To be valuable in American society is to be able to work. Historically, more work, more toil, more commitment, more loyalty, more grit — all of that could make you more valuable. That's the very foundation of the American Dream. But in our current economic moment — often referred to as 'late capitalism,' to evoke how much of the economy is predicated on the buying and selling and leveraging of things that aren't, well, things — hard work only becomes truly valuable when accompanied by existing connections (also known as class status and privilege) or credentials (diplomas, recommendations, resumés).
Which explains our current 'best practices' for achieving middle-class success: Build your resumé, get into college, build your resumé, get an internship, build your resumé, make connections on LinkedIn, build your resumé, pay your dues in a soul-sucking low-level position you're told to be grateful for, build your resumé, keep pushing, and eventually you'll end up finding the perfect, stable, fulfilling, well-paying job that'll guarantee a place in the middle class. Of course, any millennial will tell you that this path is arduous, difficult to find without connections and cultural knowledge, and the stable job at the end isn't guaranteed.
And yet it's easy to see how parents of all classes would become fanatical about college prep: If you can just get on the path, that good, stable job is in sight! To make things better for the next generation, you don't need revolution, or regime change, or raised taxes. All that's necessary, at least to start, was your kid's college acceptance letter… Instead of raising kids, so many parents, conciously and subconsciously, began raising resumés.
Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation (2020)
Use
the link below to read a September 2020 article about North American
writer and journalist ANNE HELEN PETERSEN and her latest book Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation:
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