"It's Bizarre And Difficult To Explain": Millennials Are Sharing The Exact Moment They Experienced "The Shift"
1."For me, it happened around three years ago after I hit 35. Not exactly overnight, but it happened a lot more suddenly than I would have expected. If I had to pin it down to one moment, it would have to be a doctor's appointment I went to in 2022. I was a new patient at this particular office. The doctor walked into the room. I took one look at him and thought, OK, this guy looks really young. Must be a medical assistant or intern or something. Nope. He was my doctor. Through casual conversation, I would come to find out that he was 33 years old...my doctor was two years younger than me. From there, it was like an ever-evolving perspective shift. I'd be watching the local news and realize how incredibly young everyone looked — the reporters, the meteorologists, etc. I started noticing how young the faces looked on billboards for local attorneys and realtors."
"It's so bizarre and difficult to explain. Logically, I know that people younger than me can be in all of these professions, but my brain just can't seem to grasp the jarring reality that the cohort of 'grown-ups' now includes people who seem so young to me."
—u/AtG8605
2."For me, it was one event. I work as a firefighter. We got a new batch of recruits in, in their early 20s, doing some on-the-job training, and one of them says, 'You know, I remember you. You came to my school for career day in fourth grade!' I felt my body disassemble itself. I looked in the mirror later and just realized that I was older."
—u/grim_wizard
3."Remember those old people who used to come hang out every once in a while with your mom and dad? That's you. It's amazing how I used to associate those old people with tight pants that go all the way up to their belly — and I'm wearing that stuff now, and the kids are wearing baggy stuff again."
—u/XOM_CVX
4."Older millennial. I had this realization, but the good version. My parents' friends seemed much cooler than my parents because many lived in a nearby city and worked as researchers or university professors. My parents were hippies who chose to live in the middle of nowhere as broke farmers, and these people were sort of their counterparts who had money and regular jobs. We'd go visit some of them in town, and I just loved their lives. One day, when I was 40, as I was riding to my engineering job on my road bike, dressed like an absolute weirdo, I realized that I had become exactly like my parents' friends, whom I thought were cool, right down to the nerdy job and the road bike. Never been happier with any realization."
—u/whatsmyname81
5."I told my coworker a document was written in 1995, and she said she wasn't even born yet. A piece of my soul died."
—u/Special-Summer170
6."I'm working with people now who don't remember 9/11 because they were infants or not born yet. I hate having to stop and think if the people I'm talking to will have enough context to understand what I'm about to say before I say everything."
—u/sasquatch_melee
7."I am a former professor, and it was the transition from students not being alive for Clinton's presidency to not being alive for 9/11 that really did me in. My pop culture references also all died on arrival."
—u/Outrageous_Cod_8961
8."I was at the ophthalmologist's and realized that my doctor — who was clearly older than me, given his smile lines and the white hairs in his beard — was exactly my age. We went to the same university and started and graduated in the same years. No, he was not a 'later in life' student. I'm just at the age where a peer has been a whole-ass doctor for 10-plus years."
—u/Kmille17
9."I went back home to visit family. While there, I went to a store and saw a middle-aged lady struggling to reach something on a shelf. I went to help her, made eye contact, and realized this 'older' lady was someone that I went to school with — and who was a year younger than me. That messed up my brain for a bit."
—u/Panama_Scoot
10."When professional sports players started to get younger than me. 'A 20-year-old kid playing professional hockey,' I told my husband, 'is an actual child, not a grown-up.'"
—u/buttonhumper
11."The median age in the United States is 38.7 years, so once you pass that point, you are literally older than most people."
—u/onemanutopia
12."An old high school classmate was my doctor and Trader Joe's was playing Korn."
—u/misfitx
13."I'm 35 and just had this realization. I realized that my coworker — whom I perceived to be a kid — is 25 and a full-blown adult. I'm just...the more adultier adult. Wild times."
—u/rando_bowner
14."I'm 38, and my husband is 39. A few weeks ago, he commented that cops have gotten so much younger, and I had to correct him. They're starting at the same age they always did — we're just older. I pushed my husband into the shift, but I think it was time."
—u/Complex_Priority4983
15."I just hit 40, and it's been about four years, probably. Working in an environment where I routinely see grandmothers in their mid-to-late 30s will do that to you. Especially since we don't have our own children, it's an extra mindfuck."
—u/JennaLS
16."Sports will help with that. The players you grew up watching have retired and become managers or pundits. Players who made their debut when you were a teenager are now retiring. New wunderkinds are starting, and you were a teenager when they were born, etc."
—u/pajamakitten
17."Someone asked if the baby in the photo on my desk was my grandbaby. Reader, it was my baby. My first baby. My four-month-old baby."
—u/cafe-aulait
18."30. It suddenly occurred to me the other day that I'm no longer an excellent judge of ages. Anyone younger than 30 might as well be 12. Anyone older than 30 could be any age — I have no idea."
—u/electricsnowflake
19."It was probably right after COVID happened, when I was 31. I live in New York City. I just started noticing that the people hanging out at all the trendy spots were no longer just millennials. But honestly, I think it would have taken me longer to notice if the media didn't all of a sudden start talking about Gen Z. I'm waiting for the second shift when Gen Alpha comes up in five years."
