thing Millennials need, like health care.

Despite being the least healed post-recession generation in modern history, as this cohort ages it will shape our economy with a buying force like nothing we’ve seen before. If our state wants to capture Millennial investments we will have to show a real dedication to solving the things that have challenged them most — like student debt –and the things that threaten their future — like climate change.

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