No, Young Americans Aren’t Facing Some Kind of Uniquely Difficult Situation. Not Even Close.

There are absolutely unquestionably things America can improve on, different policies we should pursue, and ways our country can do a better job.

Additionally, every generation of Americans has its challenges. That includes Generation Z.

Those challenges change from generation to generation. When it comes to Generation Z, I don’t envy the disastrous dating world they’re part of, the way young men are demonized, or all the toxic media and messages they’re practically forced to marinate in.

I’d also absolutely agree that the world today feels intensely competitive while houses and cars are incredibly expensive right now. Furthermore, by the time Generation Z reaches their “golden years,” it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if they were facing some truly difficult and dangerous challenges as a result of the massive debt our country is racking up.

That being said, the idea you seem to hear repeated all the time these days, that young Americans have some kind of uniquely difficult mountain to climb, is delusional, completely out of accord with reality, and it requires them to ignore history, the rest of the planet, and endless real-world examples of people from other generations. I thought about that as I saw this self-pitying video on X that expresses a common sentiment you hear these days:

Again, I just want to reiterate that Gen Z does face real challenges, just like every other generation has.

However, can we have some perspective on this?

Estimates vary, but there have been something like 12,000 generations of humans. Almost all of those generations faced grinding poverty, primitive medical care, endless toiling in the fields or hunting, and a life pretty much all modern Americans would consider brutally difficult.

If we’re looking at the major historical spike in wealth, scientific advances, cool toys, and medical technology, then we’d have to say that Baby Boomers, Generation X, the Millennials, and Generation Z have had it easier than anyone else in human history.

Although Generation Z is louder about it than everyone else, people from every generation tend to romanticize their situation a bit. Either it was a golden age, or it was super “We walked uphill in the snow to school both ways” tough. So, that can make it a little difficult to compare generations objectively.

Does Generation Z have it the toughest, or was it the Baby Boomers in the chaotic sixties? Maybe it was actually Generation X, but we don’t whine as much as the people in other generations. Also, what about the Millennials? They experienced 9/11 and were the last generation that had to worry about the US battling the Soviets for world supremacy.

Smart people could genuinely, thoughtfully debate this and come to different conclusions about which of these four generations had it the toughest, but when it is all said and done, the fact would still remain that these are the four generations of Americans that have had it easier than any generation has ever had it before.

Furthermore, anybody trying to tell you how tough life is in America is completely full of sh*t.

As a starting point, this is the best country on Earth to live in. That’s why more immigrants want to live here than anywhere else and why only something like 5,000 or 6,000 Americans give up their citizenship each year. Think about the implications of that.

“Oh, it’s so hard here! We have it so bad! Wait… give up my citizenship and go somewhere else? No way in hell! Do I look crazy?” The level of whining we see about this certainly doesn’t match what people actually do.

On top of that, the main thrust of this column is about America, but we absolutely shouldn’t forget what life is like for large parts of the world.

For example, I train in Muay Thai, which is an extremely brutal martial art:

For me? It’s all fun and games. It’s a blast to do, it’s good exercise, and it allows me to be able to handle myself in a fight. However, in Thailand, it’s the national sport, and many of them start training as children, get in hundreds of fights, and “retire” in their early twenties because their bodies are too broken up to keep doing it. Here’s some background on how young the kids start in Thailand and why they do it:

With all of the risks in mind, it’s hard to believe that some Thai children begin training and fighting as young as 7 or 8, but it’s not uncommon. A 2009 study claimed 20,000 professional Muay Thai fighters under 15 years old, though it’s estimated that there may be as many as 30,000. The danger of brain injury is higher for children, as their brains aren’t fully developed yet. A study comparing the brains of 13 Thai fighters with the brains of 200 non-boxer Thai children found permanent brain damage in the fighters.

Despite the danger, many of these children have to fight to bring home prize money to support their families during the rainy seasons when farming isn’t possible. Their fathers can’t fight because Muay Thai fighters almost always retire before their 30s due to injuries or an inability to keep up with younger and stronger men. Even when it isn’t something the children have to do to feed their families, many of them still want to train and fight. Muay Thai has a huge cultural importance and is a source of entertainment, pride, and hope to the Thai people, especially those living in the rural areas of Thailand.

...Thailand only has a 2% rate of absolute poverty (1 US dollar a day), but the poverty line may be drawn in the wrong place. …While most Thai people may subsist above the official poverty line, their standard of living remains very poor, and what they have is hard to earn. Andrew Chambers describes a typical home in one of Pattaya’s slums, only a few minutes away from the 5-star hotels downtown – made of a cobbled-together mix of scavenged plywood and corrugated iron, it has no running water, and electricity only became available recently. Soon Ton, the Thai woman who owns that house, earns her living by scavenging recyclables from trash bins and makes almost six U.S. dollars a day. That’s six times the official poverty level, but it’s no easy life, except perhaps by comparison. Even less fortunate Thai people often end up working as prostitutes to make enough money to eat.

How hard does anybody in America have it compared to them?

Of course, the response to that is usually something like, “Yeah, I know there are poor people in other places, but we have it tougher here than other generations of Americans did!”

Except they don’t.

I’m Generation X, and guess what? I didn’t own a house in my twenties. In fact, I had roommates until my early thirties. I drove a car that was so barely functional that the rearview mirrors were taped on with duct tape. When I finally got a new car and traded it in, after having it evaluated, the car salesman came to me, seemingly embarrassed, listed all the things wrong with it, and said they could only offer me $300. I didn’t complain because I knew he was right.

In college, once I became a Republican, I volunteered at the local Republican headquarters. That ended when they basically told me I would need to wear nicer clothes to represent the party for free (which, as bad as it may sound, wasn’t unreasonable), but I was too broke to buy more. So, I just quit volunteering.

I’ve had to stretch $10 to eat for a week. While I was taking trips, trying to make a go of it in Amway early on, I spent a weekend eating apples because it was all I could afford. On another trip, I slept in my car, which was actually a step up over the time I slept in an elevator for the night and was woken up by a security guard in the morning because I was too proud to crash on a friend’s floor without being able to pay him. I’ve lived at the YMCA for a while before, given plasma for money, and have seriously considered living in my car for a month or two to save cash.

I could go on and on with this, but the truth is that it’s not all that unusual, and I HAD IT EASIER than previous generations. When my grandmother finally got a house, it didn’t have a bathroom in it for years, and she used to talk about how she grew up feeling sorry for the really poor kids who got made fun of because their parents were too poor to afford to send them to the barber. My father grew up in the Depression, wore hand-me-down clothes with holes in them, and one of his favorite toys as a child was a corn cob with feathers in it that he’d throw in the air.

Again, the point of this isn’t. “Oh, we had it so much tougher than you!”

The point is that “tough” is the default setting for life, and Generation Z, along with all the other generations from the Baby Boomers on, has had it easier than 99% of humankind. Not just Generation Z, but all of us should have some perspective about that, be grateful for what we have, and try to preserve the American dream for future generations.

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