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Help Wanted to Improve the Lives of Youth
I suppose to be young is to be clueless. For example, it turns out that what others considered the most interesting part of my last post was the part I cut out. To leave you, dear reader, to go in peace with your precious time, I’ll give the gist of what I did post.
I’m somewhat ambivalent about the Jordan Peterson sensation. This isn’t because I have any doubts that he’s a good man or a positive influence on the young men who follow him. It’s only because I think inspirational YouTubers, even the best of them, are no substitute for the role model properly understood. The young need to have actual relationships with the adults they elevate and admire. Even if the grown-up of the arrangement would say they’re admired for fictitious virtues – Cary Grant said he wished he was Cary Grant – it’s very real to the child. But it’s only even sort of real if somebody is actually there. (Maybe it’s best if you read the post.)
In the comments, @vancerichards made the point that young people in need would likely honor their elders if they asked someone they look up to (whether a superior in the office, a neighbor, an aunt or uncle, and so on) to mentor them. I think he’s absolutely correct. The trouble is that young people are wary to ask and it’s worthwhile to think about why that is.
I’m more familiar with the tendencies – it may be more accurate to call them the neuroses – of young men, but I’d like to start with a curious thing I’ve noticed that strikes me as a cause for concern to women, even if it’s only slightly “a woman’s concern.” Here and there I’m getting news about marital engagements. It’s a good thing. A great thing. The best thing! What’s interesting is when I inquire, directly or more tactfully, about how long the betrothed were un-trothed. I mostly get the same answer. Eight years.
Considering that these girls are marrying in their thirties, that presumably they’re interested, and likely always were, in having children, I can’t help but wonder why they put up with indecisive, feckless long-term boyfriends who are wasting precious time. For all the blathering about strength and independence (plus the vagina costumes!) one might’ve thought that the assertiveness which has been foisted upon young women would see that they’d demand a fairer shake. And these are the girls! These are the ones who get a lot of (albeit, grossly condescending) encouragement. I couldn’t say if it makes them better or worse off.
Here’s what I’m getting at: I don’t think young Americans like themselves very much. It doesn’t occur to them to expect – let alone ask for – better treatment.
Social media, self-esteem crazes, participation trophies, and the like could very well give the impression that young people are prone to unearned self-adulation. Granted, much of what we see is an ugly sight to behold, and self-obsession is demonstrably an issue – why else would the sexless teens and twenty-somethings of today put so much thought into the complicated nature of their nonexistent sexualities? But the self-obsession isn’t venerating. The selfies and other novelties of attention-seeking behavior are acts of desperation. It’s a strange cycle. Self-denigration for the sake of self-affirmation, which contributes to self-hatred. The machine hums along, the corpses pile up.
As abrasive as they are, it’s a fragile batch. They’ve been gypped, and they don’t have to be paranoid (which they are) to wonder who they can trust… assuming there’s anyone they can. Many weren’t ever told that they’re children of G-d. A lot of them weren’t told to be proud of their toiling ancestors. More than a few believe their existence is the result of shameful circumstances. It can’t be much of a wonder why these people have a low estimation of themselves. And if that’s the case, maybe it’s reasonable that they don’t think they’re worthy of a helping hand.
So what does this have to do with American adults?
In one sense not much. When I say “adult” I’m not really talking about age, and those of you who are even slightly interested in this post probably don’t share much in the blame. But in another sense, it means a great deal. After all, it’s you who have the right stuff. You’re concerned the way responsible people are concerned. You have children you’d like to see married, you’d like to meet your grandchildren, or maybe you have grandchildren that you think deserve a bit of what was bestowed to you. For all their peculiarities, kids these days have a problem that is common with the kids of all the days that came before. Kids are, and will always be, [redacted] stupid. At least until they’re guided to adulthood.
What makes this bunch of young people unique is that they don’t like themselves. It doesn’t occur to them that they deserve better – I mean that they don’t think they deserve a real shot at the good life and the help they desperately need to attain it. To complicate matters, a lot of these young people are truly damaged goods. Even though I’m in the thick of it, I have a hard time calling these things. But this makes it all the more essential that we work on the youngsters we can work with. Those ones aren’t too hard to spot to the perceptive viewer. It’s worth keeping an eye out for the corporals among the privates. And if we get them going, they can sift through their questionable peers.
