I understand the message that it is trying to convey. I just do not understand the judgement behind it.
There are a few things wrong with the above generalization of today's youth. First of all, I have yet to encounter an eighteen year old who is crying their eyes out instead of storming the beaches in Normandy or jumping onto the fields ahead. For one thing, there are no soldiers storming the beaches currently. Most of them are somewhere in the moutains of Afghanistan and I can ensure you those eighteen year olds are not crying.
The only problem I have with today's youth is they are more technologically dependent than my generation was at that age with the advent of portable hand-held devices such as Smart phones, laptops, iPads, etc. However, even when I was eighteen, there were plenty of middle-aged and elder adults saying the same thing about my generation being more into video games than playing outside. That was not true either. While I did enjoy video games at that age such as Super Mario Brothers 3 on the Super Nintendo, there were plenty of times I found myself outside walking the streets of Bristow trying to find anything to do.
The other problem I have with the above generalization is if this is the case of current eighteen year olds, than what are we as their elders doing about it? Besides making judgemental and rude memes like the one above? Because from where I am sitting, if the only thing we are doing is comparing this culture to our culture of yesterday, than we are no better than those griping elders who did the same about us.
Here is the truth of it: if eighteen year olds are too busy crying about hurt feelings than that means they have parents who taught them how to cry over spilt milk, or at the very least set the example by complaining about everything in life under the blue moon. Guess what? Those parents come from my generation, and they also come from your generation. In fact, if you are between the age of 31-42, you are of that generation who has taught today's youth to whine and cry and how to not handle their hurt.
So while you make cute memes go ahead and make one of yourself.
By the way, we really have no idea how the eighteen year olds of 1944 acted like before they stormed the beaches of Normandy. I can ensure you many of them were drafted and did so involuntarily. However, once in the trenches they handled their business and got home. People of my generation, the so-called "Generation X and Y" youth, did the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I believe each generation of youth deals with the same ridicule from their older peers. With that ridicule they learn to ridicule youth when they grow up. What a thing that would happen if instead of ridiculing our youth, we would instead take them under our wings and assist them where their parents have failed. Or perhaps their parents need a helping hand to help their child.
“Teach a youth about the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 HCSB
We can either teach our youth some valuable lessons they can then pass on to the youth of their future, or we can teach them to ridicule the youth of their time just as they were ridicule in their youth. The decision is up to you. The decision is up to me.
Until next time...
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