This idea of the generation gap, the idea that we are separateor too different is pure and utter bull shit. We’ve decided we weren’t likethem when we are younger and it is a lie, yes the technology has changed, the music orthe way they communicate is different but the core of who they are is exactlythe same. Every generation has music that the older generation found offensive,that they didn’t understand or thought was corrupting young minds. Nothingproves this more than the why my generation reacted to Miley Cyrus at the MusicAwards. I heard my friends going on and on but I saw it as no different thanwhen Madonna pretended to masturbate  onstage at the MTV music awards. I was a teen when that happened and yet I had nodesire to go out and pretend to masturbate in public. Come on aren’t youforgetting your kids are smarter than that, they understand this is just shockvalue by a performer.

Every generation says the next generation had it easy, mygrandparents have a right to say that as they survived the The Great Depressionas children and as young adults it was WWII but my moms generation didn’t haveit any harder than mine and I my daughter, we just had different battles.  Technology  has made bullying much harder for my daughtersgeneration and the next  with phones andsocial media it follows them home. There is no escaping it so they have to bestronger to survive it, I’ve seen some get so bad that people that don’t evenknow you are attacking on social media. When I hear oh they need a safe place Iwant to scream. We  had a safe place itwas our home,  with the power oftechnology there is no safe place to get away. You’ve taken this safe placeconcept and twisted it.

Millennials have school shootings, I don’t remember havingthis issue when I went to school. We didn’t need school shooting drills, mymother had nuclear bomb drills but there wasn’t an actual bomb unlike the 18actual school shootings in less than 2 months this year. Yet they have it soeasy, we had it much harder. We had a walk out at my high school, it was bigdeal and very important. They wanted to take away our parking spots to buildsomething (details are fuzzy, it was over 20 yrs ago), much more important thanthose ridiculous millennials protesting wanting gun control. I look at EmmaGonzalez and she’s not weak or self involved, none of those students seemdisengaged.

Get past the lie, the lie that we don’t have anything incommon and start connecting with other generations whether they are older oryounger, we were them and we will be them. Who said you can’t have friendshipswith people in different age groups, couldn’t they add value to our lives.Couldn’t we learn from and teach them? Wouldn’t removing these obstacles we’vecreated based on a lie or fear only make us stronger? We live in a world of‘they’ or ‘them’ divided into clans with sub groups whether it’s age, sex,economic status, politics or color it’s time to breakdown these invisiblebarriers to live in truth not myths.