—u/Mediocre-Theory3151
20."I was watching the first season of That '70s Show and couldn't believe how young Jackie looked. All of the sex jokes with her just felt icky. She looked like a child. I don't remember ever having those thoughts when I watched the show in high school."
—u/Whirlywynd
21."For me, it was maybe a few years back. I noticed newer artists I was listening to were really young. Like, Olivia Rodrigo is 22. When I was 22, that was a normal age for a pop star to me, but now I just think she's so young."
—u/DaisyFart
22."Yep. I'm 37. I work with several engineers who are a decade younger than me. The most important person in my facility — who makes many of the big decisions — is a decade younger than me. I have also heard Nirvana on the local classic rock station."
—u/Deivi_tTerra
23."1988 millennial. I hate it when kids talk about the past. 'That happened in 2018, that was so long ago.' To me, it only seems like a couple of years ago. Then I realize that seven years is half their lifetime."
—u/Optimassacre
24."I'm 40 years old and work for the VA. When we see patients who were born when I was in high school, it blows my mind. 'What do you mean, you're a veteran? You shouldn't even be old enough to drive.'"
—u/KixStar
25."I'm a teacher. Around COVID, I just couldn't relate to the kids anymore. It started with quoting lyrics and movies that no one understood. Also, most of them have never seen Endgame? One time, on a field trip, I dressed casually, and they said I looked like their aunt at a barbecue. I mean, I'm adjusting, but damn, it's obvious these are a different sort of people. Also, when they started wearing socks with sandals, I was appalled. That was a major fashion faux pas. Literally 80 percent of kids wear that stuff — or they wear genuine cowboy boots. How the hell are we not wearing sneakers? What's wrong with sneakers!?"
—u/OctopusUniverse
26."I went to hang out with my cousin and her kids for the weekend. The clock struck 9, and the kids went to bed. The house was quiet. We drank wine and talked shit for a while, shooing one or two of them back to bed when they tried to sneak out and stay up late. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I was the mysterious adult doing super fun and mysterious things after kids' bedtime."
—u/NOT_Pam_Beesley
Have you experienced your own version of the Shift? What moment made you realize you'd crossed that invisible line? Share your story in the comments below!
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
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She believes that it may have been because she had admitted to once experimenting with drugs two years earlier. Over the next month, a social worker came regularly to check on her and inspect her home. "I was robbed of that experience to like, you know, actually be able to enjoy my child. Honestly, I was just too busy worrying about DCS, and them, possibly, taking my daughter away from me," she said. Lynn Paltrow, founder of Pregnancy Justice, who was part of the legal team that won the 2001 Supreme Court decision that ruled it unconstitutional to use drug test results solely to criminally prosecute pregnant women, says a single test result should never be relied on to report a mother. A positive drug test "can't tell you if I'm addicted [or] I'm dependent and it certainly cannot tell you how I parent. And yet for thousands of women in this country, and families, probably millions, a drug test is used as a parenting test," Paltrow said. Butler suggests hospitals use different forms of screening, like verbal questions, to identify potential substance use issues that could affect the birth or baby. Verbal screening or questionnaires are also recommended by most major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The National Library of Medicine also acknowledges that toxicology testing of pregnant patients has some limitations and possible negative consequences and said it should always be done with a woman's consent. The reporting of drug use during pregnancy to child welfare agencies "is strongly biased against racial and ethnic minorities, even following concerted efforts to prevent such bias. A positive toxicology test also shows evidence of use, but does not provide any information about the nature or extent of that use; similarly, a negative test does not rule out substance use, which is often sporadic," the National Library of Medicine states. Last fall, New Jersey Attorney General Mathew Platkin filed a civil rights lawsuit against the hospital group Virtua Health, accusing it of singling out pregnant mothers and drug testing them without their informed consent. Jennifer Khelil, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Virtua Health, told "CBS Sunday Morning" that New Jersey law requires hospitals and health care providers to report positive drug screen results to the state's child protection agency, which then completes its own assessment and works directly with the families on next steps. "The devastating toll of the opioid epidemic requires thorough and equitable processes for identifying and supporting babies with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome and related conditions," Khelil said. Virtua Health implemented a universal urine drug testing policy — as an effort to "avoid subjectivity in testing," according to Khelil — for pregnant patients delivering at its hospitals back in 2018. In October 2024, a week after Platkin's suit was filed, the hospital group modified its universal urine testing protocol. A Virtua Health spokesperson told NJ Spotlight News at the time that it now screens pregnant patients admitted at its hospitals based on "patient indications." "I think it's wrong. When you're ruining precious moments of people's lives and uprooting things, you can't just shrug it off and say, well, sorry you fell in the cracks," Katie said. Nearly a year later, Katie is pregnant again — and the same fears are weighing on her. She spoke with her new doctor about refusing a drug screen this time, but says she was told that the hospital would report her to Alabama Department of Human Resources if she declined. "So I feel trapped. This all just happened a year ago. So it's very fresh. And I'm very wounded still from it, and terrified of it happening again," Katie said.
