They aren't wrong
Some words for the people who think young folks are a little too "extra" at this time
I watch patterns.
For my work, even.
I get phone calls at UNGODLY hours of the morning. Lots of them from what this world, namely the Boomer generation, describe as “lazy,” “entitled,” “bratty,” - the kids brought into this world by GenX and Millenials.
Boomers think they are always right, no matter what.
They are not.
I don’t care WHICH ONE OF THEM wants to tell me I am wrong, which wants to state ANY KIND OR SORT OF EXCUSE for the MF abuse their kids collectively survived.
They never were “always” right.
Yes - ABUSE!
Lots of us pointed this out to them, all of our lives, and lots of us are yet pointing this out to them…we know what they are like.
My entire generation was raised by Boomers, and while it may read as though I hate them, I do not.
I think they are as bratty as lots of them say kids are (as opposed to “can be”), including their own GenX kids, who they raised, themselves, sort of….gotta give some credit to the house key we found under the mat, or in the planter, or at the weird, or mean next door neighbor’s house. Some of us had to climb through windows, because our mothers were too paranoid about stuff…and they were right - paranoia about things they’d done without wanting to do.
There are videos that can be seen which show us all how dearly ugly a whole LOT of older adults can be. The hardest part for a LOT of folks is listening to the things that these …grandparent types…have to say to these kids - with many of these young folks not even the age required to vote, stay out past 10 PM, and my favorite - SURVIVE WITHOUT THEIR PARENTS.
Videos like the one where an older man in Florida whose name is Mitchell Schuman assaulted a 14 year old, took the kid’s phone, and let his ridiculous and snooty pals in on it, with not one of them having the actual sense in their heads that this is assault on a minor, is theft, is holding a MINOR against said minor’s will.
BUT, we can’t tell anyone of a certain age this. They have rights! They are elders who DEMAND respect!
Too fucking bad a whole LOT OF THEM seem like they DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GIVE IT. Entitlement is ugly as we age, and so is being emotionally fragile. But we won’t talk about that, right?
This ain’t Mitch…buuuuut….
We will just call kids “bad” and go on to assault them, call it self defense, cry wolf, act like nothing happened to the kid - because the kid is resilient, and kids need to “toughen up, buttercup,” but older folks…we paid our dues.
And apparently, for some, it means that we have the right to violate the personal, protected rights of others, but specifically minors….or, really, actually anyone younger than they are, and some GenXers, too. Take a look:
Nah, babies…that ain’t at ALL how this goes. I dare a man of ANY age to try this shit with my (adult) kids, namely my daughter. Not because of me, but because she knows her way around caustic chemicals and very sharp blades…most hair stylists, do.
And here is that Mitchell Schuman guy I was just telling you about…
That much doesn’t matter.
Some folks can’t seem to keep their hands off of our young people. Some folks think it is okay to bully them, to call them names, to say ugly, horrific things about their race, their mothers who many of them raised their kids alone, the fact that they do not have the same things that were there for even my own generation.
And speaking of my generation?
You folks ought to KNOW BETTER. I mean - ours is the generation which is being forced into no-contact. Even though I do know that there is an ENTIRE POPULATION OF KIDS BORN TO OUR GENERATION WHO ARE SPOILED ENTITLED BRATS, we have to ask ourselves why they are like this, especially if there is a huge number of us getting on social media and telling this world that you were a perfect parent, handed them everything that they wanted and needed, tried to make it so they’d not feel like you did as a kid, not even remembering that they ain’t you.
You want the world to believe that you are not like your own parents, that you gave and gave and gave until it hurt. And all you expected in return, contrary to what your posts of a lovely life with your adult kids screams loudly into the void about, was the transactional relationship that you created FOR them to be the thing that carries it all.
Not love.
Not patience.
Not the younger ones having the absolute RIGHT to have different wants, needs, desires, dreams, hopes, even fuck ups, than us…just constantly reminding plenty of them about how much it cost for you to give them the life you never had, which you probably didn’t realize was a sacrifice that these youngsters, just like us when we were young, would never know unless and until they, themselves, became parents.
