This probably isn’t that new of a thought to most of you all, but another post made me think to share it.
About a year ago my wife and I (both millennials) were taking a long walk and reflecting on some stuff. It occurred to us both that from our early to mid 20s forward it was hard getting good advice from our parents (both Boomers) on life matters. Sure, there’s the usual “they don’t know what the housing market is” stuff, but it seemed like more than that. That’s when we both had the glass shattering conclusion that we have experienced more life than our parents.
We didn’t mean travel. We honestly meant global changes and conflict. Sure, our parents had the Cold War and threats of nuclear annihilation, but it felt like the traumas of the last generation weren’t as frequent, global, and of personal impact. Economic meltdowns, global warming (with local weather events impacting us), 911, COVID… I don’t need to keep going.
So, we came to the conclusion that even though Boomers like to fall back to the “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” mantra, it turns out that they went through their adult lives with relatively little global/national trauma. This obviously can’t stand as a generalization for personal trauma, but on a macrochasm scale Boomers are Summer Children (matured during a time of plenty and ease).
Didn’t they also live through all of what you just mentioned? What makes their experience of those events different than yours? It is all perspective. How do you know what it was like to be alive during the civil right’s movement, the Cuban missile crisis, the oil crisis, the assassinations of JFK and MLK Jr, the Vietnam war and the draft, the real estate crash in the 1980’s, etc.
It turns out that people are rubbish at understanding others perspective and life experiences. There is no hand book on how to be an adult and how to live. Giving advice is difficult. Give your parents a break and realize that they are people too.
The Internet is what’s different. They lived through all of that but it wasn’t in your face. Not broadcast 24/7 on networks. On every social media feed. With the Internet and constant information it all can seem way more overwhelming.
People are people and giving them a break is a good idea. But the idea that things are the same now as they were back then is wrong in my opinion.
Are you contending that boomers don’t use the internet and, therefore, were sheltered for decades? Because I assure you they’re very present in right wing spaces online.
I dont understand the central idea that boomers have lived through less. It sounds like a ridiculous premise that minimizes the experiences of millions.
No one is saying that things are the same now.
Things have been fucked up in completely different, but similarly severe ways, for all of human history.
The flipside of the internet is that we have an ability to search for and find the truth, if we have the critical thinking skills. Before the internet, knowledge was controlled by institutions. All information that you could consume was filtered through the authorities first.
It fucking pains me to my soul how profoundly naive and petty our generation appears when we start making these criticisms of previous generations. Not only do we reveal our complete ignorance of history, we reveal our lack of empathy as well, because even without understanding exactly what prior generations had to contend with, it’s not that hard to simply give them the benefit of the doubt and figure that they were more or less the same as us, given that we share the same genome.
As a society, we suck at understanding media. Intentionally, of course. But yeah.
Really good point and a very important distinction
We haven’t just the last few years Sped run a lot of these types of events.
George Floyd, the imposing threat of World War III, COVID.
We seem to have a lot better coping mechanisms than the older generations had. Mostly through memes and nihilism.