An Open Letter to Baby Boomers

Dear Baby Boomers (click here to find out what a Baby Boomer is),

I write to you while sitting in a chair at my local public library. Having had a conversation recently with my parents, aunts, and uncles, I am compelled to notify you that I would appreciate it if you would join me in analyzing your generation’s collective experiment and the ramifications of your choices for Generation X, Millennials, and other future generations.

Your generation began to emerge into prominence during Vietnam and following JFK’s tragic death and became rather vocal about your displeasure for American society. Piggybacking off the Beatnik movement, you challenged cultural assumptions en route to transforming culture into your own mold. With the bluster of change that could only be classified as a cultural revival, you challenged everything and brought America to its knees at your very presence thanks to your numbers and the noise your voices created.

I can’t speak well for you, as I wasn’t born after World War II, but I think I understand what you were after. Yes, the 1950s were really, well, plain. Everyone had the same car, same haircut, and same Levitt & Sons house that all screamed “conformity.” To spice up life, rock the boat, and try new things, you discovered new means to live. LSD became your new sugar cereal. Rock & Roll was amazing. Being more open about sex became your norm.

After Woodstock, you grew up. It was time to move on to bigger things: conquering a nation. Your older cousins, the Silent Generation, let you trample them miserably on your way to becoming CEOs, storming politics, packing the courts, and industrializing the nation. Its amazing how just 20 years or so of your generation has made such an impact on culture.

However, my purpose in writing this letter is to ask you a question that may haunt you, but I feel it is valid. Can you honestly say that you will be leaving America better than you found it?

Today, my generation is beginning to enter your workforce to take over your newly created cubicles as you retire, though we are moving into a different workplace. At one time, a corporation existed to improve people’s lives and communities. Today, by definition in college, a corporation exists to “raise shareholder wealth.” Thank you very much for your sweat shops that imprison children, the corporate landfills you created, and thousands of acres of forests you removed to build bigger buildings. We couldn’t have have made it without that.

Thank you very much for accepting the notions of philosophers who would have better been found in other places in time. “If it feels good, do it” has really helped decrease the number of people in prisons. “God is dead” really raised the bar for hope. “Sex, drugs, and rock & roll” has improved family lives for everyone.

Thank you for selling us to day cares so you could work. We appreciate the bigger houses, cars, and 200 TV channels we got for the trade, but really, your time would have been a lot more. You chose to work to “make ends meet” that you never had to create, so we decided that since you didn’t want us, we’d have to raise ourselves. Its okay – without you guiding us, we found ways to increase teen pregnancy, STDs, high school dropout rates, and juveneille crime without you. As we move out of your homes, we hope your 61″ HDTVs, boats, and Hummers were worth the price. They cost us a lot.

Thank you for deciding how schools should train us for your “real world.” Learning to think for ourselves by taking tests, learning how to type instead of handwrite, training us that spellcheck is better than phonics, and removing the concept of failure from our lives is wonderful. Not only can we not function in society, but we refuse to believe that we can’t function. At least we have our self-esteem. Go ahead and fire us in your workplaces – you never taught us commitment, anyways.

Thank you for all the prosperity you have brought to America by working your tails off. We really appreciate you earning your social security, though we’re not sure you made it into a system we can leave for you. Fortunately, you’ve all been saving all the pay from your overtime hours to make up the difference when we are forced to shut it down because you turned it into a bankrupt system.

Thank you for leaving us with a world where we are respected by other nations. The Europeans can’t wait to work with us in diplomacy, the Islamic World will forgive us really quickly for killing all their civilians, and the Africans didn’t want help with AIDS, anyways. They realize that spending $15,000 for toilets and other necessities you signed into law are more important.

As we take over your jobs, we look forward to finding all the problems you’ve left for us and transforming our world to what you were supposed to make it. Don’t worry – all the experts say we’ll probably do more for society than even our grandparents. You just sit back and enjoy the reality TV you created in your excessive homes while we’ll take care of everything.

Who are the parents now?

Sincerely,
Millennials

Christian teens (A reality check)

In working at a rather large youth church, I find myself getting to see things that some smaller youth groups aren’t able to experience. In the interest of fairness, I also miss out on some things. One of the oddities emerging is the decreasing gap in spiritual maturity between those raised in Christian homes and those not.

Churches invest thousands of dollars each year in their children’s ministries to provide a Biblical foundation in their children with hopes that it will take hold in them as they grow. Despite decades of work, this isn’t at all an exact science, yet. So many parents will find themselves unconsciously turning over their children’s spiritual development to their churches (an expression of “compartmentalized Christianity“).

Years later, I receive them into discipleship ministries and they begin to open up about their real spiritual formation. Most want nothing to do with sharing their spiritual pursuits, daily routines, and more with their parents. Most have struggles their parents won’t ever know about, for fear of their parents’ punishment or broken hearts.

Many of these students, thought to be the cream of the crop and the fruit of a church’s labors, have the same addictions and struggles as those who are not-yet-Christians. They are cutters. They consume billions of dollars of pornography. They experiment with homosexuality. They masturbate. They steal. They cheat on tests. They lie often. They are as angry as those amongst them. They tell the dirty jokes. They give their virginity away without remorse. They don’t really worship (and don’t want to). They don’t actually want to read the Bible. They pray longer for their meals than their lives. They have secret relationships until they are old enough to “date.” They have their first kiss before their parent’s know they like boys or girls. They are real.

What is scariest about this is that their parents are completely oblivious to their teenager’s lives. Baby Boomers long ago made the decision that they would make money their object of worship, selling their children to babysitters and daycare workers in exchange for better homes, cars, and bigger TVs. Now that they don’t have to pay for daycare workers for their teens, they have built a standard of living that just keeps rolling, while their teenagers raise themselves. Their friends, YouTube, and their dreams spend 160 hours each week training them to live.

Parents should find ways to raise the kids they always wanted. They should ask the really hard questions. They should tell their kids that if they are honest, their punishments change. They should guide their students as the ultimate mentor. They should know their teen’s friends. They should treat computers as tools, not babysitters. They should be parents.

I have hope for this generation. They seem to be very civic and very open to challenges. The only challenges they have had in their lives has been raising themselves. They desire guidance. They crave to be told to try again. They want to be loved.

They’ve just never been loved.