Generational Gap

One of my regulars shared an article on Facebook recently and after reading it I found it very accurate to how things are today. People have been conditioned to think that there's always more fish in the sea, so feel free to give up what you have and go on fishing. I understand the reasoning behind the statement. It's a version of saying "It's OK. You'll survive this." But it also gives people the opinion that there's always another. There's always a replacement for what you once had. And that is the common belief that plagues my generation and the ones to follow.

I recently had a conversation about the differing generations and how things have changed. My grandparents and their generation worked hard for what they have/had. Balancing time between work and family. Hard work was a way of life. And that hard work led to strong work ethics. They didn't leave their relationships (any of them, be it work, friendly, or intimate) when things got tough. They worked them out and stood by the things that mattered. Not to say that everything was all peachy clean for everyone, but they worked things out to the best of their abilities.

My parents generation want/wanted to be the providers, often working long hours and spending more time away from their families due to work than necessary. They wanted to give their children the best things possible, not only making sure that their families were clothed and fed, but the clothes were nice name-brand clothes and the food was the prime choice of meats and/or vegetables. They also like to direct and manage, it's almost like a business type attitude. And that attitude has taken some of the independence away from their children.

My generation is very used to being directed. Almost to the point of being lost without someone telling them what to do. We are the generation of convenience and quick fixes. It's convenient to have someone tell you what to do and where to go. “There’s plenty of fish in the sea” is/was something that got spouted out quite a bit by parents that didn’t want to see their children hurt, but as stated in the first paragraph of this post, that attitude has led to a fear of attachment and commitment. Because, after all, you can always find another.

The generations after my era, the current young generations, are the entitled generation. Everything is handed to them on a silver platter and they just take and keep on taking. For them EVERYTHING is replaceable. And there are less and less consequences for their actions. It’s going to be a scary world when they start running things. The poor children of the world today is unprepared for the harsh realities of the world. You can’t spank them without people wondering if they are abusing them. You can’t raise your voice to them in public without someone judging and perhaps calling the cops on you (true story, happened to a girl I used to work with). And so, what’s the world to do? We’ve created a dilemma for ourselves and it’s so hard to go back and fix things like they were before.

But I took a very long digression from where I started this post. I guess the best option would be to leave the article here and let you give it a read. It’s kind of scary how true it is.

Sinceriously,

-Chad