In an ideal world, busy adults could be busy with their business. But the times aren’t ideal. The kids are not alright. Thankfully they’re not done for. They just don’t have a high enough opinion of themselves to think they’re worth anybody’s time – they don’t even think they’re worth their own. But if you have some to spare, consider adopting one of the few you think has some potential. Give it a try even if they don’t ask (most won’t have the courage). But if we’re lucky, they, and your biological grandchildren, will thank you for the help they didn’t know how to ask for.
*** Special thanks to @flicker for encouraging this follow-up post. I hope I moved the needle towards what you were asking about. I owe you at least one more post about the other thing!
Published in General
Fear that no one exists TO treat them better. Is the best the world has to offer mediocre?
Why take the risk of demanding better treatment when better treatment doesn’t exist? Or when the world questions the value of that better treatment?
I may be naive or overly optimistic, but I do believe there are adults who want to do their part. I probably wouldn’t be here if I didn’t gravitate towards Baby Boomers and younger members of the Silent Generation. I’m just more at home with that crowd.
I can understand why they don’t know how to help millennials or Gen Z. But I don’t think they’re uninterested.
There is so much here, I don’t know where to start. So I will ramble.
A colleague of mine married his 10 year plus girlfriend, had a child, and the relationship melted down. If you are in, go in go all in, but do it one way or the other soon.
I met my wife after I left my foolishness (and good things too) of college. We would not have liked each other in college. We have been married 32 years.
No matter where you are in life, there is someone who looks to you as older, the model. Whatever you think of yourself, there is likely some person who looks up to you.
I really have to think about this. The so-called gen-Xers were the first generation raised in a culture of the Pill, no-fault divorce, abortion on demand, and two-earner households. Gen-Xers were the first latchkey kids, and have also been labeled the least parented, least nurtured children in US history.
Their children (born around 1995, I guess they’re millennials) were parented and nurtured by the least parented and least nurtured people ever. No wonder they feel alone in the world, shun commitment, and don’t ask for help. Is it possible that they grew up so independent because they never had people to depend upon?
Well, you don’t see that very often ;)
Personally, I think faith is is at the heart of it. I didn’t come to Christ until my early 30’s. During my 20’s, I didn’t have much direction. If I am honest, I had a lot of fun, but in a very real sense I was lost until I found something much bigger than myself to focus on.
I always tell my kids (ages 15 & 18) that teenagers are idiots . . . even the good ones. Try to tell them things so they can learn from the mistakes of others (like me) rather than make the same mistakes for themself. They need guidance, whether they listen or not (so far, my kids are better than I was at their age).
In the past when I worked at a larger company, I always got excited when I could help a staff member really find their stride, even though when I put them up for a promotion it often meant they would be leaving my team. Now I work for a company with only seven employees, all remote, and none of us are young. I have to say, at this stage in my career I am good with remote work, but if I was starting out and had to stay home rather than have an office full of people I could learn from, that wouln’t be good.
Or to put it another way, they were raised before Helicopter and Lawnmower parenting. Which is why they’re the ones with their heads still on straight.
Also, I think of Millennials as children of Boomers, not X-ers. X-ers would have had to marry young and have babies young for Millennials to be their children.
We’re out of Dixie coffee cups with their great lids. There’s some kind of supply chain problem afoot, so we’ve had to wing it for a few months. Yesterday, my son and I went to a nursery and garden center a half hour’s drive away, and I brought hot coffee with me–with no lid. My son was worried I’d spill it, but I told him there’s a way to hold it so that doesn’t happen.
I said, “When your dad and I were first married, we used to commute from the north shore into Boston every day. We were on the road at six in the morning. What made that two-hour commute tolerable was that we always stopped at what is now one of the oldest Dunkin’ Donut coffee shops in the country where we got coffee to have while we sat in traffic. There were no driveup windows back then, which meant that whichever of us got out of the car to get the coffee had to wait in line in a brightly lit, friendly, warm-pastry-smelling coffee shop for a few minutes. Much better way to start the day than a driveup window. People were friendly and joking. It was fun. At any rate, the coffee was superhot, and the cups were filled right to the top. And there were no lids back then.”
