Spice of life | Gen X vs Gen Z: Making sense of a clash of worlds

Gen X spent a lifetime saving for future generations. Gen Z spends as though tomorrow is merely a rumour

My generation is parenting a generation that recently captured headlines. Yes, I mean Gen Z, the generation that has made parents, teachers and psychologists collectively wonder: Where exactly are we headed?

For years, I carried a quiet guilt that I wasn’t as good a parent as my parents had been. Then I watched a mighty dispensation apparently succumb to Gen Z during the Cockroach Janta Party agitation (AP Photo)

Our Gen X childhood was different. Money was scarce, even in respectable middle-class homes. Whatever we received came with caveats and a reminder that a favour had been bestowed upon us. But our children, by contrast, have largely grown up with the silver spoon somewhere between their mouth and their smartphone. Instant gratification for them isn’t a luxury but a fundamental right. Perhaps, in trying to give our children everything we never had, we accidentally empowered them with a sense of entitlement rather than teaching the age-old art of “sharing the poverty.”

Spare the rod and spoil the child; was the parenting manual used on us. When I hear words like trauma, body-shaming, triggering, safe-space and boundaries, I sometimes wonder whether we were simply too primitive to have discovered these concepts. We preferred playing outside until someone shouted, “Come home!” These nocturnal creatures emerge from their bedrooms only when food is ready or the Wi-Fi stops working. While we enjoyed living in the present, they live through reels, stories and notifications, where even eating meals requires documentation. Our childhood memories look archaic compared to their cloud storage.

They are also more global than national. Opportunities, careers and lifestyles matter more to them than culture, tradition or borders. This raises an intriguing question: What happens to nationalism and regionalism when politicians can no longer press the same old emotional buttons?

Religion, too, appears remarkably low on their priority list. A friend’s daughter decided to marry outside the community. With the determination of a political campaigner, he deployed his most powerful weapon: “Dharam khatre mein hai!” Nothing worked. His only consolation was that she was marrying someone of the opposite gender. At least one “cultural emergency” had been avoided.

Gen X spent a lifetime saving for future generations. Gen Z spends as though tomorrow is merely a rumour. They are more willing to take risks, change jobs and experiment to make it big; however, responsibility sometimes arrives as an optional accessory. Marriage as an institution is under threat being increasingly viewed as an administrative burden. Live-in relationships are perfectly acceptable; meanwhile, having children is being postponed indefinitely, apparently while they wait for the right time. I seriously wonder whether we’ll ever get to play with our grandchildren.

For years, I carried a quiet guilt that I wasn’t as good a parent as my parents had been. Then I watched a mighty dispensation apparently succumb to Gen Z during the Cockroach Janta Party agitation. I felt strangely relieved. Perhaps, we hadn’t done such a bad job. At least we seem to have raised children who are willing to question authority and demand accountability.

So, in this clash of generations, whose ways are right? Should we look to the past for guidance or embrace the future? Perhaps neither. It is time to reconcile and stop judging them, for every generation believes the next one is doomed. And yet, somehow, the world survives. Maybe Gen Z will, too. They may not have inherited our anxieties. Thankfully, they haven’t inherited our prejudices either.

echpee71@gmail.com

(The writer is a Mohali-based freelance contributor)