I’ve had a lot of in-depth conversations with my kids lately about the state of the world and how utterly strange everything seems. They are 19 and 17 and well aware that things aren’t as they should be.
As their mom, I often feel a tremendous amount of guilt for having brought them into what feels like something like a mix between a dumpsterfire and a sh*tstorm. Then again, I’m Gen X and had no idea the world would tilt at its axis like it has….because growing up in the late 70s, 80s, 90s was an absolute highlight. The nostalgia game is real.
My kids were born in the early 2000s, so unlike a lot of much younger kids now, they still had a very solid sense of normalcy as I knew it. No screens (except for the occasional Baby Einstein or Blue’s Clues), no social media, no exposure to the intolerance and divisiveness that seems so pervasive now. They got to be rough and tumble kids with their innocence kept intact until deep into elementary school, which is when things started to go awry.
That’s around the time that no matter what I did and the boundaries I implemented at home, dropping them off at school was akin to dropping them off to the wolves. The things they would be exposed to in the schoolyard by way of their friends’ cell phones would alter how I felt about the world and where it was headed. I had to find a balance and understand that I could not protect my kids from “out there” forever. I had to pray that the seeds I was planting at home would take root and that they would be ok.
…and now….now it’s not just the 7 circles of hell that are so easily entered via pretty much any social media platform and web link nowadays…but it’s the overall feeling of unease that seems to have taken us all in some sort of vice grip since 2020. I feel like we were all kind of dealing with the general dysfunction that was life until that year hit and then…..everything kind of magnified in the worse ways possible.
I truly believe that what happened that year, the year after, and longer in some places…really changed things. Changed mindsets. Changed hearts. Changed perspectives. Changed humanity. And not in a good way. People seem more easily triggered, up-ended, and on edge (in some parts of the country and world more so than others). It’s odd and unsettling. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it all feels a bit “off”. I think we all feel that we were robbed of a few years of life, I see how it has affected our kids. They may be resilient, but the introspective ones feel it hard.
Now, I know I am coming off as some supreme pessimist with a side of doom and gloom. That’s not my intent at all, I promise. I have just always been a realist and keenly aware of things as they are…with only the occasional donning of rose colored glasses…but having kids has made me open my eyes wider than I ever thought possible. Having out-of-the-box thinker kids with very inquisitive minds has left me permanently eagle-eyed and trying to have as many sensical answers to their queries as possible. It ain’t easy.
I am Gen X. I grew up with a sense of freedom and lack of worry, despite growing up in a very low-income family. I had dreams and felt that the sky was the limit for me. I knew I could get away from the disaster that was my home life and be whatever I wanted to be. I could play outside without (too much) fear, go to the mall with my friends, spend days daydreaming in my room, scribbling in my journal, falling in love with movie starts and singers, believing…BELIEVING…that the world was a generally pretty great place. I had HOPE by the barrel full.
This is not the reality for kids now. It just isn’t. They are living through screens and living with a sense of foreboding….Will we go to war? Will I be drafted? Will we have a future? Why are people so intolerant? Why is everyone so confused? Why can’t anyone have differing opinions? Why can’t we just talk about stuff? What’s going to happen 5 years from now? Is it worth even trying? Those are all questions commonly asked and ruminated over by our youth.
I’m well aware that these are questions that many generations of kids have wrestled with in one way or another. My father lived through the ravages of war as 16 year in Hungary during WWII. Things have been bad before, yes, but our kids now are built from a different cloth, and there’s no escape from the messaging. They have handheld devices screaming at them 24/7 with messages of everything that is so wrong with them and the world. It’s just….different.
They just don’t have the same outlook on their futures as we did in our 80s and 90s glory days. So as mom, I do all that I can to keep their eyes on better things. Like I said in the beginning of the post, I’ve been having a lot of conversations with my kids. We have very open dialogue without judgement of any kind. All thoughts, questions, and theories are welcome. We work through all of them one by one. I want my kids to have open minds and think critically. So far so good.
I explain why I don’t believe in virtue signaling or jumping into whatever the narrative du jour may be. That it’s important to research and find all sides to every situation. I want them to approach life with level heads….even if the world they are approaching life in is far from level itself. We talk about the importance of knowing what is happening in the world but also not getting lost in it. To keep living, letting live, and working on themselves…because ultimately all we really have control over is our own little microcosms. The world will do what the world will do. We can still be happy, successful and OK.
I tell them that it’s important to sometimes just step completely away from their screens to escape the barrage of “bad news” and unrealistic standards. My son recently stepped away from all social media for a few weeks his first semester in college and told me it felt like a weight had lifted. He spent all the extra time listening to and discovering new music, going on long walks, going to the gym, and watching movies. Once he got back on the platforms he curated his algorithm to show him only things that would feed his confidence and soul. I think a lot of us should probably do the same. Shutting out all the “noise” is so important.
I remind them to focus on the little things. The sky after a monsoon, the first snowfall on the college campus, the desert sunsets, a smile from a kind stranger, a good cup of coffee, and animals. Always animals.
The world isn’t the same place we grew up in. It’s a little tenser, stranger, and somehow darker. Our kids are being faced with unpredictable times….and I wish I could strap them into a Delorean and whisk them back to the world I grew up in. But I can’t. So, I mother them in the best way I can to help them navigate things as they are. I remind them that things will be ok…and in a way I am reminding myself of this too. It’s all we really can do….and the world can still be a pretty great place if we let it be.
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