Debate is raging over whether millennials are a generation of softies who "need hugging", following comments made by ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose.
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The answer was an enthusiastic "yes" from 62-year-old Christine Mills, who blamed the government and parents in general for producing a generation of snowflakes.
"The government is definitely too soft on them, I reckon, but it's mainly on the parents. Parents don't know what they're doing," Ms Mills said.
"There's a lot of young talented kids in Wagga, but they're not finding work. They just want to sit on their behinds and do nothing."
However 51-year-old Jim Ross laughed off the suggestion that young people were fragile, saying that the same thing used to be said of his generation and, for that matter, every new generation.
"Inter-generational feuds are funny things. Everybody thinks the young are lazy, and it's been going on for hundreds of years," Mr Ross said.
"Every generation is the best educated and the most privileged generation that's ever been. That's going to be true of generation Z and the next generation will be exactly the same, because we keep going forward."
80-year-old retired teacher John Doherty has taught many generations of Wagga's children, and he said he respected all of them.
"I was a teacher primary and secondary through my life, and I always found kids were much the same," Mr Doherty said.
"There's different lifestyles and different environments, but human beings are basically the same."
However 65-year-old Wayne Stormonth insisted that things were different back in his day, saying that children were taught stronger work ethic out of a sense of necessity.
Mr Stormonth said he first started working at a local sawmill at age 14, and he said it did him good.
"Back in the day you worked, there was no choice," Mr Stormonth said.
"Now they're getting it too easy these young ones."
Aaron Pym is 39 years old, putting him at the very cusp of being classified as a millennial, whose birth years range from 1981 to 1996.
Mr Pym said Ita Buttrose's comments were "unhelpful, uninspired, and uninformed," and that most of the millennials he knew had strong work ethics.
"I think it's hard to generalise, and generalising is what got Ita Buttrose into the problem to begin with, but I think millennials have a great capacity to work hard and work outside the nine to five office environment," Mr Pym said.
"I think she would do well to recognise and exploit those benefits rather than keep people in boxes."
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Kenji Sato
Kenji Sato is a handsome journalist at The Daily Advertiser who enjoys writing flattering bios about himself in the third person. He can be contacted by email at kenji.sato@dailyadvertiser.com.au or by mobile on 0448 927 612.
Kenji Sato is a handsome journalist at The Daily Advertiser who enjoys writing flattering bios about himself in the third person. He can be contacted by email at kenji.sato@dailyadvertiser.com.au or by mobile on 0448 927 612.
