My younger son has long hair and likes to paint his nails. He has no problem expressing himself in this way despite some of the things people say to both of us.
I often get asked when he’s going to cut his hair (he’s not), or if it bothers me he paints his nails (it doesn’t) by other Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers. Something I notice when he’s with his group of friends, or when I drop him off at school, is that no one feels the need to comment about his appearance other than telling him they like the nail color or his hair looks “fire.”
We were at the beach with a group of my kids’ friends, and one of the other teens was wearing a chest binder. If you aren’t sure what one is, it’s a bandage that pushes the breast tissue toward the body and is most frequently used by transgender men or nonbinary people. I only know exactly what it was because my brother wore one for years before he got his top surgery.
They were all sitting together, laughing and talking
The chest bandage was a non-issue — as it should be. As I was talking to his mother, she started to settle down after letting me know she was very worried about this beach trip as it was the first time he was wearing his chest binder and swimming trunks. She explained she was so anxious because she didn’t know how his friends would react or if he would be uncomfortable.
“He looks very happy and comfortable to me,” I told her.
“You know, he told me he was fine and I didn’t need to worry about it," she said. "Looking back I was worried about what people would think or if they would stare. He wasn’t at all, and now I can see why. He has good friends.”
I catch myself saying things to my kids like, “Just try harder,” or “If you just get up, maybe you will feel better,” when they need to take a mental break from life and sleep in or stay in their rooms. A few weeks ago, I told my daughter that maybe if she cleaned her room she’d feel better. She reminded me what she really needed was some downtime and to talk about it.
Things have changed a lot since I grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s
In those days, sexual orientation or how we dealt with anxiety or depression wasn’t accepted or understood the way it is today. Things were kept quiet, and you were taught to push through your feelings and act happy. If you were a “troublemaker” in school or didn’t get good grades, the cure for that was punishment.
The grind was promoted while taking time off was looked down upon. If you couldn’t keep up, you were weak. If you were different, you were made fun of. If you didn’t fit into a certain box, you were isolated. And what happened to most of the people who were treated this way? The ones I know got worse, felt more alone, and didn’t feel like their life mattered very much.
Yes, we are living in a time when our kids have things at their fingertips
They don’t know what it’s like to wait for the retail store catalog to come in the mail so they can circle the clothes and toys they want. They have no idea what it’s like to wait to talk to someone on the phone because the line is busy, or to have to roll up a car window by hand.
There's a lot of talk about how this generation is lazy and how they don’t know what it’s like to work hard and have to wait for anything. But what we need to remember is that it's not entirely their fault. This is the life they were born into, with technology and getting things faster and being able to make money while they sit in their rooms and open boxes of toys or play video games. We would be doing the same exact thing if life was this way decades ago.
So maybe — according to us — they have it easier, and because of that, they are entitled
However, from where I sit, I see kids these days have more choices than we did. I see that they aren’t afraid to speak up for what they believe in because they aren’t raised to believe that they are only meant to be seen and not heard. I see them accepting one another and realizing that everyone is different and that their bodies belong to them. They have a say in what they want to be and they use that freedom because they know it’s their choice to make and are confident about that. If only the generations before them could be so lucky.
This generation is growing up in a very different time. And if we sit back and listen and watch, instead of lecturing them about how good they have it, we can certainly learn a lot from them.
