When I was a kid (sometime in the Cretaceous period according my teenaged son), I remember hearing that my generation—Generation X—would never amount to much. Generation X grew up on a diet of John Hughes films, MTV, Beavis & Butt-head, hair metal, and arcade video games. We were lazy, no-good slackers who listened to crappy music, a generation that would never amount to anything.
My brother and sister who are considerably older than me are part of the baby-boom generation. According to my late father (a member of the Greatest Generation), baby boomers brought on the end of civilization. Their music was nothing like Glenn Miller, and they had sex, and did drugs, and they didn’t wear suits, and the men didn’t cut their hair.
Now it’s the millennials who have been stereotyped as entitled, self-absorbed, addicted to their phones, and lazy. And anecdotally, I have heard that their music sucks. Does any of this sound familiar? Sure it does. At some point in your life, someone older than you has said this exact thing about you and your generation. This even goes for the Greatest Generation: My grandmother hated the way her kids danced and could not stand big band music. My grandfather would take the battery out of the car to prevent his boys from going into town but it didn’t work—my dad and uncles just took horses instead.
Go back far enough in time and you will no doubt find a cave painting somewhere that says “Kids these days, they are lazy and entitled, all they do is beat drums and drink fermented mangoes all day! — Grog the Elder”
The generation gap is defined as:
A lack of communication between one generation and another, especially between young people and their parents, brought about by differences of tastes, values, and outlook.
Whenever I hear one of my peers berating millennials or Generation Z, I see and hear someone who has clearly forgotten what it was like to be young.
That is what the generation gap actually is: Forgetting what it is like to be young. Adults today complain about participation awards, of all things. As someone who coached youth football from kindergarten to eighth grade, I can speak with some authority on this particular issue.
We did not keep score from kindergarten to third grade. Why? Because we wanted to focus on teaching fundamentals instead of crafting a winning game plan. Coaches cannot make sure every kid participates and learns how to play correctly if they have to worry about lighting up the scoreboard. We did start keeping score in fourth grade—but we also made sure that every kid played, even if it meant losing the game. The score was far less important than teaching the game—and every kid who played has turned out to be a better athlete because of that philosophy.
At the end of every season every kid did get a certificate stating that they participated. There were no individual awards, as that starts at the high school level. And there was no need for individual awards, as the kids were all still learning how to play the game. What a way to kill the desire in a child: By telling them at 12 years old that they aren’t good enough, or cannot do it. As a caveat, not all youth sports leagues have this philosophy—and that is to their detriment.
Millennials and Generation Z have grown up while the United States was at war. That is all they know: Our country is at war, and their generations have to fight it. Go tell that young man who lost his leg in Iraq he is lazy, and that he cannot think for himself. Every one of them has lived through the worst economic times since the Great Depression—but some say they don't know adversity. Would they say that to someone with $40,000 in student loan debt?
To paint an entire generation with the same broad brush is short-sighted, especially when the same could be said about the older generation. When I look at millennials and Generation Z I see some great people. If I were to fill in the blank, I would say that young adults today are kind of awesome—except for their taste in music. Seriously, bring back spandex-wearing hair bands! And to the millennials out there reading this on your cellphones, I want to apologize to you on behalf of Generation X.
From one slacker generation to another: You kids are all right.