Me and my millennial.

Writer’s block is a real condition! I’ve been experiencing it for a couple of months now. It’s as if a microorganism has somehow entered my cranium and hi-jacked my unique ideas and creative thought processes! Thankfully, today I experienced a long awaited breakthrough and the spigot has finally been twisted back on again. 

I had a recent conversation with my 20-year-old daughter and something she said has been sticking with me ever since. Maddy is an amazing young woman with wisdom beyond her years, a keen sense of intuition and a deep and authentic love for God and people. 

We were driving to Oakland International Airport to pick up a friend of hers and got to talking about random things and somehow the issue of marriage and divorce came up. She then chimed in with this comment; “Yeah, my friend told me that she really needs to start understanding how to do adult things like filing taxes and getting a divorce.” Screech! I literally felt like pulling over to the shoulder to stop for a minute and just let that settle in. Wow. 

Later, when Maddy and I had some time to further “unpack” this comment and scratch beneath the surface a bit, it became very apparent to me that I (and maybe you as well) are missing something critical about the environment in which are kids are growing up. 

I realized, after speaking with Maddy, that I’ve had an overall prejudice against Millennials in that I have sort of cast an umbrella over the whole lot with certain perceptions that are way out of line. I have found myself buying into the stigma that they are lazy or entitled and have lost all sense of morality, etc… Shame on me. It became clear to me when, after my daughter told me about her friend’s comment about divorce, I replied “Wow, that is so sad that she’s thinking that way.” to which Maddy countered, “Dad, us millennials, we didn’t raise ourselves. Don’t you think we learn most of what we see and know from our parents?” Ouch. She’s absolutely correct. She went on to say, “Our generation is under so much pressure to perform and the expectations we are supposed to live up to feel impossible to achieve so it’s no wonder many of my peers are struggling with depression, anxiety and substance abuse. So many of my friends are on meds or in counseling to deal with the pressure and honestly, I think a lot of it stems from a lack of pride and an overall judgmental mindset felt from the generations ahead of us. We are expected to get A’s so that we can compete at the highest level to get into a good college, excel in a sport at school, join a club team, have hobbies, learn a second language, and keep up with our social lives all without feeling like we are going to explode at any moment. No one is promoting downtime or saying it’s okay to chill but we need this to recharge just as much as you do.”

As I listened intently to my daughter it was as if I was hearing a choir of voices from her generation joining in on the entire conversation. I felt compelled to give her and her millennial peers a voice and that is why I’m sharing it with you here now. As parents of millennials, we can choose to gloss over this and ignore it or take ownership for our part of the story. I will close with this last profound statement from my daughter to our generation. She said, “Dad, the judgmental negativity and the scolding does nothing to help us. I’m not saying that our parents are to blame for everything but as kids we look up to you and learn a lot from you. I think we just need more empathy and encouragement from our parents and older generations. I think we need to feel empowered and praised for all of the good things we are doing and then the negatives will fade to the background.” Then she ended our conversation with this power-punch, “Dad, my generation has the greatest power to change the world because there has never in history, been more information or resources available to a generation than right now.” Let that sink in for a second. When she said this I thought, she’s absolutely spot on! Her generation and the ones after her will go on to do exponentially way more than the generations before her simply by nature of progression however I never thought about my contribution to this until now. I am one father of two children. Maybe you are one father of two children as well. Together, we are two fathers with four children and so on. Imagine how our deliberate and unconditional love, affirmation and encouragement can provide rocket fuel to our millennial offspring! 

Let's go get it!

Questions to ponder:
1. Are you intentionally engaging with your children on a level that they are feeling heard by you? In other words, you are not simply listening to them but hearing what they are saying at a heart level.
2. Do you have any unfounded perceptions or prejudices against the younger generation?
3. Are you calling out the good qualities in your children and encouraging their talents and gifts on a regular basis?

Verses to consider:

Psalm 103:13 - “Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.”

Colossians 3:21 – “Fathers, don’t scold your children so much that they become discouraged and quit trying.”