Kids These Days . . .

     I was at a family wedding just a couple of years ago. An older cousin--once a notorious hellraiser and womanizer--cornered me. Over the past few years, he had found Jesus, married a woman half his age, fathered seven children on her, and closeted himself and his family from society. I'd idolized him when I was young, but I hadn't seen him in years, hadn't spoken to him since his conversion and the end of my childhood..
     Small talk. He asked me how I liked being a teacher.
     Fine, fine.
     "Don't you find that kids these days are worse than ever?"
     Pause. Do you forget how you were?
     Avoidance. "They have no respect. They don't care about anyone but themselves."
     I repeat my question in my head. Also, in my head: The same could be said for many of the faithful.
     "Don't you think they're just terrible?"
     No, I don't think that at all.

     It's been a long year so far, folks. Wildfires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, terrorism, partisan fingerpointing, racial/religious/political shootings. .
     Maybe it's because I have former students in Japan, a friend in New Zealand, family in Norway, and maybe it's because I'm staunchly anti-Harper, hell, maybe it's because I hate the Boston Bruins . . . but, big scale-wise, I don't have a lot of good to say about the first seven months of 2011.
     Whenever there's tragedy, whenever there's an issue, somebody always takes a moment to gauge and to judge the reaction of the youth, or to stereotype the whole based on the few, and then to say: "What's this world coming to? These kids . . ."

     If you've read my blog before, you've read my decrying the folly of today's youth on occasion. Usually, I'm expressing my disgust at someone having to text me from five feet away. However, I've never claimed (or felt) that kids are getting worse every year, or that their follies and choices are responsible for the sorry state of our world. I blame the state of the world on oil, greed, most organized religions, and good old-fashioned selfishness. Oh, and reality TV.
     Despite my dissatisfaction with a lot of 2011, I am not one of those fellas that thinks the world is getting shittier each year we step into the 21st century. Sorry, I saw the Cold War and the Mulroney administration. I saw Poison considered a credible band and Steve Gutenberg a credible actor. There have been worse days.

     Grandpa. You have a Grade 6 education. You didn't have your first pair of shoes until you were twelve. You got up at 5 am every day and worked yourself to arthritis. Your wife you kept at home, then left her for months on end so you could go work, and the most you had to do with your children was to lay into them with a belt. You came of age when every orator worth his salt was becoming a dictator, and you killed people in the most horrible conflict in human history. You smoked, you drank, you swore, you slapped around your wife and kids. You went to church every Sunday and sang in the choir.

    Dad. You were raised by heavy-handed parents who neglected your emotions, worked you like a slave, denied you an education, and expected you to follow in their footsteps. You never expressed an emotion beyond rage until you were thirty. You defined yourself by what you saw on TV and there was never enough for you to watch. Still isn't.You and your friends took so many drugs you still have flashbacks and you speak with a slight lisp. You protested the corruption of the Man, and in less than twenty years you were exploiting every corner of the world for your own wealth. You have expanded our dependencies on oil and energy and your only church is the bank.

     Me. You grew up being told that your feelings mattered, that you should express them, all the while whining that you needed that one extra action figure for total nirvana. You saw a world turn to suit you, a world where all that mattered was your entertainment, and the vehemency with which you demanded to be entertained. As a teenager, you moped in a depression because you just had so much. Needed to be mad about something. You became the first real user of the Internet, the most exciting tool for containing all accumulated knowledge  in human history. You promptly dedicated 99% of it to games and pornography.

     Kids these days.
     Kids these days have the chance to overthrow the patriarchal madnesses: capitalism, militarism, fundamentalism and selfishness.
     Kids these days. They don't know how good they've got it. The world has been rotten before, people have been rotten before. Kids before these ones were selfish troublemakers mired in the demands of their id. Superiority comes with the guilt of failure.
     Kids these days have the world we've handed them. I don't envy them, but then I think they have more potential to stop the madness than most of the generations before them. If they stop listening to our quibbling and criticism, and if they care enough to unfuck the world on their own terms, for the future rather than for the past, well, then the future may be okay.

     Kids these days don't owe us a thing, save accepting our apology.