During my father’s recent memorial, I got a taste for the intergenerational conflict currently exemplified by the cry of “OK boomer.”
The boomers and Gen-Xers in my family were slightly outnumbered by the millennials, and in terms of political leanings, there were 4 ultra-conservatives, 3 ultra-progressives, 3 apolitical, and me, self-described as non-partisan, a-moral, un-ideal, non-religious, and pledging allegiance to little else than the Earth and all living beings. An explosive and interesting mix, indeed.
The timing was perfect: the impeachment trial, the Iowa caucus, Australia devastated by fire…
Ensconced for an entire week in my father’s house amid freezing temperatures and dismal weather, tempers flared at every turn. But since there was nowhere to run, things had to be hashed out.
What struck me, deeply and painfully, was the angst among the young adults in our clan. Citing crippling student debt, stagnant wages, unaffordable housing and health insurance, a nearing collapse of social safety nets, and a planet on the brink, every single one expressed extreme reluctance to bring children into the world.
The mood was borderline nihilistic.
Having no house of my own, currently on Medicaid, deep in debt, and struggling to pay off my daughter’s college loans, it was easy to relate, even at 58.
What a shame, I thought, that we — the outgoing bunch — were handing them such a dismal world outlook. So I decided to offer millennials a heartfelt, generational apology, which, understandably, was met by the outcry and stern rebuke of some of the boomers around the dinner table. How dare I apologize!
I just couldn’t help but contrast their pessimism with the excitement and sense of hope I felt when my firstborn arrived into the world in 1993. As she emerged from her mother’s womb and scanned the delivery room with her wide open, curious and impossibly-blue eyes, I felt my timeline suddenly extend a whole century and the word “legacy” entered my consciousness for the first time. That legacy was now on trial.
But wait a second… I thought, after everyone flew back to their respective homes. Are previous generations not due proper credit, respect, and admiration for, say, nearly ending world hunger and having drastically reduced infant mortality rates and deaths from infectious diseases? Is the fact that 90% of the world’s population can now read and write not earn us any accolades when just a century ago 7 out of 10 were illiterate? What about world poverty? At the start of the boomer generation more than 70% of the world’s population was extremely poor. By 2015, that number had dropped to less than 10%. And life expectancy? While I will likely die before my 80th birthday, thanks to advances in medical science, millennials will probably enjoy an extra decade in pretty good health provided they stop worrying so goddamn much.
To be fair, I also worried a lot before deciding to have children. That’s why I took so long to have them. Being an inveterate catastrophizer, I considered everything that could go wrong and likely make me fail as a father. By a ton, or more, I underestimated the amount of shit that would soon hit my fan.
By the time my second daughter showed up, I was bankrupt, living in self-imposed exile in one of the most expensive places on Earth, with no college degree, no network, and four mouths to feed. Prior that, I had lived for 34 years in a third-world country under mostly military rule and ravaged by 30+ years of civil war that cost the lives of 200,000 thousand people. Throughout, I witnessed car bombs, executions by firing squads, political assassinations, and coups d’état. I made and lost fortunes running several businesses under systemic corruption and bouts of extreme inflation and a collapsing currency. My family received several death and kidnapping threats which eventually made us flee our home country.
Yet, I’m still here. Scarred and wounded, of course, but doing just fine. My daughters are thriving. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the priceless gift of their presence in my life, I would’ve ended it long ago. It was their light and their future which kept me going.
Perhaps the prevailing millennial malaise can be partly explained by the fact that we old people are terrible storytellers. We don’t share our victories, accomplishments, and survival stories with the younger generations as much as our parents and grandparents did. We no longer sit at the table or by an open fire to mesmerize and inspire our children with our tales of adventure. Instead, we let the peddlers of media doom and gloom drive the narrative. No wonder they’re afraid. If a young zebra spent its time watching National Geographic documentaries, it, too, would never dare venture out into the savannah.
So, ok, Millennials… granted, we forgot the warming of the planet. We bad. Don’t forget, though, that global warming didn’t show up on our radar until the U.S. drought of 1988, and it wasn’t until 1997 that the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was adopted, which, mind you, was drafted by Boomers and Gen-Xers, as was the recent Paris Accord. So we’ve had less than thirty years to tackle this problem. In the meantime, though, we’ve been busy putting out other fires across the world, like patching-up the ozone layer, increasing the world’s production of renewable energy 6-fold, and putting you through college.
Besides, I am sure you wouldn’t want to inherit a world where every problem has been solved for you. That would rob you of the opportunity to test your mettle and prove your worth.
So get to work, and while you’re at it, have as many children as you can so when they grow up and dare berate you for your generation’s ‘dismal’ legacy, you, too, will have something to brag about while inspiring them with your tales of derring-do.
Related stories:
Failure to Launch! A challenge to young men.
Tales from a Flying Fish 