Jenifer Goodwin, Contributor
IN THE fourth grade, Jenny Crowhurst joined her school's 'Esteem Team'. They wore t-shirts adorned with the word 'BEST', sang songs about feeling good about themselves and received standing ovations from the adults in the audience.
At age 10, Crowhurst decided she'd grow up to become a psychologist to the stars, charging $100 to $150 an hour.
"I was told that I can be anything I want to be," said Crowhurst, now a 27-year-old San Diego State graduate student who posts photos of herself and random musings on her blog. "So I figured, if I can be anything, I want to be something great."
Introducing Generation Me, the group of Americans born in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. They're confident and assertive, and they believe in believing in themselves. They expect professional and financial success while they're still young and think there's a good chance they'll also find fame.
Baby boomers have a reputation for self-absorption, but their offspring have perfected the art. Materialistic and narcissistic, Generation Me flouts social conventions and puts the individual above all else.
"Generation Me is the first generation raised to believe everybody should have high self-esteem," said Jean Twenge, a San Diego State associate professor of psychology. "We grew up with the phrases, 'You can be anything you want to be. Believe in yourself. Never give up on your dreams'. We were raised to put ourselves first."
Twenge writes about these whippersnappers in her book Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever (Simon & Schuster; $25).
As the title suggests, the hyper focus on the self doesn't bring happiness. Coddled by parents and teachers, overly optimistic Generation Me is entering the work force ill-prepared for the disappointments and rigours of working for a living, Twenge said.
Competition is stiffer to get into college and grad schools. Students leave college saddled with loans and credit card debt. Finding a well-paying job with benefits is getting harder, and getting by is getting tougher with soaring housing, education and health care costs.
The contrast between the real world and the 'anything is possible' message is leading to depression and anxiety, according to studies cited in her book.
In 2003, 29 per cent of teens - and 36 per cent of girls - described themselves as feeling sad and hopeless. The number of teens ages 14 - 16 who agreed that 'life is a strain for me much of the time' quadrupled between the early 1950s and 1989.
The average college student in the 1990s scored in the 85th percentile on anxiety tests compared to the 50th percentile for 1950s students, according to data on 40,000 students Twenge gathered as part of her doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan.
"Here's this generation that expects so much and will get so much less," she said.
Twenge is no grey-haired academic shaking her cane and bemoaning the good ol' days. She's 34, pregnant with her first child, and as a child of the '70s is part of the leading edge of the Me Generation.
Her first marriage failed because neither was willing to sacrifice professional goals to live in the same city - a situation that prior generations either would not have faced or would have resolved with the wife giving up her position.
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