My son laughed. “No lids? Good grief. You and dad were living in the wild west.”
My husband and I were talking about this, about the different world our kids grew up in. The shrieking “Be careful!” mindset that our kids’ generation was raised in frankly traumatized them. My husband and I both see an aversion to risk in our kids and their friends that is way more than we had. We raised a very anxious generation.
We did not do enough to temper our own emotional reaction to the news stories we were being inundated with of terrible things happening to children–sickness, accidents, and so on. In all fairness, we all wanted to be the best parents we could be because we loved our children more than life itself. We are all–all generations–subject to cultural forces, seen and unseen, beyond our control.
That’s why I think the big movement we need now is a forgiveness movement. When we calm down and see people as frail bones-and-blood creatures like ourselves, as people making good and dumb decisions every single second of every day, it helps us keep our sense of humor. We’re all on the same bumpy path. :) What’s important to me about starting a forgiveness movement is that it will take some pressure off of our perfectionistic offspring. A lot of the anxiety I see in my kids and their friends is coming from their admirable but impossible-to-achieve desire to be perfect. We all need to relax a little bit.
Gen x is the kids of older boomers, millenials are the kids of younger boomers, Gen z is the kids of Gen x and older millenials.
Yeah, that’s why I don’t like the generational labels, they have so much vagueness and overlap to them. It’s funny that we’ve, as a society (at least in the US or the West) have virtually ended our generations on earth. What comes after Gen-Z? Generation Double-A? When I was a teenager, the Baby Boomer birth years ended at 1957 or so, and it was actuarial. Now I read that it’s different. I’ve tried to think of generations in both biological and cultural trends.
Baby boomers — the 1st Post-war Generation — are those born more or less around 1950, to parents born in the mid 1920s, and came of age in the early 1970s. The earliest boomers (born in 1945) came of age in 1965 to 1970, but most of them came of age and started having children in the early 1970s.
The next generation, the 2nd Post-war Generation, the children of the baby boomers, were born in the 70s and came of age and started having children 20 to 25 years later, around 1995. These children born in the 70s and raised in the 70s and 80s were called latchkey kids. Whether these latchkey kids (whatever you want to call them) were born to late baby boomers or those of the early 2nd Post-war Generation, they were still born in a culture of the Pill, no-fault divorce, abortion on demand, and about the early years of two-earner households and latch-key kids. (And disco.) These were not the most stable and nurturative environmental factors for the family or to raise children in.
The bad effects on the forming personality of being raised with long periods alone are loneliness, fear, and boredom, and the positives are independence and self-reliance.
Not to overgeneralize, but the 3rd Post-war Generation, begun around 1995 were by and large raised by parents who were less nurtured, more lonely and fearful, and more independent and self-reliant. It seems as though these parental traits have been learned and reinforced in their children. And at the same time, these traits appear to form a general cultural environment which affect others as well.
The question is what we can do about it. And Sam’s answer is for older folks to step up and show the right way.
What’s lawnmower parenting?
The cut-offs are all over the place. I thought boomers were 45- 65, xers 65-85, and millenials 85-2005. The cut offs vary by a couple years here and there.
My mom was born 63 and I was born 83. All of my peers and those younger than me were born to people older than my parents.
The boomers generally did not have kids young. They were the first to wait.
Parents who mow down any obstacle in the path of their precious child.
That’s what I was thinking. Which is why I consider them the parents of Millennials. I think Gen-X largely waited, too. I’m not sure of the trend these days, but I feel like people are going back to marrying young. That is, if they’re the marrying type and not the shacking up type. Anyway, I approve. Marry young, have kids while young. Have lots of kids.
I am sitting in the Hollywood Burbank Airport. I estimate that 60-70% of travelers in their early 20s and younger are wearing face masks.
