In all the cultural critique I see and hear, and in all the conversation around education, one thing I keep coming back to is the lack of a generation gap, both chronological and otherwise. I think that the short chronological space is in and of itself not problematic, but it can serve to exacerbate the problem when a mental generation gap is not there. This lack of space plays itself out in several ways, but because I work in a high school, I see the implications acutely from both sides; I see the impact of a shortened generation span on the kids and I see the kids themselves shortening the generation span.
Now I’ll readily concede that the difference in the chronological gap now may not be as wide as I’m imagining. I’m sure that there are solid numbers somewhere out there, but I don’t have time to look them up. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that the average generation span is somewhere around 28 years. Well, my guess is that in the high-poverty areas of the Black community, the span is much shorter than that. Probably in that 19-22 range. And in some areas of particularly highly-concentrated poverty, it’s even lower than that. (And notice that I keep mention poverty as a correlated factor. Poverty is not a causal factor, but it is correlated; being poor doesn’t make people have kids when they’re young, but having kids when they’re young can help keep people from actualizing their full earning potential.) That’s part of a recipie for some hard times. The thing is, in my mind, I can easily see some numbers that don’t really reflect my estimations. If I think back to some of my reading, I know that there have always been teen parents, but in times past, there was a much higher incidence of “shotgun” weddings and/or “aunts” and “uncles” (real or fictive) who stepped in to raise the kids. So in strictly chronological terms, the difference might not be that big. But that’s only talking about a mathematical difference in years, which is only a small part of the issue.
What’s more significant, by miles, is the difference in mental age, or the lack thereof. Now everybody who reads this knows that I love music. A few people, maybe trying to come at me sideways, maybe not, have mentioned that with each new generation, the old folks think the young folks’ music is worthless. Which is true. And it’s an important thing to note, because that’s not the case anymore. I ran this by a friend of mine who’s slightly older than me and he completely co-signed. When he was coming up, his parents weren’t trying to hear Marvin Gaye. His parents were on some Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstein. When I was younger, my mother tolerated me listening to Run-D.M.C. and LL and even P.E. and NWA, but was she gonna be listening to that on her time? Nuh-uh. Even if we take out the fact that she listened to 97.3% gospel music in the first place, if she was listening to something secular, it wasn’t gonna be what I was listening to. She was more than likely gonna be listening to some Stevie or George Benson or the Isleys or something like that. Nowadays, it’s not like that. I have mothers and daughters who are both excited about the same acts coming to town. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not all that good. Put it like this: it’s one thing when the child has an appreciation for the parent’s music. It’s something altogether different when the parent is a fan of music that’s targeted towards the child. That’s an indicator that both parent and child are at the same developmental stage in some way. I don’t care what nobody says, when I’m 33, I shouldn’t be identifying with the same things that an 18 year-old identifies with.
Similarly, when you look at some of my kids’ fathers, they dress just like the kids. And I’m not talkin about wearing similar styles, modified. I’m talkin about dudes my age and older, still wearing t-skirts; like, if you saw them all together, you couldn’t tell the difference between the parent and the son. Now see, I know that part of this is a result of the growing informality of American culture in general. And again, I’m not ascribing any type of causal relationship to the outward manifestation. Appreciating the same music and dressing the same are not the causes of the problems we see due to a shortened generation gap, but they do illustrate the fact that for many people, adulthood and adolescence have become virtually indistinguishable. And that’s a big problem.
When there’s no real line of demarcation between adolescence and adulthood, then all that’s left is to take on “adult” actions without assuming the accompanying responsibilities. And I swear that the more I think about this stuff, the more it comes down to the same few essential questions, one of which is how we maintain the proper tension between rights and responsibilities. These days, I think lots of people like to focus on the rights we have to do such-and-such, or the fact that nobody has a right to tell you not to do such-and-such, but without focusing on the element of responsibility, that “right” can get somebody left in a bad situation.
As an example, when the pregnancy prevention guy came into my class, he briefly mentioned abstinence, but then just as quickly brushed it off as something that wasn’t realistic. I’m reading that as, ‘you have the right to have sex.’ I have some beef with that, but okay. Since it’s my class, I can have the final say, and I do, so I emphasize the ‘don’t pull it out until you really know what to do with it’ aspect. But just taking it at what he said, he went heavy on the disease and pregnancy prevention aspect (in that order, because the most effective disease prevention measures will effectively take care of pregnancy too), but not so much on the element of responsibility - to one’s self, one’s partner, or one’s potential children. And me, while I’m in favor of comprehensive sex ed, I’m in favor of comprehensive sex ed. That means the kids should know about more than just the plumbing. They should know about more than just the variety of disease prevention and birth control methods available. They should know more than just don’t for the sake of don’t. Sex ed should also include a discussion on the benefits of delaying sexual activity. It should include a piece on the dangers. Somebody needs to sit these jokers down and tell them exactly how long an orgasm lasts get them to think about whether that few seconds is worth the potential opportunity cost. Not as a scare tactic, but just to balance the equation.
At any rate, in part because kids don’t recognize the costs of their actions, they wind up contributing to the abbreviated generational cycle. Again, looking at it as a function of time, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the generation gap being below a certain number. The problem comes in when the parent and the child are virtually indistinguishable in terms of behavor and attitude.
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