So based on my birth year of 1960, I’m a “Baby Boomer.” Although there’s such a large range in the years, 1946 – 1964, I sometimes wonder if that generation applies to me. I see something written stating that they are now splitting that group into “Boomers I and Boomers II” which probably makes more sense. Supposedly, the Boomers II generations have different sensibilities than the Boomers I generations and, in the United States, we are young enough to have missed being drafted into the armed services during the wars.

I have been one of the many Boomers, however, that for the past five to 10 years have been lumping the Millennials into a category without really doing the research or listening to them. All of my children and step-children were born into the Millennial generation from 1981 – 1996. Yet, they all do not act or believe the same way, so why would I lump all Millennials into the same category?

In the same way that I don’t like to be compared to ‘all’ women, ‘all’ Boomers, or ‘all’ anything, why would I be so bold as to compare ‘all’ Millennials as being the same? I recently read an article that made me stop and reconsider my views. It was an article where a young man was wise enough to politely argue some complicated subjects with his parents which resulted in his parents becoming silent. In the first part of this article, my response was right on, agreeing with the parent’s retorts. Then, however, the son said some things that made me STOP!

Wait, What? I’ve heard some of these statements from our children and yet instead of asking them why they felt the way they did, I just disagreed. Yet, I’m fully aware that our youth are totally burdened by college debt, and I have often been commenting on how crazy rent prices and housing costs in general are, so why did I not listen?

I owned a small business and would often feel the burden of ‘minimum wage’ versus what applicants wanted to be paid. I wanted my staff to be smart, although we didn’t require college graduates for our positions, we wanted dedication, hard work, loyalty, and accuracy in their work, and always loved the long-term worker versus short-term workers. Training new workers, in our business, took a lot of time and ultimately, money! We rarely paid minimum wage as we hoped that by paying a bit more than that we’d keep employees longer. We gave yearly wage increases as well. However, since we couldn’t afford too much, we tried to pay attention to those that we hired as we knew that single parents or household breadwinners, would not be able to afford to live on what we paid. We also offered many benefits that larger companies offered to the best of our ability, like 401K’s and Simple IRA’s with employer matching, and we paid half of the employee’s health insurance. When possible, we’d offer incentives or commissions to help out as well. Over the years, we had employee parties, provided snacks, and drinks, gave Christmas bonuses, and tried to make the work environment as pleasant as possible.

As much as we tried to do what was right, we couldn’t afford to give all of our employees enough wages to live on based on inflation and the cost of living for rent, food, etc. We ultimately reconfigured our business to be more automated so fewer employees would be needed and we could pay the employees that we kept, more money. Yet, throughout all of the upgrades and changes, I still didn’t connect the dots to why Millennials would do what they do or say what they say.

My goal is to listen more and place fewer judgments on the Millennials and the next generations as well. Unless you live in someone else’s shoes, you have no real right to judge them on why they do what they do or why. There are things that I’ve done in my life that have been looked down upon by others, but I kept my head high because those that judged me had not lived in my shoes and didn’t know why I made the decisions that I made. I hope that I can live my life NOT judging others and making blanket statements referring to all people as if everyone is the same.

Perhaps there will be some peace in this world if more of us would stop and listen instead of judging others.