Just like us.
And when that did not happen, plenty of us chose to “mom” them, never seeing the adults they have become at a time when NOT ONE OF US IN GENERATION X has A THING to say about to them, because no - no we did NOT have to deal with EVERYTHING THAT THEY ARE DEALING WITH RIGHT NOW in terms of the world having gone ape-shit crazy. Too many people expect them to just deal with watching their future being mapped out for them, expect them just to muscle through things that none of us are handling any better - we, their parents, and some - in fact lots - of their grandparents, are also handling this bullshit we are collectively experiencing as best we can, all without decent income, without health insurance that actually pays for what they are paying for (just like we did, and some still do….and you have the very nerve to act like you don’t bitch about it all, yourselves.)
It is like these young folks are not also looking at all of this evidence about Charlie Kirk, about the orange guy in the oval office, about the fact that people keep screaming about freedom and rights and Amendments 1 through 25 (but rarely discussing things with them and allowing them THEIR First Amendment rights…because, you know, “older and wiser.” You sure about that “wiser” crap?) It is almost as though too many Boomers, and lots of GenXers, forgot about what it was like to be young, without a whole lot of the same chances at life experiences that we had, and forgot about the things that we ALL THOUGHT ABOUT and some YET think about - the future, which, for the young adults, in their minds, with proof, through their parents and grandparents constantly talking shit to them about how good they have whatever “it” is…with everything they are seeing being to the very contrary of what we want them to believe.
We look at the way the world is at this time, bitch and moan about all of it, tell ourselves that we paid our dues, all without thinking that our kids, their kids, and their kids’ kids might not be having the same chances that we had when we were younger, and FOR SURE they have ZERO chance at the things that OUR OWN PARENTS (you know…Boomers) had - AT TF ALL…and yet, lots of us still continue droning on and on about how they are not doing enough, not working enough, not sucking whatever “it” is, enough - and plenty of us, and FAR TOO MANY OF THOSE IN THEIR GRANDPARENTS’ generation, behave as though they have the same opportunities we all did.
They do not.
And we KNOW they do not.
For lots of GenX parents, it hurts.
It hurts because we remember what it was like to deal with parents whose ideals and values were created at a time that there was not all of these “advances” in technology, which are advances that are stripping these kids of EVERY SINGLE OPPORTUNITY that we never realized we actually had. This is because our parents never really thought, never really gave a singular fuck about our future. Plenty believe that THEY are the reason why those of us who went on to build our lives outside of what our boomer parents expected us to do, which was always to make them look better in the eyes of everyone else, and never mind us, their kids.
I said it. Deal with it.
My own kids want the life that includes a decent place to live, a car that won’t get shut down with the click of a button that their own thumb is not going to press. They want to have kids, build businesses, have these lives that too many people their own age are faking, are also pining for, with many of them faking those lives in influencer videos that are getting harder to stomach and believe…and they do not stop, not only because of the attention, nor the dopamine spike - but because in a world that seems intent on taking from We, the People, every ounce of life that it can - all on the backs of not only working GenX, but also our kids. There are a whole LOT of us who, everyday, hear from other people in our own age group, that somehow there is something “wrong” with these kids, that they ought to be out on their own, not living under the same roof as their parents, and how ashamed they ought to be, for lack of a better way of putting it.
-the loves of my life…Joshua, Jeremy, and Gracie-
Young people today are totally expected to follow the lead of the Boomer gen, and PLENTY of the Boomer gen is tone deaf - they do not give a singular fuck about what happens to the future, which is a future they had a HUGE HAND IN CREATING, not even thinking about what would happen to US - their kids….GenX. We are put into an emotional choke-hold by our own parents, them continuing to shame us for the things that we love, that we are good at, that THEY specifically dislike - not disagree with, not think is illegal…just dislike, and many dislike the things that we do because it goes outside of the comfortable little narrative that LOTS OF THEM still tell themselves, which is that they are the best people on this planet.
