Is it possible that older generations (including Baby Boomers) are the last ones to be optimistic, to feel that the world was basically good and kind (if you were white)? Because that doesn’t seem to be the case with younger generations.
John F. Kennedy was the first president I remembered—someone who modeled idealism, who urged us to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Even after his assassination, I remember admiring, first, Robert F. Kennedy, and then Martin Luther King, Jr. Those deaths broke my heart, but I didn’t give up thinking we could make the world a better place.
Where did this optimism come from? Maybe it started with Baby Boomers being born after World War II, a seeming victory of good over evil that would usher in a new era. We unknowingly lived through one of the greatest economic booms in U.S. history, and we had our pick of jobs. Housing was cheap and plentiful. And I believe we were one of the last generations mostly to have parents who didn’t divorce. We had stable homes, and most of us had fathers (not mothers) who had stable jobs, so we lived our lives in the same neighborhoods, with the same friends, going to the same schools. We had community of sorts, which the world seems to be sorely lacking now.
But the world isn’t like that anymore. A recent article in the New York Times said the generation of Millennials grew up with the Harry Potter books and the idea of good conquering evil, but the next generation—Generation Z—is more cynical. Known as Zoomers, this cohort (born from 1997 to 2012) doesn’t see the world as especially good, but has encountered an unstable economy, an angry division between two political sides, and a climate that is changing before their eyes. In surveys, young people express little hope for the future. Who can blame them?
Zoomers grew up after the global financial crisis of 2008 and today face difficult job and housing markets, as well as a society where human contact has been surpassed by one in which people relate to each other on social media. This generation grew up with a president who displays anger and hatred. One of his henchmen said compassion was for losers. Are Zoomers modeling their lives on a president who cares more about making himself rich and powerful than taking care of his constituents–all Americans?
Growing up, I don’t remember having a lot of fears except for the threat of nuclear war—a big one—but even then I trusted that world leaders would be able to come to a resolution. We grew up in a world that seemed sane and where we trusted our neighbors. Even if we weren’t sure they were the best people, we never thought of them as cruel. I know that some of my brothers faced bullies at school, but it wasn’t like being a child today and facing cruel taunts on social media, ones that can spread quickly and often cause emotional torment. Even if boys in my era pulled girls’ hair or made fun of their looks, it wasn’t like girls today being “sexualized” by males.
How different is their world from ours—a world that older generations can hardly fathom. Is it possible that we elderly can model some kindness and goodness, or is it too late for that? I hope not.
Aging Journal 
Ouch—so on the money … A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a panel presentation to students at a local college. We panelists, all involved in a feminist initiative in the 70s, had been asked to describe our experiences during that time. As I was talking about my life back then—in my mid-20s—I mentioned that I’d paid $60 a month for a basement apartment, where I lived alone. This piece of information got a more astonished response than anything else I’d said. One of my colleagues pointed out that many of the students in our audience were probably still living with their parents … As a child, I used to go out to play without my parents having any idea where I was or who I was with. It’s hard to believe how very profoundly the cultures of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood have changed, for the worse, since we went through those years.
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Our lives were so profoundly different, I think it’s hard for us to understand how the younger generations live. I too went everywhere with my childhood friends. I think my mother was just happy to have us all out of the house, so she could have some peace and quiet.
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I’m of the Silent Generation, born during WWII, a few years older than you. But my childhood was just as you describe. “Father Knows Best,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” and “Happy Days” were very representative of my childhood years. I remember the “I Like Ike” campaign, and my first presidential vote was for Goldwater (my parents were very Republican). During the Cuban missile crisis, in 1962, I was drawing circles on a map to see if missiles from there could reach my home in north OKC. “Silent Spring” launched modern environmentalism that same year. I weep, literally weep, for my two grandchildren and the world they are inheriting.
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I weep for a world that will be so different, that will have lost so much of the natural world–wildlife, normal seasons, lakes and streams–but also an honest and decent humanity. There’s so much to be mourn now.
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Thank you Kathy for your cogent and well-written despair about what we are currently encountering in our world. However, I remain optimistic that humanity is inherently altruistic and good, and that challenges can be effectively addressed. A model of what we are encountering now is the Industrial Revolution—which exploited women and children, ruined the environment and created a lower-class. Overtime, we reversed much of the damage. We will do that again.
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Thank you, Betty. I agree with you and believe that people are basically good. But it’s hard now for all of us good people to not be squashed down by all the cruelty we’re experiencing now.
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