Baby Boomers vs Zillenials

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday July 26, 2022 06:00

When I told the same Zillennial I was born in the 1960s, they wondered whether I was a slave at one point. I am a Baby Boomer and any discussion with a Zillenials is punctuated with ‘how did you manage that without a laptop’, ‘how come there were no cellphones’ type of responses from the Zillenials.

I could not help but feel that Zillenials believe we are somewhat stuck at archaic and are failing to move the needle to digital age. We just don’t agree on a lot of things.

According to a recent study by the Institute of Discovering Things That Make You Go "EIsh", there’s not a single thing that Zillenials and Baby Boomers agree on, including the issue of what time it is.

Top Mathematicians using powerful computers have been unable to figure this out.

As a Baby Boomer, I believe our youth days were more orderly, more exciting and safer. Safety is a very important dimension of every youth. The youth have a disturbing habit of dying quickly and every so often. There’s bound to be casualties for people who ride in cars that are driven like the occupants have extra lives.

Any youth that survives this phase and makes it to the adult phase is a clear testimony of God’s magnanimity and that God takes care of his flock in amazing ways. Back then we’d have manuals that said something like ‘how to change fuses’ while now you get manuals that say ‘do not drink the contents of the battery’.

Nowadays all sorts of things come with a ‘do not try this at home’ warning. Clearly the moronmetre is ticking up. Clearly the Factory Mom (that is the factory equivalent of an overbearing mom with a 1,000 rules) has been forced to put a new blade in her tongue all too often to save Zillenials. Nowadays products come with warning labels like On a shirt: ‘Do not wear when wet’ On a car window shade: ‘Remember to remove when driving’ On pepper spray: ‘Warning: can irritate eyes’ On a laundry machine: ‘Remove persons from clothes before using’ On a pram/stroller: ‘Remove child before folding’ On a hairdryer: ‘Do not use while sleeping’ Whenever we mention the good old days, Zillenials due to a tragic IQ flaw believe these are days that are in the dustbin of history when Baby Boomers’ lives were tougher.

It is pretty hard to explain to them that what they are experiencing now will one day be their good old days. It is much harder than explaining to an ant the difference between socialism and communism.

So what do we have here? We have poor sleep hygiene (disrupted by noise, light, and electronic devices), caffeine intake, beds that are too warm, a mismatch between biologically preferred sleep schedules at around puberty and social demands, insomnia, growing homework load, and having too many extracurricular activities. We have social media integrated into their daily lives.

We have keyboard warriors. We have children struggling to make friends in school. Have I left out anything? These are just a few of the things that run through my mind when people ask me how I like Zillenials. And then they look at me, cringing. And I always say: "I like them a LOT." And this is the absolute truth. I'm not saying it to be polite. I really like Zillenials. Sometimes I love Zillenials.

But it's not easy to explain why. We must coexist peacefully somehow though. We need each other, if only to throw potshots at each other about our ages and their ineptitudes. (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com)