I’ve heard twice this week, in separate conversations, that I’m a member of the “fast-moving toilet paper roll” generation. At our age, we’re getting down to the end of the roll and as paper is removed, the roll goes faster and faster and . . . well, you get the picture. I’m not a physicist but I’m heartened by the fact that the toilet paper is coming off the roll at the same rate as always.
We’re talking about millennials this month, but my generation was the “raised on TV” generation. We weren’t filleted for this, but I can remember my folks lamenting how kids like me were watching too much TV. Captain Kangaroo was warping our minds first thing in the morning. I mean, who would identify with a man who wore green jeans? It was an even greater shock to them when color television showed that men were really wearing other colors than just white shirts to work.
I teach in university now about Generation X and Boomers and Gen Y. We talk about going for a job interview and the implications of looking like the millennial hiring authority’s parents. We talk about showing the humility required in the workplace today and the fact that older generations will find out quickly if they are perceived as a threat to their supervisors on the job. The last thing you want to look like, when standing next to your (younger) supervisor, is more intelligent and experienced. In my most recent job interview, however, I made one stipulation: I wasn’t going to change my hair color.
I find a number of millennials are, by their own admission, afraid. They’re afraid of what’s happening in the culture, government, world, climate, neighborhood, schools, economy, and what’s going to happen on the next episode of that paragon of modern television entertainment, “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.” OK, so that last one was not something they told me. It was supposed to be funny. But, I digress. Fear is not funny. I would know. We did all of that (less Buffy) in the 1960s.
Some millennials, in a previous life, have told me that they were afraid of me. When I asserted that on the day they were born their biology was settled science, they labeled me a bigot and homophobe. When I asserted my free speech rights and advocated for my belief in God, they labeled me a right-wing extremist. Many of these, who were perhaps disappointed in their own personal choices and wanted to change that history of their lives, were upset when I told them that I wouldn’t go along and pretend that their revisionist history is history. In fact, it was just bad science. When I have advocated for Truth with a capital T, they just didn’t want to hear it.
Fear not. I am all of those things and none of those things. I am nothing. Even though I am still here, I should mean nothing to you. You can re-define your gender and the culture and your existence all you want. You can receive therapy or approach those issues and deal with them in any way you want. Just don’t make the measure of your success at these endeavors dependent upon if I “go along” with you on them. If millennials think that all of their problems would just go away if they could only get Boomers to go along with their revisionist truth notions, then that will never happen. I don’t know why you need us anyway. Fear not. Let us go.
One day, when you recognize that your toilet paper roll is speeding up and you look in the mirror and realize that you’re turning out to look just like me, I’m convinced you’ll understand. If you’re afraid of that, then that’s something we can talk about.