Caribbean Millennials Be Like: Coconut Oil, Cultural Guilt and 3 Side Hustles

Because therapy expensive, coconut oil not so cheap, and we’re still expected to pay a mortgage.

There’s a very specific experience that comes with being a Caribbean millennial, a beautiful, complex, high-functioning, spiritually-tired-but-still-polished identity that deserves its own genre of storytelling.

We are the generation that grew up barefoot in the yard, got lectured with proverbs, learned to season meat at age 9, and now carry the emotional weight of being ambitious, exhausted, overqualified, underpaid, and slightly suspicious of “soft life” content.

This is our reality: where coconut oil fixes everything except generational trauma, and you’re expected to be a financial plan, emotional therapist, tech support, and social media strategist for your entire family.

Let’s talk about what it really means to be a Caribbean millennial in 2025. (Because we deserve to laugh, cry, and budget at the same time.)

1. We Treat Coconut Oil Like a First Aid Kit, Currency, and Lifestyle Brand

Coconut oil is not simply a product, it's a fundamental aspect of our culture.

We’ve used it for:

• Dry skin

• Burns

• Split ends

• Toothpaste

• Cooking

• Emotional support

You could have all the serums in Sephora, and still your auntie will ask:

“But yuh using coconut oil?”

We’re wellness-forward, sure. But also deeply rooted in the idea that nature (and a lil’ bay leaf tea) can out-heal anything from burnout to heartbreak...where any pain is gyas pain....and if you're depressed, yuh ass too happy.

2. Cultural Guilt? Oh, We Know It Well.

Ah yes, the subtle and not-so-subtle pressure to:

• Be the successful one

• Make the family proud

• Keep quiet about your boundaries

• Help everybody with everything without saying a word

You could be doing amazing things, building businesses, healing your lineage, showing up for your community and someone will still bring up the one thing you haven't done yet:

“So, when yuh gettin marrid?”

We’re out here breaking cycles and still feeling guilty for saying no to things we never had energy for in the first place.

And God forbid you rest.

Because to older generations, rest is laziness, therapy is “white people ting”, and your corporate job still doesn’t look like work because "yuh getting pay to sit down in AC whole day."

3. We Have 3 Side Hustles and Still Feel Like We Should Be Doing More

It’s giving:

• Content creator by day

• Virtual assistant by night

• Pop up food/bakery sales on the weekends

• Also launching a digital journal brand and lowkey learning forex “just in case”

All while:

• Helping your mom with WhatsApp

• Editing your cousin’s résumé

• Remembering your niece’s birthday

• Attending yuh friend, sister-in-law, mother funeral to show yuh face

• Managing your blood pressure, sugar, anxiety, and full moon mood swings

We are the definition of high-functioning fatigue, resourceful to a fault, constantly innovating, and somehow still scared to disappoint anyone.

4. We’re Doing Inner Child Healing with Soca in the Background

You might catch us:

• Journaling with Kes playing softly

• Meditating while someone outside is blasting chutney music while washing their car

• Doing shadow work in a house that still has doilies and framed graduation photos from 2006

We’re navigating spiritual wellness and spiritual warfare and still making time to say grace before eating a $150 poke bowl we didn’t really budget for.

We don’t fit into a box. We’re ancestral and digital, rooted and rebranding, traumatized and hilarious.

5. We Want Peace, But We’re Still Replying to Family Group Chats

There’s no real escape. And if you do manage to go ghost, someone will still message:

“Yuh moving funny. We have words?”

Peace is something we’re actively learning to choose.

Not just by meditating but by rewriting the stories we inherited.

We’re not just hustling. We’re healing.

We’re not just surviving. We’re shifting.

We’re not just glowing we’re growing, and it’s finally starting to show.

Final Thought: We’re the Bridge, and Sometimes That’s Heavy

Being a Caribbean millennial means carrying a lot:

• The history

• The hope

• The hustle

• The healing

But we’re also learning to put things down. To laugh. To soften. To not take it all so seriously.

Because yes, we’re resilient...but we’re also allowed to rest.

We’re allowed to say, “Not this time.”

We’re allowed to stop proving we’re doing enough.

We’ve already done more than we were ever given credit for.

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