Earlier this week, my son’s school called for a two-hour delay in the wake of a nasty snowstorm. While scrolling through my newsfeed after receiving the alert, I came across a “Delays and Closings” post from a local news outlet that said the majority of the surrounding counties had opted to delay the start of their school days too.
“The roads are really bad this morning,” one person wrote.
“Be safe out there today!” wrote another.
“I’m glad they’re working to clear the roads so the kids can get to school safely!” said someone else.
And then: “This is why kids today are so entitled.” Like a two-hour delay is something these brazen children willed their school systems to enact solely through their powers of privilege.
While most people in the thread rallied against this man’s insensitivity, I couldn’t help but see the similarities between his comment and what I feel anytime I see a 20-year-old on Instagram with perfect skin touting some new hyaluronic acid facial cream. The guy online is jealous he doesn’t get a two-hour delay from work and I’m jealous my skin now includes wrinkles only Botox can fix. We’re both fussy about not having what we perceive are the same advantages as today’s youth and, even though I never call out anyone on Instagram for their entitlement, I also regularly roll my eyes at the 20-somethings and think, ‘When I was your age we used Noxema and thought that was revolutionary. You have no idea how good you have it.’
And herein lies the problem (well, two, actually): 1. Noxema is still on the market and 2. As adults, we expect anyone younger than us to both have the same experiences we had and suffer through them with as much nostalgic angst as we feel now.
In my most recent Grievances blog I mention the response I often receive from older women when discussing how hot I am in the midst of perimenopause. “Oh, just wait, it gets worse,” these postmenopausal women (damn near) gleefully say, like they absolutely cannot wait for me to experience the same hell they went through in the years to come. At 42, I can easily laugh off these old biddies and even respond in most instances, ‘Good talk, Sharon. I’ll be sure and thank you for your divine wisdom the next time I sweat through my sheets,’ but it’s not as easy for people much younger than us to brush off this same kind of bleak foreshadowing.
In my everyday life, I work with college-aged students who can be viewed in one of two ways: Enthusiastic and ambitious or fool hearted and dim. How I choose to describe and subsequently treat them is entirely up to me. I can either listen to their aspirations and cheer them on, or I can judge their delusions and shut them down. Similarly, I can either relate to their struggles by telling them I remember how hard it can be, or I can dismiss their grief by telling them they don’t yet have a clue. In any given conversation, I can either be considered a confidant or a bad memory. It’s truly that simple.
Just as we adults know how bad things can get, we also know how good things once felt too. As a kid, a two-hour delay from school was the best, most unexpected gift in the world, and as a 20-year-old, my unblemished skin was the part of me I admired most because there were so many other things about me I wished that I could change. Who are we to tell these kids they’re wrong for being enamored by both? Today’s youth have yet to learn that the days of unexpected and welcomed two-hour delays are numbered and that their skin will age regardless of the creams they use now. Why tell them otherwise? “Oh, just wait, it gets worse” is an easy response but so is “I remember feeling that way too.”
Instead of regaling our woes and sometimes even wishing the same fate befalls a younger generation, why not reflect upon our own hopes and dreams and believe that maybe, just maybe, the experiences of today’s “entitled” youth will someday surpass our own.
One last thing…
I wrote this blog on my 42nd birthday, which also happens to be the one-year anniversary of David Crosby’s death. Although the title track of this blog was written by Crosby’s longtime bandmate, Graham Nash, it was recorded by Crosby, Nash, Stephen Stills, and Jerry Garcia who, fun fact, taught himself how to play the steel guitar for this song in exchange for help with the vocal harmonies of the Grateful Dead.
I will always consider Crosby, Stills, and Nash to be some of my favorite writers, and I think “Teach Your Children” is especially applicable to the focus of this blog. Nash wrote the song after being inspired by the 1962 photo by Diane Arbus, Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park. The image, which depicts a child holding a toy grenade, prompted Nash to reflect on the long-term ramifications of messages given to children about war and other issues. Although I’m sure those “other issues” were not likely as mundane as a two-hour delay or a 20-year-old’s self-image, I can see how the seemingly small comments I mentioned above could lead to much larger implications if all our children hear from us is negativity in the hopes they experience our same kind of pain and suffering.
“And you, of tender years, can't know the fears your elders grew by. Help them with your youth. They seek the truth before they can die.
Teach your parents well. Their children's hell will slowly go by. And feed them on your dreams. The one they pick's the one you'll know by.”
Title Track: “Teach Your Children,” Crosby, Stills & Nash. Listen here.
