Kimber Lybbert gave a talk on Tedx titled “Dear Grown-ups… Sincerely, Gen Z”, in which she talks about what it’s like to be a part of this generation in relation to the adults in our lives with stories both from her own perspective as an adult and from her students’ perspectives as members of Gen Z.
Kimber Lybbert spent a good portion of her talk speaking about how adults should believe in children their abilities rather than thinking that they just can’t, because they’re children. I have experienced this, and I very much agree, but I think that part of the time dedicated to that particular topic should have gone to how adults sometimes invalidate our mental/emotional states and our identities simply because we are young. One thing she mentions is that in recent years children have shown amazing increase in capacity and capability, while also showing a heart-stopping decrease in self-esteem- which, in my opinion, can often come from invalidation. When you are told that because you are young, you don’t know well enough, you’re just following the trend because it’s “cool” and everyone else is “stupid”, your confidence in yourself, your opinions, and your identity will decrease- and the invalidation doesn’t even have to come from an adult you’re close to.
For example: the student who gave the student address at our socially distanced graduation made a brief mention of highlights of the year, one of which was when this student came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Of course, all the students and their families were listening to the speech- and later on, an adult made exactly the remark I mentioned earlier: that we, thirteen and fourteen year olds, are too young to know what we want, who we are and are simply following a “trend” because it’s “cool” and everyone else is “stupid”. But, as Ms Lybbert said as an example of how adults shouldn’t blame Gen Z for all our problems- “Alex didn’t ask for gender confusion”. And then keep in mind that there is plenty of homophobia and xenophobia still abound around the world. To that adult, and all of similar thoughts, I say: it’s cool that we are feared, hated, shunned, invalidated by even our own families because of our gender and sexual identities, is it? It’s the popular thing these days, the trend, to be part of a minority that is still so discriminated against, that is sometimes so unaccepted, is it?
In addition, identity isn’t something we take so lightly. You adults teach us to be respectful; would we disrespect so many people like that?
Another thing to think about is that what I talked about in the paragraphs above is the example that some adults are setting for the children around them, and sometimes teach worse lessons than that. Adults tell us, be empathetic, put yourself in someone else’s shoes, but do they ever do that for us? They seem to forget what it’s like to be a teenager, and forget that their childhoods, how they were raised, how they thought and lived and felt are very, very different from ours, how we do.
This started out as some thoughts on Kimber Lybbert’s Tedx Talk, and evolved into something else entirely (and is also very, very incomplete), but I do think that what I said is still something quite important and something we should all be thinking about.