Okay Boomer.
Generational respect
Respect your elders! I was taught. Why? What have they done to earn my respect?
Everyone, has the elderly relative that feels it is okay to say racist/sexist/misogynistic rubbish because they have “lived long so they are going to speak their mind” Well I got news for you guys. Unless you are going to the grave in the next 3 seconds, there are still consequences for what you said and being on the way out of this mortal coil doesn’t give you carte-blanche to be rude to people.
But lets talk about generational disrespect.
I hate the term “okay Boomer” because it casualises ageism. I have words for you young people too. Age is coming for us all. Aging is a blessing that not everyone gets. And we spend a lot more time “Old” than we do “young.” Look at the Queen, Only my dad’s generation have memories of her as a young woman. I think of her as the elderly woman who is essentially everyone’s grandma.
We wish away our youth. I always thought when I was 30 I’d be established. I’d be rich, married, have a child or two with my own home. I’m 30 now… I’m barely figuring out adulting and am always the last to put my bins out.
But why do the generations hate each other? To put it bluntly.
Its because we all used to live in multigenerational households so when you thought of your grandmother, you humanised her because you knew her well, and when grandparents where thinking about which politicians they thought had the better education policy it was high on their “Voter intentions” because their grandson Jimmy has autism.
Now we see our grandparents at Christmas and birthdays, and so we have drifted.
The ugly truth is that now as opposed to working collaboratively and thinking about their granny/grandchild. The generations have hardened into the “scarcity mindset”
The scarcity mindset is when you believe there is finite resources and the ones you want are scarce.
As a result you become greedy hording all the resource you want so that others don’t get at it. That is what politicians have done in the UK with the baby boomers vs Millennials and Gen Z.
Politicians have “criminalised” the young and penalised us with the tax burden of earlier excesses.
When I was about 21 tuition fees trebled from £3,000 to £9,000 in the UK. All for the mistake of people being born at the wrong time. The idea of graduate tax was floated but quickly slapped down by people who hadn’t had to pay for higher education at point of use, objecting to being retrospectively asked to pay for it, which funnily enough was what they were wishing on other people.
It got serious and people started committing suicide due to not being able to cope with the pressure of the fees, I can still see their faces in the newspaper, may they rest in peace.
All I ask for is a little humility, everyone get off their emotional high horses, tone down the rhetoric and stop thinking in terms of “revenge” or “Punishment” of other generations for perceived sins. Baby boomers did not put the hole in the Ozone layer it was cumulative since the industrial revolution and before. Young people aren’t wasteful for having a £3 coffee. Everyone remember that you are talking about someone’s son, or someone’s grandfather. So please quit the scarcity mindset, come together and lets work out solutions for the problems we face.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother-Smith.