who gets to be more entitled?
I first noticed the word being used well over a decade ago. Back then, I heard it too-often directed by older, senior management-types toward younger folks in organizations that I’ve been employed by.
Entitled.
These younger folk were often characterised by their elders as wanting some kind of special treatment; that they had some unrealistic expectation to have things just handed to them.
Sometimes it was used in response to a younger person requesting a particular assignment or role. At other times it was about that younger person making use of some resources (finances, spaces, etc). in an organization for something they were passionate about.
In far too many cases, the younger ones ended up confiding in me that they felt their desires and dreams were dismissed and discarded, often passed over for the status quo; that is, for those who already held the roles or resources.
And, along the way, they got branded:
Entitled.
The folks using this term were usually older Gen-Xers or Baby Boomers who, like I say, had a senior position of authority. They most often held secure, high-ranking 6-figure jobs in their institution – and usually their role offered lots of perks. Most often they owned property (I can remember one senior manager who owned 3 properties calling a 1/2 time employee ‘entitled’) – this at a time when it’s difficult to imagine younger folk obtaining enough for a down payment.
These supposed ‘entitled’ younger ones, on the other hand, often lived month-to-month, paycheque-to-paycheque, piecing together part-time jobs, using public transit or car shares, living in insecure and undersized rented housing – all of which took up a large percentage of their wage.
I haven’t read the book myself – but folks have suggested The Myth of The Age of Entitlement by James Cairns (University of Toronto Press, 2017) as a primer on the myth of how entitlement gets used by elder elites – you can read a review of it in Briarpatch, here. In that review, it points out “The myth of entitlement is a tool to divide and conquer young people, and it’s employed however and wherever it’s needed.”
In addition to just how offensive it is for a person of relative means to call a person with less cumulative advantage as ‘entitled’ – it’s important to point out that, when applied disproportionately to younger folk, it is, indeed, a tool of disempowerment that, intentionally or not, has the effect of putting these young ‘upstarts’ in their place.
Having sat with many of these younger folks over the years as they try and articulate their passions, their hopes, their vocations – and painfully reflect whether they can even continue to exist in their institutions, I can assure you that most millennials and the generations younger than them who all-too-often get branded as ‘entitled’ – are really more disentitled than you can possibly imagine.
These days, I still hear that word invoked far too often on those younger than me.
With that, I’d like to offer a basic proposal:
Cease and desist. Let’s please stop weaponizing the word ‘entitled’.
In the name of compassion and of mutual care, please stop.
And, please – especially stop doing so if you’re using that term while you are making a good salary, have a full time, permanent position that offers prestige and perks, and /or own your own home.
If you’re going to use the word, I’d encourage you to be sure to ask yourself, in the truest meaning of the word, who is the most entitled?