Dear Grandparenting: I am the grandmother of five grandchildren. They have different ages and different personalities, so I never know what to expect when we get together. Gary, 22, is the oldest. I hadn’t seen Gary since his college graduation. To the best of my knowledge, Gary was the first in our family to graduate from a four-year college. He did it with honors too. Everything seemed easy for Gary back then.

So here we are a year later and Gary is job hunting. Nobody has bought what he’s selling. I have a friend who owns a company who is hiring. He’s an accountant and guess what Gary’s major was in college? Accounting, because he’s always been a numbers kind of guy.

So far, so good, right? Wrong. Gary flew out to my place on my dollar. He showed up with a good week of stubble on his face and blond highlights in his hair, like my wife used to do. He looked like a rat and I told him so. “That’s how I roll,” he said like shrugging it off. Now I will paraphrase him: “Performance counts. Everybody looks like this today.”

So that’s how Gary looked when he went to the job interview, and that’s how he looked when he came back without an offer. I kept my mouth shut. But I am embarrassed and ticked off that Gary couldn’t bother to clean up for everybody’s sake, because it’s the right thing to do. I doubt he gets the job or comes to see me anytime soon. Was I really all that wrong to slam him for being so ratty looking? Lee Ann Marshall, Elgin, Illinois

Dear Lee Ann: Who said anything about wrong? Don’t book yourself a guilt trip about speaking up. The age group you’re dealing with has the reputation of behaving like real hardheads. If anything, they need more wake up calls like yours.

These so-called Millennials, grandchildren born between 1980-2000, may be the most discussed and analyzed generation in history. (They were given the name because many were on track to graduate from high school in the millennial year of 2000.) At over 80 million strong, it’s America’s biggest generation ever and the most controversial. They’ve been variously described as having a more global and civic-minded orientation, the ones who will save the world.

But others characterize Millennials as considerably more narcissistic than their elders and inclined to believe they’re somehow entitled. After all, these are the “trophy” kids, the first by-products of a society-wide movement toward rewarding children for their mere participation. Success may seem like a mere matter of 1) showing up and 2) smiling. Sound like anybody you know? But we predict your grandson will come around. How many more bad interviews will it take? Sooner or later, even hardheads come to understand that the world doesn’t owe them a living.

GRAND REMARK OF THE WEEK

Jax from Columbus, Ohio, loved the handwritten birthday card that his granddaughter Layla sent his wife Georgia:

“A Grandmother is like an Angel. She takes you under her wing, prays and watches over you and she’d give you anything (almost)!”