A word of advice to the younger generation…from all older generations (and then some).
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Has anybody told you recently that your generation is “the Me Me Me Generation” of “lazy, entitled narcissists”?1 Perhaps you have been told that young people today are “the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation” in history.2 Maybe you have witnessed handwringing over “the wreckage of our broken society”3 and the rise of “the latter-day cult of individualism” and “the worship of the brazen calf of the Self.”4
My kids have heard these things from older people. According to popular knowledge, society is on the verge of destruction and collapse, and youth today are growing up in a desolate land of temptation, immorality, and stress more frightful than any time in history. The younger generations today—whether Generations Y, Z, or Millenial—are destined to become sad little bubbles of ego and whine, if they are not already. They are entitled; they have no moral boundaries; they are ruled by entertainment and pleasure. Society is shredding before our very eyes. As a father, I’ve been told that it will take an actual miracle for my kids to turn out well, no matter how hard I try.
These lines of thought are so common that I have taken some notes:
- A famous journalist noted, “We are now in the Me Decade… They begin with ‘Let’s talk about Me.’ They begin with the most delicious look inward, with considerable narcissism… Whatever [this] amounts to, for better or for worse, will have to do with this unprecedented development: the luxury, enjoyed by so many millions… of dwelling upon the self.”5
- A popular psychologist said, “Never has youth been exposed to such dangers of both perversion and arrest as in our own land and day. Increasing urban life with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passive stimuli just when an active life is most needed, early emancipation and a lessening sense for both duty and discipline, the haste to know and do all befitting man’s estate before its time, the mad rush for sudden wealth and the reckless fashions….”6
- A religious writer noted the “…sad experience how the streets are filled with lewd and wicked children…. It would grieve one’s heart to hear what filthy communications proceeds from their mouths. And the younger ones learn from the older ones, and so soon as they go, they are running fast to Hell.”7
- Another religious writer stated plainly that “the soul in youth is feverish, and is primarily driven by the love of glory, and luxurious living, and sensual lusts, and many other imaginations.”8
- Famous pundits took the time to discuss how culture was becoming too lax and immoral, and how it might lead to a complete destruction of society: “Little by little, this spirit of license, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs. From there, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public…. If amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens…. They will invent for themselves rules which have been otherwise neglected, such as how to show respect to their elders; what honor is due to parents; what clothing and hairstyles are appropriate; and all behavior and manners in general.”9
It is enough to make one despair about the future of humanity.
Except, we are already living in the future.
I marked these quotes with numbers so you can see where they are from:
- The May 2013 cover story of Time Magazine, about Millenials, by Joel Stein.
- A January 2007 article in Esquire Magazine, about Baby Boomers, by Paul Beluga.
- A March 1995 speech by Tony Blair, then leader of Britain’s Labour Party.
- The September 1907 cover article of The Atlantic Monthly, titled “Why American Marriages Fail,” by Anna Rogers.
- The August 1976 cover story for New York Magazine article, about Baby Boomers, by Tom Wolfe.
- Psychologist and educator Granville Stanley Hall, quoted in a 1904 academic article.*
- A Little Book for Children and Youth, a 1695 instruction book about education and youth.*
- John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Hebrews, a religious commentary written around 300 A.D.
- Plato’s The Republic, Book IV, a philosophical exchange between Socrates and Adeimantus written around 380 B.C.*
In other words: older generations have always moaned in despair about cultural changes and the youth of their day. Narcissism, laziness, disrespect, immorality? Different century, same complaint. Of course, some of today’s youth are lazy and self-centered, but so are people from every generation alive today. No generation is a unified set of either entitled hedonists or hardworking saints. Much of what is called disrespect and immorality today are merely the challenges that every new generation shouts at its predecessors.
Each new generation has its own culture: an inheritance reshaped through its own cycles of creativity, exploration, and experientation. This culture feels foriegn to older generations, unsettling and perhaps even painful. Young people then feel the same in return. G.K. Chesterton noted in 1922, “I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid. This has happened age after age….” (emphasis added)
Psychology researchers concluded in 2010 that “finding young people to be narcissistic is an aging phenomenon, not a historical phenomenon.” Each generation conveniently forgets that it went through this very same process itself. But, as Harry Truman remarked, “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know“—or that you fail to remember. His comments echo the Old Testament: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
So, every generation is told by its elders that its character is poor and its future is doomed. What is a young person to do?