Really?
Are you sure?
Is that coming from your “useless” GenX kids saying this, or your “spoiled, entitled bratty” Millenial through Gen Alpha grandbabies and great-grandbabies?
Or is it coming from the FACT that a whole LOT of people in THAT generation HAD IT A WHOLE LOT BETTER THAN WE collectively did…and it shows. THAT generation, in large part, made parental alienation a “thing”, and a thing which spawned the truth of people like this lady:
She is not wrong, and it begs the question, not only of the kids, but of where and how the parents, Boomers and GenX, went wrong?
Do you guys remember that one? GenX? - yeah, I am talkin’ to us, too - do any of you remember what it was like being the children of certain Boomers, and having to deal “nicely” with people your own parents were meant to protect you from but were too engaged with the narratives of their own youths and how they hammered through the shit that was NOTHING AT ALL LIKE WHAT THESE KIDS…the kids of Generation X- are currently experiencing?
Or, is it just too much fun to stand there in your avarice, in your “right” to “parent” these adults the same way that we were? “That’s why I grew up to have everything I have,” is what you say…BUT THEY GREW UP IN A WORLD THAT WAS NOT AND IS APPARENTLY NOT NURTURING THEM, and this includes us…for lots of them, we are their parents, as well as their very first bullies.
Again - I said it, so fuckin’ deal with it.
And, of course?
Where are all the women in my generation…the ones who had to deal with very much older men than we were, than our daughters are, and who remain silent about what we survived. Because we survived, so why can’t they?
TF, WHAT?
Are you KIDDING ME? On WHAT planet did YOU grow up on?
Oh.
Wait.
That’s right…not ALL of GenX “had it made,” and in fact, lots of us had it really, really hard.
No, not myself - I had it “medium hard,” like most in my generation. I am talking about those people who, for whatever was God’s plan, “made it” in life, and now lots of those types walk the crust of the planet as though y’all never had to deal with things that folks like me (you know…the folks who grew up in the uglier parts of town), and LOTS OF OUR KIDS ARE NOW FORCED TO DEAL WITH…and y’all make it seem like somehow you are perfect, like you did all of what you did WITHOUT parental help, walkin’ about the Earth as though somehow you did “all of this” all by yourself.
Lots of you DID NOT DO THAT, and the proof is that your GenX kids are sick in plenty of ways, are still stuck in the loop of what mom and dad are GOING TO LEAVE YOU WHEN THEY CROAK, and holding whatever that is, if it even happens, over the heads of the people who YOU BROUGHT INTO THIS WORLD, acting as though somehow they owe us ALL God-like status in their eyes and lives, never thinking one time that they have a memory, that they hurt from the things that they do not talk about, not even with us, because the truth is that WE ARE THE REASON THAT SO MANY HURT. And just like our folks, we refuse, plenty of us, to take accountability for the pain the WE caused.
My best proof of this? SCHOOL LUNCH…and nah, I give not one pebble shit’s worth of a fuck about why TOO MANY GENXers have ZERO COMPASSION, why SO SO MANY older millenial lunch ladies show us who they are by NEVER BRINGING UP THE IDEA THAT YOU ARE IMPEDING THE GRANDCHILDREN WHO YOUR OWN KIDS WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO SEE. yeah yeah - “no contact” and all that shit aside….did you EVER THINK THAT MAYBE YOU TOTALLY WERE THE PROBLEM? EVER?
Did you EVER THINK THAT IGNORING YOUR KID’S PLEAS WHEN THEY NEEDED YOU TO LISTEN the MOST…ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE TIMES THAT THEY WERE HUNGRY, or scared, or ANYTHING…did you NOT THINK THAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A CORE MEMORY THAT THEY JUST CANNOT FORGET, and possibly have to SEEK THERAPY for?
No.
