How Close Mindedness is Separating the Generations

Struggling to except change is something that many people in older generations experience, and the change that they struggle to accept most is that the younger generations have opinions, voices, and we will not be silenced. The phrase “ kids today have no respect“ is a phrase that is being tossed around with the idea of respect being to stay silent and obey every single thing and elder tells you to do. I do not agree with the people of the younger generation that choose to curse and call someone out of their name, but I also believe that it would not get to this point if the person of the older generation knew how to assert their dominance without arguing and going toe to toe with someone of the younger generation. I recently got into a debate with someone on Instagram, and I simply wanted to state my point of the older generations not being accepting of our opinions and that the older generations were basically taught to stay quiet and follow orders. Now, I am not trying to make it seem as if the older generations were taught to basically be slaves, although that is what it sounds like, but what I am trying to say is that the younger generations deserve respect. I do not believe that you are eligible for respect once you hit a certain age, or a certain status, or a certain stage in your life. I feel as if the older generations are close minded when it comes to anyone younger than them having an opinion, and this is what I feel is separating us from one another.

To say my opinion, in it’s most honest form, I would have to say that a lot of older people have the idea of respect from slavery. Older generations believe that you are to stay quiet, you are to do as told when told, you are expected to agree with everything an elder says, even though the elder may know that they are wrong, and you are expected to suppress your feelings in order to show the upmost respect to someone that clearly does not deserve it. During the time of slavery the slaves were expected to do what the master said when the master said it, they were expected to suppress their feelings and suppress their children’s gifts in order to make the master and his family happy, and overall they were expected to put each other in a sort of hierarchy. The hierarchy that I’m speaking of is a hierarchy that says once you reach a certain age then you are eligible for respect, in a way this hierarchy is a way to keep us as slaves.

Although I know how close minded the older generations are, I will not overlook the fact that a lot of young people are disrespectful. Disrespectful, to me, is cursing at someone and calling them out of their name, this is the lowest form of disrespect in my opinion. The highest form of disrespect, in my opinion, is not respecting someone’s name. Now, this is not the same as calling someone out of their name because calling someone other name is simply not calling them by their first name, but not respecting someone’s name means to not respect the fact that they have pride in their family heritage and their family ancestry. People in my generation are known to overstep boundaries, and most of the time they overstep boundaries because they need to find the biggest and most absurd way to show that they are person deserving of respect.

Now that we know the issue, we know where the issue began, and we know who is capable of helping the issue remain, we now have to figure out a solution. The solution that I have thought of is that the older generations do not completely have to agree with us, but they should at least consider us. By consider us, I mean that they should take into account that we are people who did not choose to be placed on this earth and we deserve the same respect that they deserve. No one is obligated to respect you, you have to earn it, and if you are disrespecting someone that is younger than you just because they are younger than you, that does not make you seem more of an adult, it makes you seem like a disrespectful person. Older generations should not take offense to our opinions, instead they should look at our opinions as an opportunity to help form us in a better way, to help mold is into a well rounded person with strong opinions. If every person in the order generation discouraged a person in the younger generation from sharing their opinions and demanding their respect how would we create some of the most intelligent and confident young individuals that we see today? As for the younger people, we can also try to understand where the older generation is coming from, we all need to understand that we come from different time periods and different things were allowed in these time periods, but we still need to understand that we all are people on this planet, which places us all on the same level, and we all deserve respect.

OVERALL: Do not allow old ways that had the sole intent to divide us, divide us. Let’s stop being close minded and let’s start embracing everyone’s voice.