Millennial misunderstandings

The other day I read that the Canadian government was asking the populous to not use the word millennial to describe someone. They said it might offend someone. Everyone born before these people just rolled their eyes. Poor babies. What a soft generation. My mother always said sticks and stones can break your bones but names will never hurt you. I guess not for the millennials. Then it occurred to me that maybe these soft people are being taken the wrong way. Oh oh.

            I grew up in the mist of the baby boomer time period, or did I? It was a period post war from 1946 till when? Some say it ends in 1964 while others go till the end of Vietnam in 1974. What is it really? So, in the eighties and into the nineties they called it the generation x group of people. I have heard it reported that they were the lost generation. Wait a minute. I read that millennials are between the mid-nineties to the mid two thousand. What is real? Did you notice the gaps in generations? One article wanted to know who they are in those gaps.

            What I have noticed is generational periods. Imagine living in the early nineteen hundred. What an amazing period of discovery and change. I bet the new generation embraced change while the older folks from the eighteen hundred resisted. Those born in nineteen forties will have a different look than those in the eighties. So confusing. Yet, people are people. The next generation always knows more. Technically that’s true. However, the past generations said the same of those before them. What I’m painfully trying to say is millennials are misunderstood by the last generation.

            Maybe we should give millennials a break. Kind of, but I’ll still call them millennials. Suck it up Lewy. I was molded by the hard workers of my parent’s generation. Being outside in the cold was manly. Playing sports was manly. What I think is tough is very tough to millennials. They have lived a different life than me. They have been given more interesting things I never had growing up. The early nineteen hundred generation could say the same of the nineteen forties. Maybe being manly is generation perspective.

            What does God have to say? Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” That applies throughout the generations of time. Did you notice it does not say train in the same way? In some bible versions it says train in the way they are bent. Train in the way they are made individually. Each generation has its trials and troubles. It has its own technology and issues. Maybe those things train children too?

            God never asks us to train in the same way. Well sort of? There are words to pass down. There are traditions to pass on. Yet, people and generations are different. You could believe they should be the same but it never has been that way. Sorry folks, but it never will either. I suppose my generation does not understand the millennial generation. Should we? Did other generations understand the next? I guess we trained them to be as they are. New technologies trained them. New ideas and attitudes trained them. I bet it’s like the generations before.

            Do I think millennials need a life? Are they too spoiled and soft? Maybe, but is it their fault or are they trained to be just as the current climate is? They see what I can’t see. That is a good thing. Millennials see the planet. They see my mistakes. They want clean water, air, and oceans. My generation did not care so much. I’m going to cut them some slack. Millennials are different for a reason.

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