You did not. Ever. You just expected them to survive your boomer parents the same way that we all did, and never one time did you think that these people - the grandparents - might have always been shitty humans when it comes to young people, raised on contempt for what is not just like them, told that poor people ought to try harder (in this world? at this time? HOW TF????), along with a whole lot of uglier things.
Such as fathers telling their daughters that his guy pals never meant a thing about it when their hand brushed their daughter’s chest, such as mothers looking away from it all, such as families talking shit about the way the kid dresses, the music that she prefers, the fact that she talks back - all of that is what we taught them, and it took one MF to tear it all down - collectively, for many of the women who call GenX “Mom”- the lessons that we THOUGHT we were teaching them, when in reality we were bypassing the pain from our own time as those same young women in our youth.
Told to basically eat shit over it, because dude is Daddy’s pal, or dude does something for the church, bought your BROTHER a part for his car (that your brother did not have to ask for) and then ignored you…the one who touched you the same way that your baby daddy’s pals TOUCH HER…and you just let it go, just like your mother did.
And you expect that she will trust you.
I promise you - she does not, and yes, indeed, it is your own damned fault. You told her to take herself to a therapist - but, DID YOU? Have you chosen yet to FIX YOU and not try hard to live vicariously through her or….
Of course, I realize that there are actual entitled little turds parading around this planet as though they are the gift God left for the rest of us…and too many men of a certain age love to assert whatever they think is “authority” on the young folks of the planet…like this guy:
This? Is strong? And brave?
This? Is the sort of person you want your (adult) kids to think is a strong man when in reality he is a spoiled, entitled prick, and a racist one, at that?
Of course you do not, but, this is what these people are seeing, these young folks, and lovely how we can also see, just because we have eyes in our heads, that this…this…MAN…is what GenX women were taught was the sort that we ought to want to be with. What happened?
Lots of us married abusive men, and our parents who may have grown up in an abusive household and never knew it until we, their daughters, survived that shit…and the travesty is that there are FAR TOO MANY OF US WHO SEE THIS AS STRONG, when it is very much NOT. BUT, these are the types who, when we were young, PUT HANDS ON US, violent and otherwise - and there are FAR TOO MANY OF US YET TRYING HARD TO MAKE A VIOLENT MAN seem “strong” to young people who, just like lots of us, grew up with someone this arrogant in our lives.
Her name was Aunty Napua - YES, WOMEN, TOO….I loved her, but did not love her ways. She is the reason why I grew up with a big mouth, am a master at pattern watching to the point that I made it part of my work in this world, and someone who used to scrap with people just for fun…yeah - fight, like hell, fists and four inch stilletos at the club, at way too early in the morning, fighting for nothing than pride, just like our grandparents taught us, like our own Aunty Napuas taught us.
Proof…
And anyone can read into the imbalance of my life, of anyone’s life, just from these words you are reading. Anyone can tell that there are a few of us with whom you share the air and who are sick AF of the bullying of the youngsters going on, as if they are not the ones who a whole LOT OF US will be HOPING AND PRAYING will be who takes care of us when we are way old and feeble.
There are a lot of us who will be dependent on these people who, for all of their lives, have been bullied and harassed, belittled and physically assaulted, called names when they speak up, told that the men, the women, of a certain age have earned THE RIGHT TO bully, belittle, talk shit to, try hard to force them to see things our way.
They won’t. That ain’t what we taught them. Lots of us believed that if we taught them to stand up for themselves, that they would not stand up to us.
And lots of us have serious issues with the FACT that it was NOT AT ALL that they did not hurt, but more that LOTS OF US TOLD THEM TO TAKE IT LIKE A MAN.
Have you heard about what about 62 million mostly MEN have been found to be doing? Are you SURE YOU WANT THEM TO THINK THIS IS OKAY? ARE YOU TELLING THEM TO STILL SPEAK UP, even if their own father, uncle, brother, best guy pals, the preacher at your church, the mayor of your town, and so on and so forth, have been found out to be? ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT THOSE YOUNGSTERS QUIET? The way that lots of you post you behave as though it’s everyone else’s men, not yours.
