Slight Expectations: Making Sense of the “Me Me Me” Generation

Current scholarship on the transition to adulthood focuses on the declining importance of role transitions, such as school completion or marriage, in subjective definitions of adulthood. Recent research finds that in place of traditional markers, young adults emphasize individualistic or psychological attributes as indicators of achieving adulthood. Some scholars and popular writers have interpreted this shift toward personal markers of growth as a sign of narcissism, self‐absorption, and lack of a collective sense of responsibility. Drawing on 100 interviews with working‐class young men and women, I argue that these characterizations of young adults fail to take into account the larger cultural and social context of declining job security, rising inequality, and falling institutional trust. By situating young adults' individualistic, self‐focused accounts of adulthood within the framework of declining loyalty in work, distrust in institutions, and diminishing social support, I demonstrate that working‐class Millennials' use of individualistic criteria of adulthood can be better understood as a strategy for coming to terms with the impossibility of traditional sources of meaning and self‐worth such as work or family.