Does Gen Y Have Too Much Self-Esteem

Does Gen Y have too much self-esteem?

Once in a while I'm asked to give some advice to an aspiring writer, and I always say yes. I figure it's best to stay on top of the competition. Over the years, I've met some charming kids who've levelled me with their talent and drive. But quite a few have been perfectly obnoxious. I've also eyeballed a few of those classic Gen Y resumes that show the applicant was educated at the Sorbonne and somehow managed to shoehorn in internships at The Economist and Wallpaper(*) before taking a year off to work on a sustainable-development project in Venezuela.

Gen Y-ers are much in the news these days. Their employers are popping Advil, having developed a major migraine over how to woo and mollify a fickle bunch neither cowed by authority nor impressed by the concept of corporate loyalty.

Stay tuned -- it could be an interesting sparring match.

First, a disclaimer: This is not going to be a diss of Generation Y. For the most part, I'm a big fan of Gen Y-ers. I admire their globetrotting ways, their blasé indifference to working 100-hour work weeks just to make partner, and their refusal to sell their souls to the corporation. I'm in awe of their encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons. And I covet their freakish ability to text message while booking a flight to Iceland and ordering a gluten-free pizza. But apart from a certain bitterness about their having forever ruined the word "awesome," the one thing that drives me crazy about Gen Y is their lack of humility.

Not that I have much influence in the matter. They are 70-million strong and will rule the world for the next 70 years. Also dubbed Echo Boomers, Net Gen, Millennials and Generation Why -- as in why bother? -- these twentysomethings were largely raised in comfort by adoring, deprivation-averse baby boomers. They are fearless, bluntly direct, and impatient with anything that doesn't lead to their advancement. They also think they know best and will tell you so, regardless of your experience -- or your title.

It is this know-it-all-ness, this sense of entitlement unleavened by a shred of fear or self-doubt, that is one of their most exasperating qualities. But even if you cut them slack for being young, which I do, their overweening self-confidence is out of all proportion to their tender years.

Still, you can't really blame them for unwarranted self-regard. For that, you'd have to finger their Helicopter or Snow Plough Parents, so named because they've been hovering over them since infancy, clearing their way at every turn. As a result, the most cosseted among them burst into tears at the first hint of criticism or failure.

What do you get when you raise a generation of kids who are pampered like dauphins and force-fed so much self-esteem that they think every little poo-poo they make is a Jackson Pollock? According to a piece published in Fast Company last year, you get a 24-year-old car salesman whose parents camped outside the CEO's office when their son didn't get his yearly bonus because of poor performance, refusing to leave until they got a meeting, to the point where security had to escort them out. Welcome to Take Your Parents To Work Week.

Or you get a 22-year-old pharmaceutical employee, a Harvard grad, so crushed at failing to win an anticipated promotion (his boss told him he had to work on his weaknesses first) that his mother left 17 outraged messages with the human-resources department, accusing the company of having it in for her son.

She then demanded -- and got -- a mediation session attended by herself, her son, his boss and HR. Ironically, it wasn't the demented mother who wound up in therapy; it was the fortysomething HR person whose endless hassles with Gen Y workers and their nanny parents finally pushed her over the edge.

Nothing is more vital for a child than self-esteem. But it's one thing to nurture a budding ego, and quite another to inflate and prop it up so massively, the child never learns to stand alone.

Life will humble us all eventually. On that you can count. But, in my experience, humility is a grace best learned young.

By Wendy Dennis