Entitled?

I had a conversation last night with a group of friends after a lovely dinner on the patio that concerned me. We were casually joking about moving back in with our parents and somehow it shifted to how hard done by our generation is. How much harder we have it than our parents generation. From buying a home to choosing a career our generation, and us personally have it so hard. I cannot stress how ridiculous I found this, to say that our parents had it easy is absurd. It is trivializing how hard they worked for us to have the lives we have bothered me. What really struck a cord with me is this sense of entitlement that seems to be out there. Why do we just automatically deserve to be home owners? Why do our start homes have to resemble the our parent end homes? I am really surprised that there is this belief out that somehow our parents should help us because they can. I know how lucky I am, I have parents who give and give. I just never want to get to the point where I expect them to give me everything that they have. I need to earn my own way, however difficult this way has become. I cannot run home at twenty-seven because I can't have everything I want when I want it. Where is this sense of work ethic coming from? Did our parents unknowingly create this sense of entitlement because they gave us everything we ever wanted. I wonder if children who do not come from upper middle class families have this same work ethic. The whole thing surprised me. The funny thing is no one at the table was very hard done by. One of us is going travelling for seven months through the south pacific on a sail boat, one us is attending a master program, and then I know I am not hard done by. I live in a beautiful home in Victoria, I am going to Paris for my summer vacation, I am never hungry, I have nice clothes, and computers, and cable, and the list goes on and on.... So do I want more? Of course. It is perhaps part of the human condition. Do I expect it to be easy? No. I might have to work twice as hard, and for way longer to buy a home that my parents own outright. But did my parents get to go to University on their parent's dime. No. Did they get to travel Europe on their parents dime. No. But I did. I got all this and more. So it is a trade off. Some things come easier and some things comes harder. The simple truth is we are not entitled, we need to earn it.