Once, when my early teenage son wanted to listen to some of the fun events of my childhood, I said, "I have so many to tell." Are you interested?" The boy added, "Your own, right?" "Okay". My story began:
I was a seventh grader then. One morning, I was busy working on the farm near my house before going to school. There were buffaloes, cattle and calves in the house. I had to cut grass and feed them. While I was cutting grass, a well-dressed man was going somewhere by the field. When he saw me cutting grass, he asked: "Lad, don't you read?" "I do," I said. "Where? In which class?" "In the seventh grade, Hapur Bijauri." "Hey! Do you know me?" "I saw you several times, but I don't know your name," I said. "What is your name?" "I am Madhav". "Hey! When will your Baa (father) return?" "It's been more than two weeks since my parents went to Kathmandu. When he asked about Baa, I thought he must have been the nearest relative and greeted him. I felt ashamed to say hello at that time. "He said, “My parents will be back by tomorrow. "I am Megha Raj Upadhyay, the chairman of the Management Committee of the school you study in.” When he said it, I looked at him with wonder. "Aren't you going to school today?" he inquired. "I cut grass until 9:30 am and will go after that," I replied. "Syabas! (Well-done) You have to do both household chores and study, right?" "OK," I nodded. He praised me for doing my reading along with household chores.
I was telling the story further, but the son interrupted, "Why are you telling this story of the poor who cut grass? I asked you to tell your own story!" That was my real story, he did not believe I came from that background. What he did not particularly like about the narration was that it was a story of a tattered cloth and a dirty hand.
When I reported this event to my circle, a friend of mine remarked, “Today's children regard the workers as poor; how would they gather experience later?” He asserted that it was a contemporary perception of every child studying in boarding school. But he feels the boy is right in his perception. Another friend says that our generation has endured so much hardship that our kids find it hard to believe what we have been through. Next friend admits this is a story of each house portraying an intergenerational divide because today’s children don’t understand their parents. He feels it is an outcome of what modern parents gave their children by sacrificing their comforts.
The intergenerational divide between the previous and modern generations results from differing experiences. According to the Johns Hopkins University Report published on November 17, 2022, today’s workforce consists of four major generations: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. The Baby Boomers, born and raised between 1946 to 1964, post-Second World War resource-limited society have experienced difficult historical periods, gone through bitter economic challenges, and endured technological limitations and poverty. They were work-centric, conservative, and competitive. This forced them to believe that preserving the tradition, associating the self with traditional professions like farming, rearing cattle, or like these, and hard work alone ensure a sound payoff. When they see their children ignoring these set beliefs and aspiring for prosperity from newer means, this distresses them. Generation X was born between 1965 and 1980 after the war but before technology society. This was an independent generation and focused on material success. The Millennials were born between 1981 to 1996. It was an economically stable and technologically advancing generation. And lastly, the Z Generation is after the 1997 phenomenon which is raised in a digitalized period in which societies are economically fluctuating. The present generation is open, collaborative, communicative, and diverse but progressive. It is natural that these generations raised in different social and political atmospheres correspond to different environments, which beget different values, wants, and needs.
The generation gap between the young and the old can intensify the competition for resources because the rise in the number of senior dependents is occurring more rapidly, for whom dependent population is a larger concern.
Though modern-day children are growing up with gadgets, technology, convenience and a smarter set of social values, they also face different but equally challenging complexities like identifying their potential, navigating careering opportunities, updating with the complex digital phenomena, gaining economic stability, dealing with societal as well as peer pressures. These tensions distance them from the older generations.
The present-day children want their parents to dress up smart and earn a fair amount from whatever they do, they shun ugliness. They think in new ways and want to achieve success by embracing modern ways rather than associating themselves with the traditional agriculture mode. The intergenerational divide between the generations is a story of every house of a parent of forties like mine.
As globalization is turning each society into a hybrid and diversity explosion, driving the generational gap is becoming much more challenging today. Clear gaps are already visible in areas like the clash of economic interests, religious ideologies and politics. The generation gap between the young and the old can intensify the competition for resources because the rise in the number of senior dependents is occurring more rapidly, for whom dependent population is a larger concern. From 2010 to 2030, the senior population is projected to grow by 84 percent in the US. In contrast, the labor force will grow by only 8 percent and the population under age 18 will grow by just 3 percent.
People have complained about younger generations for thousands of years. For Peter O’Connor, a professor at Queensland Institute of Technology, Australia, the tendency for adults to disparage the character of youth has been happening for centuries. He points out that the stereotype remains alive and well, with research showing that thousands of Americans believe that ‘kids these days’ lack the positive qualities that parents associate with older generations.
But this is not true that today’s youths lack these qualities. The researchers argue that this is because we project our current selves onto our past selves. By doing this, older people are haphazardly comparing today’s young people that they somehow lack traits like them.
Carl Nassar, a mental health professional, who regularly works with adolescents and families struggling with generational divides claims that the older generations were taught to repress instead of express, but for newer generations, it’s the other way around. “That has caused a perceptual rift with older generations seeing this expression of indifference to a tattered story like the one mentioned in the first paragraph as a sign of weakness. So judging Millennials and Gen Z child psychology from a decade-old standard ignores the complexities the newer generations are forced to experience.
(Dr. Madhav Prasad Dahal is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, TU)
.