Well, part of the problem is that they are called a “generation”. So really you can’t have parents and children of the same generation. And reproductive years last for two decades, essentially, which really negates any distinct classification of “a generation”. I don’t use (and shouldn’t have in my first comment) modern generational labels for this reason.
My points revolve around a tremendous spike in post-WWII births (which I will call one generation) that lasted about 17 years. And a change in society that took hold more or less when the grandchildren of that first post-war generation were being born. The children of baby boomers were raised roughly on their own, and guidance-less. And the grandchildren of the baby boomers were raised in a completely different cultural environment — by parents who themselves were unguided.
No wonder that today so many young people are (by previous standards) asocial, nihilistic, and perceive a need to be self-reliant; and maybe this is an exaggeration but view the world only in terms of themselves, with their experiences, and their truth.
Right, but that’s really hard to pinpoint individually. I think the year markers are accurate and it is correct that millenials are the offspring of the younger boomers. Gen X is the offspring of the oldest boomers.
Both my grandfathers fought in WWII. They both had 5 kids. Their youngest is around 15 years younger than their oldest.
All my siblings and half my cousins fall in the designated millennial years. The rest of the cousins are Gen X.
Gen X and Millenial belong to the same parents and technically could be grouped under the same generation excepting the HUGE age gap between them because the later boomers seemed to have their kids much later than their older siblings.
I would like to imagine that they are visiting their honored parents and grandparents and wear the masks because they couldn’t live with themselves if they caused them to get covid.
Except for those other ones who are basically just a bunch of redactssies.
Do they all fit the stereotype?
Damn right! I have two anecdotes and that proves it.
She’s talking about several people and classifying them by stereotypical labels. I don’t know what you’re getting at.
My parents don’t fit the stereotype, though my dad came close. My mom’s parents took all his girls primitive camping every summer, so he didn’t really fit the WWII cold and aloof dad. But their oldest daughters were pretty typical boomers with pretty questionable parenting (of their own).
The other side of the family are typical high class boomers. Aloof dad, working mom. I think they skipped the druggie stuff except my dad. Kids are typical millenials, though not stupid.
They are a throw -away generation. – they don’t buy things that last, trade in serviceable phones for latest technology, abort their babies, want everyone fired who they don’t agree with, and want coaches fired who don’t satisfy their entitlement to have the winningest team.
Well, I guess we can’t agree on the generations, let alone the names for the generations. Or their abiding characteristics.
@samuelblock, you are writing about young people. I don’t mean to be hijacking this thread, but if you don’t mind, what is the age range for the people you are writing about?
I kind of lost track of generational labels after the generation after gen-X, which I think is called millennials as opposed to gen-y and gen-z. I think millennials are one of the these last two. If I had an age range I could look up the gen-letter and start to speak the language. (I actually have heard of Generation-AA, so I have no idea what labels are in vogue right now.)
Which generation do you mean?
There’s probably too much there. Sorry, I wrote this one pretty fast. I suppose rambling is the response to a ramble…
I’ll get to the “dating” scene soon.
I don’t know that the young people I’m talking about are really independent. (Compared to Gen-Xers.) A lot of the ones I’m talking about, who are mostly young millennials and beyond, are in therapy and on anti-depressants. What’s interesting is that all the help they seek is paid for with dollars to people who don’t know them.
I’m in the same boat. I’m lucky that I wanted to go to college in New Orleans and ended up at a Jesuit university that was pretty much accepting all applicants. The occasional Christians I met–whom I did not want to meet–ended up having a lasting impression on me.
Helicopter and Lawnmower parenting came a little after my time. I grew up around the extreme opposite. Most of the crazy stuff people associate with millennials come from the youngest members of my generation and Gen-Z.
I like Gen-X though. So much so that I wish they’d take on the leadership roles that I’m talking about. Look at all these kids who can’t get enough of Stranger Things! Maybe they’d like to hear more from y’all.
I couldn’t agree more! I get why people did what they did. It’d be best if we move on and make up for lost time. We’ve got a real shot at winning the future, and the only sin that concerns me right now is the one where we don’t take that opportunity.