Every generation ⁄ Blames the one before ⁄ And all of their frustrations ⁄ Come beating on your door.
I’ve encountered dozens of truisms that are true only as far as the first three letters of the word. This opening line to the Mike and the Mechanics hit song The Living Years — co-written by BA Robertson and the chief mechanic, Mike Rutherford — is not one of them. If the heated and emotional tiff I had with my mother early last week is anything to go by, then it is, definitely.
However, it is just as important to acknowledge that the reverse is equally true. Every generation thinks the next generation is way too fragile, too entitled and generally annoying. Strong, hurtful words such as “snowflake” get thrown around during the rumble in the generational jungle. It is a situation that those belligerent Zulus love to euphemise as “Izindangala zihlekana iziphongo” (Baboons are laughing at each other’s foreheads).
Now that I’m in my fifties, I understand my father’s decisions when he was my age — good or bad, smart or ill-advised, selfish or inclusive — much better than I did 30 years ago. I’ve never been a fan of motivational speakers, TV evangelists and pop psychology self-help books. However, one of the most useful things I ever heard was by Dr Myles Munroe, the televangelist and leadership consultant from the Bahamas. He said: “It is easy to stand in judgment of other’s choices until the same proposition confronts you.” These are the words that rang in my ears last week immediately after my altercation with my favourite auntie in the world — my mother. It is what prompted me to kiss and make up before I bid her farewell on my way to King Shaka International.
At age 50, you’re straddling the intersection between your Gen Z and millennial offspring/nephews/nieces, your own Gen X siblings/cousins and your baby boomer parents/aunts and uncles. Everybody looks to you to take the financial and directional leadership on all family matters. It creeps up on you, to boot. And honestly speaking, I personally don’t need that kind of pressure. Organising my own shambles of a life is difficult enough. I’m still struggling to remember to pay my bills, maintain my house, my vehicles and remembering to floss my teeth and apply roll-on deodorant. What do you mean I must now take care of a bunch of ultra-sensitive, moody teenagers who believe that they are so special they’re entitled to bottomless happiness, all day, every day, until the end of time? Especially seeing as these are the most opinionated, choosy beggars in the history of begging. And yes, the irony is not lost on me — that these words sound so familiar, from 30 years ago when my father used to utter them in disgust at my shenanigans.
These folks speak to me in a language that sounds a lot like isiZulu and English, except that they’re using words that sound familiar, but have an obscure meaning. Everything you say causes them “anxiety”, is “triggering”, “toxic”, “homophobic” or “transphobic”. You could say something innocuous such as “hard work and effort pays off” and find yourself nut-sack deep in a complex debate about “that’s not what the data tells us” and how “your information is outdated”. Whenever you take a breather from the perpetually angry generation and shift your attention to your baby boomer parents, aunts and uncles, you’re yanked inside a time machine, back to 1983. All you hear is how sparing the rod spoils the child, and how do you allow them to go to school in cornrows and tattoos. And you know what? The old geezers are on to something.
Standing in judgment of their fascist parenting style, we all made an attempt at the “being the Huxtables” social experiment and produced these alleged snowflakes, who can’t take a Quantum minibus taxi from Jan Smuts Avenue in Rosebank to the MTN rank without needing three sessions with a psychotherapist. That said, these folks from 1984 can also take off their dentures and suck on a lemon. They made my generation the helicopter parents we became.
I guess what I'm saying is I’m tired of being yanked between generations that don’t speak the same language. Dealing with the guilt-riddled members of my Gen X tribe is difficult as it is. Every generation needs to start looking inwardly at their own people. The baboons need to stop laughing at each other’s foreheads.
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