Last week, I sat in my English class, next to my friend, when a ‘harmless’ snark from my teacher caught my attention—”Young people, especially Gen Z, will never understand hard work. You’re always too lazy, as you’ve got your lives easier than us.” While most of my classmates didn’t pay much attention to it, this comment left a bitter taste.
Is she trying to say that we should not have gotten an easier life than our previous generation, even though improving life for future generations is widely considered one of the foundational aims of human civilisation? Their generation also had it easier than the previous one.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone make jokes or simply make ‘jealous statements’ about Generation Z, so I wanted to find the reasons behind this hatred towards the group of people who will lead this planet in the coming years. I surfed the internet, reading Reddit posts, watching videos, skimming articles, and more to find out that this isn’t the first time a whole generation has been judged harshly by their elders. This is a cycle. The complaints about ‘kids these days’ have been going on for centuries.
Generation Z is often tagged as lazy, snowflakey, selfish, and ungrateful by their older counterparts. However, are we the first ones to be called these?
“What really distinguishes this generation from those before it is that it’s the first generation in American history to live so well and complain so bitterly about it.” This is what was written for Millennials in the Washington Post, calling them ungrateful. “Many [young people] were so pampered nowadays that they had forgotten that there was such a thing as walking,” this one, in 1951, for the Silent Generation in the Falkirk Herald, called them lazy.
“An attitude on the part of young folk which is best described as grossly thoughtless, rude, and utterly selfish,” this one from Hull Daily Mail, 1925, calls the Greatest Generation selfish and rude. Now, to prove how old this cycle is, a statement from the 4th century BC:”[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances.”
Understanding that each generation tends to resent the next, our question becomes why this occurs.
Memory bias
Memory bias is a cognitive bias in which, rather than acting like an objective video recording, the brain reconstructs memories, often changing them to align with personal narratives. This subconsciously pushes the older generations to only remember the virtuous winnings of their young age that were a result of their long-term labour, often forgetting their youthful mistakes. For example, a parent may flaunt how they bought a house of their own at the mere age of 25 without sharing how their eagerness cost them a better house deal, or how they couldn’t buy a car till 30.
Outdated standards
Often, older people compare young ones to their current self, who is obviously more experienced than their young selves. Making this an unfair comparison as they have already adapted to the changing world, whereas the youngster is still trying to navigate for the first time.
Product of time
What we’re taught affects our behaviour. The older generations were often asked to repress their emotions, whereas the younger ones are now taught to express them. Therefore, what seems oddly snowflakey to them might just be a basic human behaviour.
Further, older generations usually judge the younger generations by the fact that they are too dependent on technology, too anxious, without considering the fact that, just like every generation, this coming-of-age generation has faced a variety of challenges that none of the other generations had to go through, which shaped it into what it is. Very infamously, COVID-19, where they had to stay inside their homes for almost years, seeing news of thousands dying, followed by the pressure of perfection on social media embedded in their phones 24/7. Adding to the stress, the rising issues in this world (credit to older generations)—the planet is burning, animals around are getting extinct—it’s quite visible that there is no future for this planet unless we put in the required efforts to save it. There are a lot of responsibilities on the shoulders of these young people that the previous ones might not understand.
Each generation goes through different teachings, problems, and celebrations of their times, making each different.
Therefore, it’s the need of the hour for us to be more empathetic, help youngsters figure out their way in this confusing world and break this vicious cycle of thinking that the next generation, in this case Gen Alpha, is less than us just because our interests misalign.
Shubhanshi Sharma is a student of DAV Centenary Public School, New Delhi. Views are personal.
Also read: The futility of linguistic chauvinism