I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a mom this month - I'm a 32-year-old Millennial and had my first child last fall. It spurred me to think about how motherhood has really changed over the years, but particularly how that change has accelerated.

Millennials have quickly become the most coveted target demographic for brands. The reasons for this are clear. This group (generally considered to be consumers between the ages of 18 and 32) is the wave of the future. According to comScore.com, they account for about 79 million people in the United States and will make up 50% of the U.S. workforce by 2030.

In early April, Bill Simmons' "Sports Guy" Q&A segment on Grantland featured the following exchange on reality TV.

I reap the benefits of a job created only in the last five years. I write for social media sites that could be considered pet projects by companies. What they don't know is Tumblr, my favorite 'hobby,' has the potential to be a marketer's best friend.

For years, marketers have classified 18-35 year olds as "Millennials," because they share similar characteristics. However, there is value in segmenting this generation further into older (27-35) and younger (18-26) Millennials when looking at financial attitudes, as this generation experienced the recession and, thus, its effects in vastly different ways. Though all Millennials were affected in some way by the recession, younger Millennials, compared to older Millennials at the same life stage, have been more substantively impacted in several ways.

Preparing to get my own income taxes done, an article on Forbes.com caught my eye. It discusses a study by the Brookings Tax Policy Center that found that the wealth of Gen Y is stagnating. They noted that people in their 30's (or younger) have no more net worth today than someone their age 27 years ago. In fact, some age groups actually lost ground. It seems for many Millennials, the American Dream of being wealthier than your parents may no longer be a reality.

My daughter is seven, but she is so mature, articulate, and style-focused, she could easily be mistaken for a tween. And she's not the only one. Because of her, I spend a lot of time among girls age five to ten and I can tell you with certainty that the girls of Gen We are different than we were. In retail, the term "Christmas Creep" refers to the earlier displaying of Christmas-related merchandise every year. In the same fashion, the girls of Gen We are being affected by "Tween Creep," whereby girls as young as seven or eight are being …

Recently, President Obama admitted he'd have to think hard about whether he'd let a son play football, amidst growing concerns about the safety of the sport. With a keen eye on public opinion, the President is echoing the temperament of the nation. What started in 1985 with the proliferation of "Baby on Board" signs has evolved into a socialized mandate to protect children from any and every potential threat, no matter how obscure or improbable. Even the great American sport of football can't escape the gravity of our communal desire to protect our precious offspring.

Thanks to Valentine's Day, a plethora of stories recently hit the online stratosphere about the dating lives of Millennials. Many of these articles, derived by the alleged Millennial experts, hint that dating has been replaced with "hooking up," technology is a crutch, courtship has ended and traditional values are being lost.

Dating is often complicated and confusing, but that's especially the case for Millennials. They're coming of age at a time when it's not just about forming a connection with someone in person; rather, it's about getting to know someone through technology. Many Millennials are essentially having a relationship with their cellphone or computer screen as a portal to get to know or make plans with another person. They're constantly waiting to receive and respond to texts, attempting to interpret cryptic messages, and wondering how to define their relationship if they're not "Facebook Official."