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May 27, 2004 We are latch-key kids, punk rockers, computer and video game geniuses, teenage parents, trendy artists, motivated business people and apathetic couch potatoes. Today nothing is considered taboo and everything is open for discussion. How did we get to be so different from our parents? Could dramatic changes in society over the last 50 years have created a generation unlike any other? Fifty years ago it would not be uncommon to have the perfect family. Mom in yellow housedress, father in business suit, little Susie and Mickey carrying lunch boxes off to school while their loving parents wave goodbye to the school bus. Isn’t it funny how today that scenario seems unrealistic to the point where it’s comical? Sure, some people had the Leave it to Beaver style childhood, white picket fence and everything, but the majority of my fellow Gen Y’ers had to overcome adversity that simply was not there in generations past. While our parents were climbing the corporate ladder, many of us were plopped in front of our babysitter, the TV. We learned about sex from an episode of “Roseanne”, how to kiss from a movie on HBO, we learned about all the evils of the world just by watching CNN for a few hours. For the first time both of our parents were working, not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Many did not need the extra income; they simply wanted the big screen TV, or the designer clothes. Did anybody think that all that lack of parenting could have a negative impact on the development of a child? Of course not. How could more money and a second car have a negative impact on your kid, right? Parents like mine were merely trying to make ends meet and left me and my brother with a countless number of friends who were virtual strangers to us while they worked their eight hour shifts simply because they couldn’t afford traditional day care. Even when they were home it was like living with two room mates instead of parents. Both extremely liberal, my parents always treated my brother and I like friends instead of family. They thought that they were doing a better job than their parents because they had made buddies with their children, something their parents strived for but could never achieve. With the lack of supervision and discipline, basically we were left to our own devices and we had to learn some life lessons pretty early. Rarely was there ever a parent home when I would skip school to go hang out at my friend’s house. And if my parents ever caught me doing anything bad, they would not have the energy left from their work day to punish me or the time to enforce the punishment. My friends’ parents were the same way and I wonder how we all turned out to be semi-responsible. Yet somehow evolving from this lack of parenting, my generation is out to exceed all expectations. Today’s twenty-somethings want to forge their own path, make their mark on the world, we even want to fall flat on our face just to prove that we can pick ourselves back up. In my opinion this is because our generation has not had to struggle in the same way as other generations. Excluding the new War on Terrorism, our generation has had nothing like a World War or a Depression to unite all young people sharing a common adversary. Nevertheless anything like a Civil Rights Movement or Women’s Lib to unite people with common interests. So what has taken the place of a peaceful protest or a bra- burning? Nothing. And that’s the sad thing. My generation has been focused on just leading a normal life – something many of us never had. We want to correct the mistakes of our parents but in our own way and in our own time. That’s why we’re so eager to get out on our own and make our own choices. It’s why we’re so incredibly self-motivated and relentless. It’s why our views are completely different than those of older people. Our entire lives have been devoted to being different than our parents. We have been called apathetic, but we are just oversaturated with information. We have been called uncaring, but we just have our priorities defined earlier than most. It has been said that we are unwilling and unmotivated to change the world around us and this I hope will be the biggest slap in society’s face of all. As a generation struggling to better ourselves we must use our life experience to broaden the minds of others. ------------ About the author Ashley Hutson: I am a twenty year old college student in Dallas, Tx. I am the author of an unpublished novel and several unpublished short stories. I am looking for a literary agent and a publishing company that will help me do what I love for a living - write! Email: ahutson001@excite.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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