Laide, not her real name, must have been fed up with hearing complaints from many that the youths of today are not as ‘serious’ as they should be.
When the same complaint came up last Tuesday at a seminar, she could barely wait to grab the microphone and as politely as possible respond to the unending youth bashing which she said was not fair to her generation.
“Someone said the youths of today don’t read newspapers, they don’t want to read any serious thing, they are glued to their phones. I don’t think you should blame us for being born in this technology age. The fact that we don’t read print editions of newspapers as much as the older people does not mean we don’t read news. We do but maybe not like you people do.
“It is not our fault that we are different and you have to understand us for what we are,” Laide stated.
The young lady made a point which I agree with. As much as the old generation may have reasons to complain about the youths, we need to avoid blanket condemnation which sometimes gives the wrong impression that all the youths are the same.
While many may not meet the high standards we are used to, there are others who have proved that the new generation holds a lot of promise even when their ways of doing things are different from ours.
Like Laide rightly stated, we need to appreciate that we live in a new world where technology and many other factors have altered what we are used to. We can no longer insist on having things done exactly the ways they were done in our days.
What the young ones of today are exposed to is in no way comparable with ours. I grew up like most people of my generation without having access to telephones. Not many had television to watch in their homes. We had limited or no access to computers and the Internet which are today available to even toddlers.
While not compromising on the right principles, we need to give the youths the benefit of the doubt, instead of having a fixed mindset about how they behave and what they are capable of doing. Sometimes we need to try hard to make them understand why we want things done in a particular way and not assume they should know.
There will always be many reasons for the old generation to complain about the youths and they must not shy away from doing so when there are good reasons to do so.
What Laide and her generation, however, need to know is that what is regarded as youth-bashing is not new. Every generation always thinks the younger ones are not meeting up with the high standard it was subjected to. The complaints are usually borne out of love and what is required is mutual understanding by the young and old.
If the youths know what their elders know, they will understand why they usually warn them about the consequences of their actions and inactions.
The youths must learn to take criticisms in good faith and make necessary amends based on wise counsel of elders.