Gen Y shaped, not stopped, by tragedy

0 Comments | USA TODAY, April, 2007 | by Sharon Jayson and Maria Puente

The Millennial Generation has every right to be the Melancholy Generation, and the wonder is that it's not. In fact, the trauma this generation has witnessed may make its members more resilient, according to those who have studied them.

The signposts on Gen Y's road to maturity have been a somber directory of tragedy shared. The Oklahoma City bombing. Columbine. September 11. The space shuttle disasters. Hurricane Katrina. And now Virginia Tech.

Previous generations of young people have had their allotment of horrors -- two world wars, Vietnam, Kent State, the list is long -- but no cohort of American youth has ever endured repeated mass catastrophes in the harsh, inescapable glare of a 24/7 media environment.

It has not been an easy time to grow up...