11 Things Millennials Secretly Resent About How They Were Raised
As much as they may not want to say it, millennials have a whole bunch of piled up resentments.
Slava Zolotko / Shutterstock On the surface, millennials grew up in an idyllic era. They were the last generation to experience an entirely internet-free childhood, but while their early years were relatively stable, their adult lives have been defined by extreme social and economic upheaval, and there are many things they secretly resent about how they were raised.
Millennials have been hit with many challenges they never expected and are still trying to find solid ground in their 30s and 40s. Of all the things millennials secretly resent, they are especially bitter that they weren’t more fully prepared for their own futures.
Here are 11 things millennials secretly resent about how they were raised
1. The academic pressure placed on them
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Millennials resent the intense academic pressure they felt when they were kids. It wasn’t enough to make honor roll, millennials were also expected to be varsity athletes and star in the school play. They were raised to believe that going to college was the only way to be successful, which didn’t exactly pan out the way millennials planned.
The academic pressure that millennials experienced didn’t disappear when they entered the real world. In Deloitte’s 2024 Mental Health Deep Dive, 45% of millennials shared that they’re burnt out at work. They carried all of their school-related stress into their professional lives.
As generational expert Janet Granger pointed out, millennials have always been in the unique position to experience extreme burnout. “The pressure to constantly prove themselves, achieve professional success, and compete in a globally connected world creates an environment conducive to burnout,” she explained.
2. How their mental health struggles were minimized
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Millennials secretly resent the way their mental health struggles were swept under the rug when they were kids. They’re an undoubtedly anxious generation, but they were raised with the boomer belief that going to therapy meant that something was wrong with them. They didn’t get the support they needed as kids, which means they still have a hard time regulating their emotions as adults.
According to Deloitte's 2024 Mental Health Deep Dive, 35% of millennials said they feel anxious and stressed most of the time, and 33% said that work is a key source of stress, but they still feel like mental health struggles are too stigmatized to openly discuss how they feel.
3. Being shamed for expressing emotions
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Millennials were raised by parents who believed in showing tough love rather than encouraging emotional availability. Millennial kids learned that being vulnerable made them weak, when really, it just made them human.
Millennials pushed their feelings down to a place they couldn’t reach, then wondered why they had such a hard time connecting with other people. Millennials have spent years undoing the damage and learning how to express their emotions, but they still secretly resent that they were raised with the idea that being sensitive made them inferior.
4. That they were held to unrealistic beauty standards
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As a generation who grew up on the cusp of being chronically-online, millennials were raised with extremely unrealistic beauty standards. In the early 2000s, celebrity culture reigned supreme, warping the way millennial girls saw themselves. Pop stars like Britney Spears were under constant scrutiny for what their bodies looked like, and millennial girls were held to the same standards.
Millennials resent how much pressure they were under to have perfect bodies when they were basically still kids. Those toxic beauty standards warped their self-perception. Now that they’re grown, millennials are putting in the effort to heal. They’re embracing both body positivity and body neutrality, and reevaluating the relationship they have with that part of themselves.
5. That they weren’t taught how to set boundaries
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Millennials secretly resent that they were raised without an essential life lesson: How to set healthy boundaries. According to brain coach Nawal Mustafa, not knowing how to set boundaries is a recipe for feeling resentful.
“Resentment builds when you set no boundaries… [and] when you let others dictate your choices, leaving you feeling powerless and disrespected,” she explained.
Without solid boundaries, “you overextend yourself for others and feel underappreciated and used… You take on responsibilities that aren’t yours to carry and then feel frustrated.”
6. The way they were praised for being overachievers
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From a young age, millennials learned to equate output with success. They measured their sense of self-worth by how productive they were. Hustle culture has always been a deeply ingrained aspect of the millennial mindset. They were primed to push themselves to their absolute limits.
Millennials were raised to believe that resting meant they were lazy, when in reality, rest is essential. Older generations tend to criticize millennials for overcommitting to self-care, but the truth is, they’re exhausted. Millennials resent that they were praised for overachieving as kids, so now, they’re taking time to decompress.
7. They way they were over-scheduled
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The millennial childhood experience was defined by being busy. Studying hard and getting straight As was just the bare minimum. They also had SAT tutoring, weekend soccer tournaments, and violin lessons. Millennials learned that having free time meant they were lazy, so they threw themselves into as many extracurricular activities as they could possibly manage.
Millennials watched their boomer parents make their jobs into their entire identity, and dutifully followed in their footsteps. As a highly over-scheduled generation, millennials never learned how to find true work-life balance, which is something they deeply resent now.
8. How overprotective their parents were
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Millennials were raised by parents who confused being present and available with being overprotective. Safety was the ultimate concern, which led to the rise of helicopter parenting. As kids, millennials were shielded from the harder parts of life, which meant they became conflict-avoidant adults.
Psychologist Holly Schiff pointed out that helicopter parents have good intentions, but they often underestimate how limiting their parenting style can be.
She shared that being a protective parent “can be beneficial when it comes to safety and security, [their] children lack independence, which can affect them into adulthood. They also tend to lack emotional resilience.”
9. Being stressed was celebrated
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Millennials secretly resent that they were raised to celebrate stress. They were taught to wear stress like a badge of honor, when learning how to handle stress in healthy ways would have been way more beneficial. As leadership coach Tara Kermiet explained, millennials were raised to “just push through” tough times without complaining. They missed out on a crucial life lesson: how to find balance.
“When you’re working two jobs to pay down student loans or squeezing in a side hustle on top of your day job to make rent, slowing down feels like failure,” she shared. “That ‘push through’ mindset was all we knew, and it got us far, sure, but it also cost us our well-being.”
“When you have zero support systems in place — no work-life balance, no mental health breaks, no real financial stability — resilience becomes just another way to drain yourself dry,” she continued. “Let’s stop glamorizing burnout, and start valuing a version of resilience that keeps us healthy and thriving.”
10. That they were expected to follow gender stereotypes
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Millennials were raised in a strictly-gendered world. From a young age, they were taught to adhere to harmful and limiting stereotypes. Millennial boys were taught they weren’t supposed to cry. Millennial girls were taught to be nice and accommodate everyone else’s needs before their own.
Gen Z has their own set of challenges, but they grew up with way more space to question the status quo and figure out who they really are. Now that they’re grown up, millennials secretly resent that they were held to such rigid expectations when they were young instead of being encouraged to explore their identities.
11. Being prepared for a world that doesn’t exist
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Millennials were raised to believe in the American Dream, only to find out that their version of adulthood looks drastically different than what they were promised. They don’t have the same level of financial security their boomer parents had, and they’re bitter that they weren’t prepared for extended economic instability.
They have way more money worries than they ever thought they would. Millennials can’t afford to own a home and many of them still live paycheck to paycheck. According to a survey from the American Psychological Association, 63% of people between 35 and 44 years old feel “consumed” by financial anxiety, as opposed to older generations.
The millennial midlife crisis is way more about making ends meet than anything else, and they resent how unprepared they feel for their extended economic woes.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a freelance writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
