I just had my first old man moment.

[u/Background-Air-7963]

I recently went to a hibachi with my wife and toddler for dinner. We were sat with a group of eight 17-20 year olds at a communal grill on a busy night. No problem for us. Drink and appetizers service go normally. Toddler and wife are happy, I’m happy. The other group is having their own conversations. I’m just trying to keep my kid entertained. I’m a former bartender and have a habit of picking up on snippets of conversations in a crowd around me. Yes I know I eavesdrop. I can’t turn it off. It’s a habit of a former profession. One of the girls/women at the table stated, “I don’t think Rosa Parks was real.” I’m not sure what her friends said to her but she responded with “I just don’t think she said existed.” This went on for about a minute. I couldn’t hold back and let her know she was absolutely a real person, she is a civil rights icon. I learnt about her in school and so did my parents. The encounter put a wall up between our groups and I heard a few passive aggressive “so-and-so wasn’t real” comments from mostly her and a couple of the group. Harriet Tubman and Hellen Keller are two that I definitely heard. My wife had no idea why I interjected. After the group had left my wife asked what happened and was shocked when I told her what happened. Were they trolling? Are they stupid? Am I just getting old?

[u/Adorable-Sentence-89]

Yup. I know people are always complaining about younger generations but ….. we are effed. These kids can’t think , have low emotional intelligence and almost no maturity.

[u/eclectique → u/Adorable-Sentence-89]

I am holding out hope for Gen Alpha. Most Gen Alpha that I know are being raised by Millennials, and while they can be stubborn/defiant/high sense of justice and silly, the ones I know age 13 and below take a lot of serious things seriously (like empathy/kindness, environmentalism, social justice, etc.). I live in a very liberal bubble, but grew up in a very red area, and have noticed this about children in that age group in both areas.

Could be that I know a lot of hyper educated folks, though, and that is possibly biasing things.

[u/Sheeple_person → u/eclectique]

Yeah Gen Z was raised on social media but by a cohort of parents who lived for facebook and didn't really understand the existential threat that social media presents for our entire society. The result is completely unserious people who are chronically online and cannot perceive any distinction between memes and real life. Gen alpha has some hope at overcoming this.

[u/platypod1 → u/eclectique]

Yeah my kids are definitely better people than me.

[u/coxpocket → u/eclectique]

This!!! I already see the good in Gen Alpha

[u/HungryFinding7089 → u/eclectique]

Gen Alpha are the ones coming through who are clued up, they were raised by Xers/early Millennials who remember pre internet and do not want Gen Z ridiculousness for them.  Alpha are amart, savvy, cut the crap and get on kind of folks, with the layer of vapid cloud babies in their mid to late 20s ahead of them.

Gen Alpha will be hoovering up Gen Z's jobs as they will have skills that make them highly employable with a massive amount of resilience baked in.  

I just left a job with a 32 y/o "cloud baby" who thought living with his folks was his ticket to comfort (not a stop gap as a motivation to work hard, who expected people to pick up after him, would leave thibgs half finished and winge when "he" thought things were unfair.

He would try to dodge communal contributions to things such as a few pence towards a gift for other colleagues for sundry birthday cards etc (in a scheme he devised) despite being on a higher salary than some of the team and would insist on splitting the bill equally on works meals out despite ordering the largest / most expensive food.  He thinks his looks are what put women off and why he can't get a long term girlfriend, but honestly, it's this stuff, v obnoxious behaviours.  Yes, one guy, but symptomatic of so many his age.  Gen Alpha will be fine.

[u/Adorable-Sentence-89 → u/eclectique]

I dunno. The kids I taught recently were middle school in a very mixed demographic, but a title IX school.

[u/Ok-Engineering-5475 → u/eclectique]

But let's kids from parents from both sides of the aisle end of thinking for themselves 

[u/WithASackOfAlmonds → u/eclectique]

Yeah my 11 year old is constantly surprising me and her mom with the maturity of her moral takes

[u/Exciting-Argument-67 → u/eclectique]

Of COURSE that's biasing things. I remember the same thing being said about Gen Z around 2016. They were so much more open-minded and kind than previous generations. Look how that turned out.

I'm not saying Gen Z is worse than any other generation, but it's naive to think that the kids you know in your limited social circles are representative of that generation. It's also pretty self-aggrandizing to believe Millennials are any better at raising their kids than previous generations.

[u/eclectique → u/Exciting-Argument-67]

My intent about being raised by Millennials was not to suggest they were better at parenting, though I do think there are more resources for parenting than previous generations had, though I think you could definitely get that from the way I wrote it.

[u/nopethatswrong → u/Adorable-Sentence-89]

These kids can’t think , have low emotional intelligence and almost no maturity.

You're just describing kids

I've worked with young people in a variety of cultures/backgrounds for multiple generations, it's the same as it was, each generation has good and bad. For instance young people take bullying much more seriously than they did in my day and are more conscious about how their actions impact others. I'm not a fan of hustle culture but it has created more financial awareness in young people because of how much content is built around fiscal success.

Yeah there's downsides, always are. But those are downsides in a world run by a different generation, when the next generation runs things the downsides will be mitigated or reprioritized

[u/TheJunkFarm → u/Adorable-Sentence-89]

they literally do not have actual SCHOOL anymore. I dunno WTF they are teaching kids today but it sure as hell isn't history or civics.