There once was a boy who was told that everyone that should be nice to everyone and that if they were not kind, they were bad people. He then grew up to find that’s not how the world works.
As a society adapts, the mindset of the people within it change. This is also true in the change of a generation. They have learnt from the mistakes and triumphs of previous generation and use this information to change and base their lives upon. The education around them adapts to these new changes and shapes children. With the increase in mental health warning and bullying campaigns, are they really being shaped to deal with the rest of the world, or is it that the world has not yet to accept the changes that the new generation is bring? I believe that the new generations are not taught to be prepared for what the world will throw at them. They are only told that people will change and that they should not have to face the problems that occur in the world.
In my political science class, we were discussing our upcoming presentations for our research assignments. Our TA requested that if we are planning on showing any “graphic images” we get them checked prior to putting them into our visual for our assignment. This is a ridiculous sign of how sheltered this generation is: we know violent things are happening around the world but we play a blind eye to them. Not showing these images does not make them go away and does not solve the problems that they are causing them.
Now bullying is a topic that has only been under scrutiny for the past 20 years. It is now viewed as a national epidemic instead of a common fact of life. The young generations are now beginning to expect that everyone in life will be nice to them and if they are not there are a bully. But that is not how it works in life. You will be put down by people for making a mistake at work or for bumping into someone on the street. People will talk about you behind your back. You cannot change that. If anything, you should be taught to how ignore these comment and fight back, compared to just reporting them to the principal. You can’t report your boss in the future for yelling at you, so learn how to take criticism.
Previous generations have been built and thrived upon the “tough love” method. People would discipline their child to a certain extent, be that verbally or physically. But now, parents are actually being arrested for spanking their children with actual reasons. The school system does not tell the students the difference between abuse and discipline so they grow up with the belief that this is wrong and that their parents are not good people.
It is a generation under the veil of ignorance – they all imagine the world to be perfect, where everything happens their way. If things are happening outside of their community to other people it doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happens to them and that they are happy. When things that they don’t like occur, they don’t know how to handle it. They have been so shelter from the sadness and violence of the world, they when they get a large dose of if, it leads people to believe they have a mental illness.
Now the thing about mental illness is that it is something that is very real, many people are suffering from it. The statistics show that the rate of people who report suffering from depression have increased by 6% over just this year. Now I am not saying that these people’s claims are false, but the rate shows that the recent generation cannot handle the pressure that society has put upon them because they were not trained to handle stress. They were only told that the things that cause them stress are not right.
When any topics concerning race, sexuality, politics, or gender come into play, they become extremely agitated. They are brought up to think about living in a world when everyone should think the same way. But that is not how the world works. People have different opinions and are entitled to have those opinions, why must people be put down for not conforming to what views their society has. These generations have been told they everything should go their way, so when it doesn’t of course they don’t do how to handle it. Is it true that millennials and Gen Zs are overly sensitive? Yes it is. But who can blame them when they grow up in an environment like this one.
