DISCLAIMER: This entire piece is reprinted/copied & pasted from the Boston Globe, where it appeared online on May 28, 2024 and in print on June 2, 2024

(see for yourself!)

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/28/magazine/when-did-my-kids-get-so-bougie/

I roll my eyes a lot with my grown children. I wish I didn’t. Lord knows I was also wildly winging life in my 20s and 30s, but something’s certainly off with them.

Really, the kids are all right. But if I’m being honest, the kids are all, well, wanting. Despite my best parenting efforts, mine have grown up to enjoy, let’s say, the finer things in life. Are they materialistic? Or spoiled? Or (gasp! worse!) bougie? There. I said it. They are definitely bougie. One has a coffee subscription. Another has water deliveries. They all have extensive (translatation: expensive) assortments of skin care and sheet sets. And don’t get me started on their sneaker collections. Plus, throw in their fiery defense of self-care and push presents and work-life balance and maternity shoots and me time and ohmygaaaaawd stahhhhhp!

Who are you people? I often wonder, swiping my lips with generic ChapStick. We’ve always been a middle-class family — not frugal, but far from the Carringtons (kids, those were the folks . . . oh never mind). All four of them were raised with a keen respect for brand names (OREOS? Sweet, Mom had a coupon!) and they were taught to recognize the value of quality (Yes, you may pick one thing from the dollar store but no crying when it breaks on the way home, k?).

Yes, they may have witnessed a few ah-mazing pairs of my new shoes stride past them in their lifetimes — but that’s the thing: luxury is supposed to be special, and occasional. Their combined desire for exotic vacations and fancy hair products has me stymied, if not maybe a teeny bit jealous (some of those expensive styling aids are legit). My generation was a simpler young adult. We were hardly as hydrated as them but we grew up fine without Sephora or Stanley. We also didn’t need friendship coaches. That’s right — young people now retain professionals to help them meet people their own age because (checks notes) no one talks to each other in bars now because that’s creepy. Wait, what?

We didn’t have the evil internet, or hipster influencers or trendy TikTokers showing us glamorous temptations of more lavish lifestyles. We went to work and switched out of our commuting sneakers and thought we were pretty ballin’. Of course, we had our share of super cool, influential ads that steered us to certain purchases (looking at you, Marlboro Man), but there wasn’t a constant scroll to keep up with everyone else’s. My mix of millennials and Gen Zers — digital natives — have been scrolling since childhood. Good grief — is their newfound love of luxury my fault? Does the finger of doom point to me, the giver of smartphones? Are my Frankenkids my own frivolous creations? Before pouring myself a frothy draft of Mom Guilt I checked in with Dr. Tomi-Ann Roberts, noted author and professor of psychology at Colorado College, who researches social media fasting. I wanted to know: Are my kids materialistic or just a product of the times? The times, it seems, are not helping. Roberts points out the ubiquitous “self-view” component of Zoom and FaceTiming: my babes’ behavior may be due in part to their chronic self-surveillance and constant awareness of others’ views of themselves. “Sure, we took pictures of the stuff we saw on vacation and of our friends, but not of ourselves experiencing whatever we were experiencing,” Roberts explains to me by email.

Wow. It’s hard enough for me not to stare at that tiny mirror of my face, a constant reminder of how others see me. If I struggle to look away, what chance do my kids have? “They are never just alone with their thoughts,” Roberts goes on. “They are hyper-aware of the look of whatever they’re doing.” Oh, the bliss of being young and acutely unaware. I was feeling nostalgic for my simpler, more oblivious time. Sure, my people are not perfect. We couldn’t keep the Disney Store alive in malls (heck, we’ve barely kept the malls alive) and we’ve been desperately relying on our kids to guide us through every minute of technology (fair trade: We keep you alive, you keep us relevant). See the irony? We need them. With their weird eyebrows and their man buns and their filming of EVERYTHING and their phone call refusal and their downright defiance of punctuation . . . they don’t carry it all in the win column. But I imagine they’re allowed to slip, too (cue images of our ‘90s matching track suits).

Honestly, they’re pretty amazing. They lean into the things they love — the recycling and thrifting and saving the critters — and they seem to know what they’re doing, even as living, breathing creatures of irony: screaming for sustainability while scouring Poshmark for Prada. And really, it’s not all grim. It turns out Boston is the place to be for millennials and Gen Zers. At least one recent survey ranked Massachusetts in the top three states for millennials, and a recent This Old House study ranked Boston in the top three cities with the biggest migration of Gen Zers in 2022. They’re moving into tech-hub cities with economic opportunities and big art scenes and we’ll be able to watch them flourish. With any luck, I’ll soon be happily raising nearby grandkids who’ll call me Glamma and teach me whatever comes after TikTok.

Guess I just have to learn to embrace their glamor. Lucky for them (sigh, and for us), they’ve got the perfect combination of confidence and chutzpah and — most important — they are driven and drunk with power. And why not? Their side gigs alone pay their brunch tabs. Perhaps my generation was just drunk? The ‘80s, Your Honor, the ‘80s. Amusing to mock, my kids are fun to watch. So — their silly splurges aside — I shall keep the faith. Even if collectively, they don’t know how to write a letter.

Tina Drakakis is a writer in Plymouth. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Boston Globe &  Huff Post.  She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as Eyerollingmom/Tina Drakakis on Facebook,  Instagram & Threads.  Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found  here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)