Oh really?
You sure?
I could go on and on and on about it all, talking mad shit about people who do not see their own kids as they are, rather than what you want to see - grandkids, too. This does not at all mean that I do not also see the way that the kids behave, many of them entitled AF.
But, ask yourself how they ended up that way, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandma, Aunty, Uncle, anyone who had a hand in their lives…how did they end up this way?
Okay yeah…society, I get it, but, even when they are adults, if you did things balanced, and not the way that you were raised. You were supposed to change that shit…did you? Did you change the family narratives? The ones that you fucking survived? DID YOU????
(Probably not, because shame is the greater unmotivator…)
Yeah, I get it - kids can be a pain in the ass, namely when they become the adults we always wanted them to be, but are not part of their lives anymore, and why?
Because - a lot of us were taught to take credit where it is due, and for some of us that means because we brought them into this world, that is the only “credit” for their accomplishments that we need. It is of little wonder, then, the reason that they do not want to talk to you - all you actually did, if you want to be that way with them, is push a few times. After that, a lot of us went straight to “boomer mom” mode, emulated the way that we were raised in the physical sense, without thinking about what we did not have, ourselves, which were parents that listened without judging us.
Did your kids truly get that? Did they get that parent?
I know that mine did. I was a single mom, even though their father was in the house for most of their lives. That was not because I chose for him to stay. It was because he bullied the family into it and nothing more. Can we all say that same thing?
Lots of us can, but lots of us cannot. If you are feeling like you just got picked on, that is a sign, and one that perhaps you ought to think about for real.
None of us are perfect. Lots of us think we are better than other people, for reasons that do not matter, such as race, social standing, wealth, looks, and a whole lot of other things that are finite.
We are not better than anyone else.
Namely not our kids.
We are smarter by right of having been on this planet for at least four or five decades or more, smarter because we survived a lot when we were their age. Every generation has its boogie men.
“Theirs?” some have asked….
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?????
Yeah - THEIRS, which is NOT OURS. We have the right to express what we will, but a lot of us FORGOT THAT THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES THAT COME WITH FREELY STATING WHATEVER TF WE WANT TO.
And sometimes that consequence comes as an entire group of humans who WE BROUGHT INTO THIS LIFETIME being SORELY misled by the generations which preceded theirs. We have the fucking nerve to tell them to work three or four jobs and then harsh out on ‘em when they cannot afford to live apart from us, pay their own rent, their own phone bill, their own lives, as though we do not see the state of the world at present time. You folks want them to live the lives that YOU see fit, but can you afford yours without the TIME THAT IT TOOK TO BUILD ALL OF THAT WEALTH?????
Where do I get the nerve to state all of these things?
Memories of what it felt like to hear, basically, that I would not amount to anything if I did not do things JUST LIKE MY FOLKS did, and memories of a childhood peppered with conditional, transactional love, the sort that makes a child behave in a manner that is apart from who they actually are, each of them. Too many elder adults get very angry when their adult kids “get outta line” with them, not seeing the similarities between what we witness in our kids, or accepting that perhaps WE are the reason why they mirror their pain back to us like they do.
It is what they learned, not only from us, but from watching what we did, as opposed to what we keep talking about, which is personal responsibility - something that sadly, too many older adults (yes, GenX, us, too) FORGOT ABOUT.
Some of us act like we are yet those latchkey kids, put that shit on the shoulders of the next generation, use it against them and their lives as if they were there, and some of them kind of are - we just refuse to see it, because we buy into the truth that is GenX has been thirty-five years old since we were collectively six years old…and we want our kids to go through that shit, too.
Apparently, yes, we do.
Stay tuned for part 2 - because the kids ain’t alright, and they ain’t all wrong, but some of these little MFs need to STOP ACTING LIKE THEIR BOOMER GRANDPARENTS, amongst other things…