When I was visiting my grandparents this past June, my grandmother sat down with me at her kitchen table, where I was drinking coffee and reading the paper.

“I like you,” she said. “Thanks,” I said, “I like you too.” “I didn’t used to like you as much,” she said. I was, of course, taken aback. “Why not?” “You were spoiled.” “Hm,” I mumbled. Uncomfortably. “I like you a lot better now,” she said “So do I,” I said.

Please don’t judge my grandmother. Like so many other grandmothers I know, she’s a tough cookie. She grew up in a Southside Chicago Irish Catholic family; the kind of family that produces a lot of cops. After a very difficult marriage, she raised her three daughters on her own, working her way up in the FMC corporation from administrative assistant to become the assistant to the President of the company, where she met and married my grandfather.

And I know what she meant when she said that.

I had a pretty cushy upbringing. The product of two yuppie, baby boomer parents, I had everything: private school education, summer camp, tutors, horseback riding, music lessons, expensive family vacations. I don’t think that I was spoiled; my brother and I had to work in our family business, and I had a job working at Zingerman’s starting when I was 14. My parents didn’t buy me a fancy car (although at my school, Greenhills, there were plenty of those, let me tell you). But I certainly never wanted for anything, and I had no sense of the value of everything that I had.

In the past six years, a lot has changed.

Now I’m a single parent, raising a 5-year-old. And I have had to fight. I have cried on the phone when told there was a five-year waiting list for Section 8 housing assistance, and that the list was closed. I have filled out the application for food stamps, thought about it, and instead walked back out the door.

I have had to deal first hand with the effects of the economy in Michigan, taking a series of jobs which either resulted in lay-offs or raise-freezes which made it impossible to advance.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, “If I were allowed to, I would promote you in a heartbeat,” or, “You’re our obvious first choice, but we just can’t extend any contracts.”

Despite my full-time contributions to The Ann Arbor News, there was no room in the budget to promote me from part time, so for almost two years I had to work two jobs; as a reporter during the day and a waitress at night.

Sometimes I was so exhausted that I would come home between jobs, throw in a load of laundry and cry.

But you know, now I’m a tough cookie, too. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jean M. Twenge, author of the book “Generation Me: Why Today’s Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - And More Miserable Than Ever Before,” writes: “We live in a time when high self-esteem is encouraged from childhood, when young people have more freedom and independence than ever, but also far more depression, anxiety, cynicism, and loneliness."

Ours is a generation that was brought up to think of ourselves.

But we can’t do that anymore. And I’m glad. Because, frankly, we’ve all been at risk of becoming a real bunch of assholes.

A lot of the people I grew up with had it really easy. They graduated high school, went to good colleges, got well-paying jobs and coasted right on through. They bought flat-screen televisions and brand-new Volkswagens; there was no need for thrift, and no need to rely on anybody else.

But things are different now. Those cushy jobs are harder to come by. And, if you’re lucky enough to have one, there’s always the knowledge that tomorrow it could be gone. And, for the first time, a lot of us have to look out not only for ourselves, but for each other.

And we’re learning the skills our grandparents had. We grow vegetables in our gardens and preserve the extras for the winter. We make our own soup stocks, knit our own sweaters, sew our own quilts. We help take care of each other’s children. We pick up the tab when we’re having a windfall. In my opinion, we’re much more solid people.

The economy will get better. And I’m as happy about that as anyone. I will be thrilled for a time when I don’t have to worry about work, balk at my bills and try to figure out how I’m going to pay my rent.

But my grandmother is right. A lot of us were spoiled. And now I like us a lot better, too.

Jordan Miller is the lead blogger for The Deuce. She can be reached via E-mail at A2jordanmiller [at] gmail.com, or on Twitter: _jordanmiller_