Remember Acts 2:17: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
Depending on where you draw the generational timeline, being born in 1981 either makes me Gen X or a Millennial.
Yet, with the explosion of social media (especially, TikTok), the conversations and rampant disrespect across both sets of generations is…whew!
On my podcast WhatJayeSaid: The Podcast, with my sisterfriend Karla, we spoke about this–at length! From this side of 40, I see the problem. It’s not just communication, its not respect. It’s expectancy.
We have to admit as a community that for as amazing as we are, the community is not totally okay. Some of that is because of trauma, seeing pain as power, and having a warped view of being better is.
The younger generation wants to be heard: they want the freedom to identify what works and what doesn’t work. That level of bravery is noble. Yet, what y’all need to understand is–you don’t know everything. Trust me, you don’t.
The older generation wants to be respected and believed: it needs to be said that the experiences the previous generations had/have are valid and need to be believed. Their wisdom is needed; life experiences need to be honored even if that means from a stand point of knowing what not to do. We as millennials have the language now to dissect and defuse situations so we don’t trauma bond.
For the community to go forward, we all need each other. As crazy as that sounds, we all need each other. The Baby Boomers need to listen to Gen X who need to listen to Millennials who need to listen to Gen Z and Alpha.
Also, Gen Alpha and Z need to understand life didn’t start with them. Millennials and Gen X need to understand trauma can’t be our legacy and identity. We gotta heal and be the trees we didn’t have. We are the pivot: either we are going to prepare or perpetuate. Baby Boomers have to realize that not everyone hates y’all–we just need all to understand not everything is yours, and you gotta share more than dressing recipes with us.
We can make it y’all, but we all gotta climb together.
The Ideal Firestarter 