Lately, I’ve seen many posts online about Gen Z. Most of them are unflattering opinions about how lazy and privileged they are, and how they lack both soft and hard skills, making them undesirable to their colleagues and employers. Many people seem to agree with the sentiment, and some even see them as a failure of a generation. What bothers me the most is that most of the posts come from people around my age, the Millenials–the same generation that has experienced its own share of prejudice from the previous generation.
It perplexes me how we’ve ended up behaving like the very generation we resent. We misunderstood them like how the previous generation misunderstood us. We label Gen Z with problematic names like the “strawberry” generation—a term attributed to Gen Z that is considered bruised easily like strawberries—just like how Boomers call us avocado-toast-eating snowflakes. We may unconsciously project our frustrations onto the younger generation because of the awful treatment we received from the previous generation.
Our misunderstanding and the overt simplification of Gen Z’s lives and attitudes stem from our refusal to empathetically listen to them. We see their demand for better life and work conditions as an undeserved privilege. Having endured years of economic, political, and cultural turmoil, we feel we’ve earned those ideal conditions first. This often leads to gatekeeping behavior: we want them to experience the same struggles we faced because that feels fair in a dog-eat-dog world. And frankly, it feels that that perfect life is no longer possible anyway with where the world is heading, seeing how almost everything has been going downhill.
At the end of the day, we create the divide ourselves because it’s easier to see everything through the lens of stereotypes; we humans are stupidly good at seeing patterns and putting them in corresponding baskets. Instead of perpetuating the divide further, maybe it’s time for empathy: both generations navigate through an uncertain future and desire for better changes.
If anything, it’s up to us, the older generation, who’ve experienced so much to offer them guidance and help them navigate through this uncertain future. It’s our responsibility to help direct their voices and energy toward causes that truly matter and are worth fighting for.
We should be thankful that Gen Z isn’t afraid to voice their frustration against the injustice, to remind us, the older generations, to not relent and continue the fight even when everything feels hopeless. Yes, it’s understandable that we may not be comfortable yet with how they express their frustration and demands, but to start listening is a step in the right direction. A direction that will help us break the cycle of resentment and build a better path forward.