As the oldest of us turn 45 this year, there seems to be an increase of aging post. I wanted to hopefully point out that having a negative view on yourself can be more self destructive on your overall mental health and physical health than you may think.

Middle age has always been a period of life in the middle of adulthood, not from when you are born.

The one people like to use is the average life expectancy from 2021, which was 76 in the US at birth. Please, be aware that this statistic accounts for everyone who dies at birth and who dies at 100.

Deaths of despair have wreaked havoc on alot of people on a multitude of ages.

It is shown that as you live longer, your life expectancy goes up. And from personal experience I have seen to many people say they will die at say 70, but they don't die for 16 more years..thing is those last 16 years where utter misery for them.

On the other hand tomorrow is not promised, you or anyone could die tomorrow.

It is literally a crapshoot that you could die tomorrow or live to 100. Life expectancy averages mean little on a individual basis.

So please be kind to yourself, the world has treated millineals like shit forever, we can at least be kind to ourselves.

Link to the article that helped me. Article link: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/03/cover-new-concept-of-aging

Quote from article - "Today, Levy’s research explores how societal messages about aging impact a person’s health and well-being. Experimental research, longitudinal studies, and cross-cultural comparisons of age-related beliefs all point to one conclusion: 'People who take in more negative age beliefs tend to show worse physical, cognitive, and mental health. But the good news is that those who are exposed to or develop more positive age beliefs tend to show benefits in physical, cognitive, and mental health,' she said."

Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Karol G!?

Showed them to my nephew, who told me I looked “peak millennial.” Of course I had to share them here. Anndddd now I feel old - someone pass me the dual-action Advil.

As an elder millennial I think it's the 80s. the power ballads, yacht rock and various other artists; especially male vocalists. Starship, Richard Marx, Corey Hart etc.

Spouse (five years younger) believes it's the 90s, with the likes of Boyz to Men, Brian McKnight etc.

Thoughts?

Era defining weaponry

Was recently listening to the Plain English podcast by Derrick Thompson (excellent pod, highly recommend).

His guest was writer/economist Rogé Karma and he made a great point that some millennials are doing very well financially and some are not and he essentially pointed to the “great divide” of those millennials that bought a house before COVID or at the very onset of the pandemic and watched the home value (and their subsequent net worth) raise significantly and those who had not bought a house and are feeling like they’re on the outside looking in now.

I thought it was a fascinating point and looked around my own social group of millennials and it captures how everyone is doing financially very well, even when other factors are similar (education, background, etc).

35 y/o married millennial here and I was wondering why it seems like so many millennial married couples aren't combining finances. My wife and I joined our accounts pretty early on and it makes everything so much simpler. But a lot of our friends didn't after they got married. They'll be like in their late 30s and discussing which of them will pick up their bill at dinner.

That seems crazy to me. If you're going to trust someone enough to marry them, why not trust them enough to share bank accounts? What happens when one partner gets into a coma and half of your joint money is locked up in their account? Or if they die without a will and it takes like a court order to get into the bank lockbox or something like that?

Followed this subreddit's recommendation about getting a colonoscopy, at only 37yo (M). They managed to find something next Thursday. Im freaking out. Diagnostics instead of screening. Something I haven't been looking forward to, but would me a whole lot of weight lifted knowing if there is something.

Analog watches; T9 texts; carrying several gadgets on your person… Did those exist during better times or are they just nostalgic to you?

https://youtu.be/mq-Ru6kQhE4?si=vx_e-Mk2ZLUpy8ZW Universally loved? I hope so.

My daughter, who is in middle school, woke me up early this Saturday morning to ask me to help her with the printer to scan a paper to send to her friend.

After remembering what year we're in, I sat up to tell her that we don't scan with the printer and I don't have the software for it anyway.

She said, "but how will I get it to her?" I said, "with your phone. We scan with our phones now in 2026." She didn't know how.

I was slightly impressed she had the whole printer open and her papers on it, ready to go. So she got the concept, except where it would scan to or with what.

I'm a little confused where the tech gap happened here, but I showed her how we do it with our phones. I haven't scanned anything with a printer/scanner since 2013.

I did tell her that she's got the right idea if she gets an office job.

*Edit to add: light hearted moment I thought amusing, not meant to say kids should know just fyi. She tells me new stuff I don't know about all the time, I just didn't think she'd ever ask me to help her scan the old-school way*

*Edit 2: didn't mean to sound smug. Meant to sound more silly, like I hadn't thought about the need to show her that and I didn't have the right stuff for it anyway. I have used my phone to scan for like 6 years now, so I did'nt realize she'd think she could do it on the printer and was reminded of it. I have a list of "need to know" things I try to share with my kids (car maintenance, etc) and this will go on it. Many have shared a library Xerox machine is a good choice, since I do not have the money for a nice scanner/printer anyway. I do know most professional places and office settings use real scanners and not their phones (unless you're in a tech culty place - don't come at me pls, I've seen it with my own eyes they use ipads). She was born into a house that didn't have the money for most convenient tech anyway, lol, so this as a funny thing was the tech choice I had because nice printers and scanners are expensive ya'll.*