In the Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote to his friend Timothy: “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young.” At that time, Timothy was probably in his 30s, and faced resistance from his elders about his age. Paul’s advice rings true for everyone, whether 13 or 30: “Be an example to everyone in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith… Keep a close watch on how you live…. Stay true to what is right…” (1 Timothy 4:12,16)
The conclusion? Action, not age, is the true determination of your character. Ignore the complaints of the older generation. Stay true to what you know is right, and you will prove them wrong in the long run.
And, as a father, that is my advice to my kids—and to every generation today.
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Photo: Pixabay
* For these marked sources: I edited the language of these quotes for modern readability, but I do not believe I changed their spirit.
A longer version of this column (with more quotes) previously appeared on And I’m the Dad. Photo credit: Pixabay.
Although I agree with most of this article, we have all definitely seen how many of the Gen Z demographic (and portions of GenY) act abhorrently to anyone older than them. The entitlement is palpable. They are never wrong, and they are overflowing with pride. This includes those who own businesses and how they treat their clients. I am shocked at how vulgar they can be to others who don’t agree with them-uttering profanity and threats unlike any recent previous generation I’ve ever seen. There is simply no respect for the older generations-there’s a reason they are called the Me… Read more »
get a job you old fart stop bothering us young people work more then 40 hours week have to pay most of our paycheck for your stupid socual security checks you do not deserve you useless lazy jobless old fart.
They paid into that Social Security their entire lives, you idiot
You put a nail in the coffin of the argument w/ your ageist, absolutely ignorant comment. The ‘older’ generation fought for the freedoms you currently enjoy (and are oblivious to) and paved the way for you to exist. Your entitlement and narcissism are palpable.
It’s true that every generation thinks the new one is going to hell in a handbasket, but there’s something that’s different about the last few generations and that is that with each new generation there are fewer things to rebel against as the standards become more and more lax. You can set the circle of standards tight or lax but either way the young will rebel. The lower the standards the more shocking the rebellions.
called getting a job stop whining about young we bust our asses off so we can pay their social security socan spend it on their fancy cars. i sick of you geezers telling us we lazy when sitting on tour ass npt working like rest of us.
Doug, you contribute ZERO dollars to my social security benefits. However, you do contribute to your OWN future social security benefits. You may want to put down the cell phone and pick up a pamphlet that tells you how social security works.
Your article is all well and good to the point that this generation of pond feeders hasn’t defined themselves as ANYTHING.
Oh yeah Mitch?
what you going to do about it huh gramps your going to cry
hah god point old people so useless get a job useless bums.
Ich habe es satt von der heutigen generation! Wir müssen eine Revolution machen!!! ICH HABE EINFACH SATT VON DIESEN NARZISMUS!!! DIE WELT IST KLEIN,ABER WIR KÖNNEN DIE WELT RETTEN!!
I am from this generation.
I HATE this generation.
I am 14; but I am already learning the disgust of becoming friends with some of the monstrosities.
In fact, it’s not just kids. It’s the kids of the last generation too; the adults who raise the kids.
My brother is extremely narcissistic and will NOT do what he is told. He is 13 and yet he already swears, calling me s-bag (s is representing a bad word) word many times.
Yeah, you’re a teenager, and all teenager react like that. Don’t worry, it gets better.
Sometimes I think this, but then sometimes I hear/read things that boggle the mind. Sure, every generation has thought that the kids’ culture is devoid of value, their morality is lax, etc. But then when I read that some ridiculous percentage (80-something) of Japanese men in their teens and 20s are not interested in sex with a “real woman” , because it’s too much work, I think nothing like that has ever happened in the history of our species.
This is in the vein of my replies whenever people bemoan “kids today”.
I can only imagine what older generations felt about hippies. And now they are bemoaning “kids today”.
“Ignore the complaints of the older generation.”
You buried the lede.