Visited my Dad this weekend, and we were talking about the Kidz these days, and how connected they are to their parents.
Dad once again asked me why I had not asked for help even when I needed it--like when my roommate stole all my cash & I had to stop eating for 2 weeks.
Dad once again asked me why I had not asked for help even when I needed it--like when my roommate stole all my cash & I had to stop eating for 2 weeks.
Gave him the same answer: it just never occurred to me. I had gotten myself into trouble; it wasn't their job to get me out.
Maybe this is idiosyncratic to me; I've always been stubbornly independent. But I think it's a real generational thing.
Maybe this is idiosyncratic to me; I've always been stubbornly independent. But I think it's a real generational thing.
Millennials and Zoomers find it natural to appeal to authority whenever anything goes wrong. GenX assumed the adults were all in league against us (we were right). This carried into adulthood: we don't assume authority will care, or be on our side.
Possibly more than any other generation, we were raised with minimal adult supervision, because so many of our moms worked, but the old free and easy culture our parents grew up with--"be home at dark" still existed, which it does not now.
That's not to say my parents weren't involved--my dad came to my basketball games, which were an hour away from his office! They just didn't hover. They still don't: my mother lives a mile away, would never dream of coming over without calling first.
But also, they did not intervene when you got into trouble with adults, and that was definitely not just my parents. I can think of one episode where a parent pressured the school to revisit a disciplinary decision, and the kid was about to be expelled.
When a teacher gave me an unfair grade, the first semester of my senior year when it counted most, my mother said "This is a good lesson on the value of getting along with authority." Luckily for me, an administrator who had taught me in 10th grade intervened.
So it seems weird to me how comfortable young kids are with authority, how much their rebellions focus on appealing to authority, and how confident they seem that authority will ultimately work in their favor.
Not saying one is better or worse, just that the difference is striking to me.
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