By
Bertha Henson
I WONDER about the fuss over the so called Gen Y. I wonder why everyone seems to be bending over backwards to listen to what they have to say. To respond to them. To cater to their needs and wants.
The reason is: They don't seem to be so different from the Gen X of old, those who were in their 20s and 30s more than 10 years ago. Except that now, the Gen Y views are amplified by technology, spread through the Internet. In the not-so-old days, the Gen X had to rely on the Feedback Unit (predecessor of Reach), letters to newspapers and the occasional televised forums with youth.
Gen X, which I suppose includes me, had similar aspirations as Gen Y. We wanted to be heard, we felt the Establishment was against us, that everything was out of reach. Which is a reason I guess the People's Action Party (PAP) ledby Goh Chok Tong in the 1990s spoke of a "kinder, gentler nation". It is not so different from the PAP Government now saying that it would be more responsive and inclusive.
I remember the "L" label that was attached to Gen X - we were so-called liberals, who had no clue from whence we came, no idea of the value of hard work and thrift and worse, we did not want to have children. The phrase that was attached to us: We had rising (read: unreasonable) expectations.
At a forum by a Cost Review Committee led by Mr Lim Boon Heng (yes, cost of living was also a big deal then) I remember ranting about how I wished I had belonged to my parents' generation. With housing prices so high and land so scarce, how could I afford private property or a car? And who is anyone to tell me to temper my expectations, which I prefer to call aspirations?
Much like housing statistics that were produced to justify the affordability of new HDB flats, the numerous statistics thrown at the population then showed that the cost of living wasn't so bad. But it didn't seem to gel with what we saw day-to-day. The chorus of complaint then, as now: The PAP Government was out of touch.
Ten years after my rant, I am now a private property owner and I have a car. And while much of it is through my own efforts, I credit the government for policies that have enabled me to progress as far as I have. I look at the rants of Gen Y and I ask myself if they will still be so angry 10 years later.
This leads me to the horrifying question of whether this particular member of Gen X has "matured", been "subdued", or worse, been "co-opted" into the Establishment. What is clear is that I am not the angry young person of the past, although several members of my generation might well have retained the old angst.
Or maybe, the disease of "ageism" has caught up with me. We always think the next generation is never as good as our own - they complain too much, don't work as hard and should be grateful for what they already have. This accounts, perhaps, for Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's constant lament about young people. He has said similar things about my generation too.
When I read the Page 2 column in Thursday's ST by Rachel Chang on Gen Y voters stepping up to the plate, one phrase resonated with me. She said: "We are the generation of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong." I had written something similar in the past, that "Goh Chok Tong was a member of my generation". I'll wager that 10 years later, another Generation Z journalist will write something similar, and merely substitute the name of the prime minister.
You know what, however different the time, some things always remain the same.