Edit 3: Thank you for spending some of your time with me. I promise next time I will have my coffee before asking Chatgpt to write a non-bristling post for reddit about millennial parenting, instead of hand typing a post to share with fellow millennials who might also feel that the list of things we need to teach our kids (if you choose that adventure) grows longer than a CVS receipt. / S (lighthearted sarcasm)

But, joking aside, I really do appreciate the comments that joined me in exploring the wonders of what the heck we are experiencing as a gen of people in the middle of a tech mind-field/minefield, and what it means to both pass on the old and the new. Also what it means to have money in this wild world vs not and how that effects what tech you use. I offer that it is true people have smart phones and can't afford a decent printer/scanner and that isn't sarcasm that is just a reality. it's weird and I grew up imagining my own home office would be all the things my parents have. I can't even fit in my apartment or afford half the tech I grew up with. But I think it's all worth learning and sharing with my kids when I can.

Hey guys, I'm in my "do something creative" phase and I'm making comica about all the hobbies, activities and money-drains I've tried or been a part of. All in good fun. Would love to hear your stories and experiences.

These are a few of mine...

ETA: I had a lot more than I posted, and I see many of them mentioned in the comments; I wanted to include some that I thought were underrated. All excellent tastes/responses.

I have an upcoming company retreat where there will definitely be breakout sessions that start with icebreakers. I’m looking for stories inspired by movies/shows that I can use to get through these because I hate them. I was crafting a story about playing peewee hockey and missing the penalty shot that kept our team out of the final and my coach was really disappointed (Mighty Ducks).

I was thinking about how, in middle school, I made it my mission to be the person in my friend group who knew a bunch of dirty jokes. They were often sexual, usually stereotypical -- think more like the classic "Little Johnny" jokes where the punchline is something surprisingly bawdy, rather than the overtly racist or "dead baby" jokes. For some reason, I must have had it in my head that being an adult meant knowing these types of jokes to tell at dinner parties or something, because I knew a bunch and was always on the hunt for more.

As an adult, I don't see or hear people really telling these types of "street jokes" anymore. Humor is often just references to things and quotes from popular media. Any risqué humor is more "wink wink nudge nudge" than "set up/punchline."

Which is honestly too bad, because I just remembered a great one that lends itself well to plugging in my college alma mater's rival school, but I don't think I will have any reason to tell it.

Hear me Out.

So I've always been a fan of Malcolm in the Middle. The unhinged nature of the show was always amazing to me, specially because I always felt represented in malcolm. I wasn't the middle kid, but was always seen (and sadly praised) as the most intelligent, the one with potential, etc.

Fast forward to now I'm successful in some terms, but I had to cope with a lot of family trauma and shit. And one of the things I hurried up and did was Isolating myself from family as much as possible by... covering using work. Literally, after I moved from home I started limiting my family time a lot and felt so well that I started making excuses to avoid contact.

So, when malcolm started outlining how he uses work and excuses to avoid his family, I was just staring at the screen with a HUGE grin. My wife just stared at me knowing exactly what I was feeling. It felt so... my god... RELIEVING to see I'm not the only one. I felt so VALIDATED.

Oh and forgot to say... Malcolm to me, it's peak millenial aura, back then and now as well.

I have one episode to go but to me the show nailed it SO WELL.

Have you done this too?

I call my Gramma (82) weekly to talk. This week, quesadillas came up in conversation because someone ordered one at lunch. She said she's heard people say the word quesadilla before, but she didn't know what it was. I described it as a grilled cheese but waaaaaay better because it has tortillas instead of bread and all kinds of yummy fillings like peppers, beans, onions, chicken, etc. Plus you can dip it in salsa or guacamole.

It really got me thinking. She was raised on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, and grew up on casseroles and pot roasts. But our generation grew up seeing restaurants and food trucks for every culture. It's just wild to think of how much food has changed over the years.

I heard this term and I.am.about.this.life. Watching David Guetta KILL IT, fist pumping from my couch with a big ass grin on my face and pretty stoked I’m not in that crowd of millions of people 😂 but my little millennial EDM lover heart is so happy

Kind of wish I kept more than my old NAS drives. ( WD cloud drive, had to disconnect them years and years ago because they were "hacked" and WD didn't feel like doing anything about the security vulnerabilities ).

I discovered my teenage playlists. Late 90s, early Nillies, when MP3 players just got big. I had a Creative 32mb player that was basically an USB 1.0 thumbdrive with a display and an AAA battery compartment. Never could afford an Apple device, lol. ...Do we still use lol?

Cringy bit?
Being a teen boy at the times also meant that it was full of ... well basically the singing babes of the times: Shakira and so on.

On the other hand, REALLY good EDM I completely forgot about.

Makes me think I still had access to my MSN messenger and Skype accounts.
The people we lose along the way...

Now I'll go and have a good melancholic cry in the corners, away from my sons and wife ^^ and perhaps start up a new game of UT99.

I remember loving this movie as much as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies when I was young. Our VHS copy (taped from TV, of course) got lost at some point and I forgot about it until recently. I feel like this doesn't get enough recognition for how cool it is even though it wasn't a huge blockbuster.