Generation Gap

     This was another post that was in my funny/pop-culture blog (between-you-and-me-wink.blogspot.com) that I decided to also share on this one as well, because it fits.

      "What's the biggest state?" my friend Michelle asked.  I was helping her with her homework so we could go outside.  

     "Alaska," I told her.

     "No!" Cut in her grandmother (the neighborhood kids all called her Grandma Shirley).  "Texas is the biggest state.  If I learned anything in geography, it was that!  My teacher drilled that into me.  Texas, then California, then Montana." 

     Trying to be polite to the elderly woman I greatly respected, I said, "Texas is the biggest in the mainland United States, but Alaska is a lot bigger."

     "That can't be!"  Grandma Shirley looked concerned and alarmed.  "I got straight A's in geography, and if I know anything, Texas is the biggest!"

     This precious woman (who is now in Heaven) had attended school in the 1920's, and at that time, Texas was the largest state.  Alaska didn't join the union as a state until 1959.  No doubt, when this event had occurred (and Shirley was a middle-aged woman), she heard all about it, but she was no longer in school, and was not required to learn that Alaska was larger than Texas.  This led to a generation gap that day as I helped Michelle with her homework.  But these things are not relegated to sweet Grandmas who would be over 100 were they still alive...

On its way to becoming the most-populous state, Texas has many more people than Alaska, but it is smaller geographically.

     I had my own experience of being the uninformed one many years later!

   

     "Can we sing some modern songs?" the teenager girl asked us.  "We're kind of getting tired of all the hymns."  

  

     "Sure," my husband and I happily agreed.  We were leading the campfire time the last night of camp a few months ago.  All week at summer missionary camp, my husband and another guy had led worship, and they had agreed on mostly using hymns, since everyone knew them and it was easier.  This camp fire was a little more laid back, and I was helping out as well.  At the request for a modern song, Walter and I decided to sing the most modern worship song we could think of!  We began singing...

🎶"Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God..."🎶

     What could be more modern than Rich Mullins' hit Our God is an Awesome God?  I must admit that we had sung both verses, and the chorus a few times (getting really into it, because how could you not get into ...the judgment and wrath He poured out on Sodom, the mercy and grace He gave us at the cross...??) before it occurred to us that none of the teens were singing along.  They were all staring at us blankly.  

     After we finished, one called out, "That was a great song you guys made up!"  She was serious.  

     "We didn't make it up," I stammered, realizing our idea of "modern" might not have been what these kids had in mind!  "Rich Muillins did."

     "Is that a guy at your church?" Another teen asked, also serious!  Whew!  

     "No..." I said slowly, not even sure what to say.  "He's a guy who's in Heaven, but when I was your age, he was one of the most popular Christian artists."  I wanted to tell them that Rich Mullins, as well as other greats of that time, had dominated the Christian skate nights our youth group went to, and how I still had many of their tapes and CD's (they probably wouldn't have known what a tape was anyway!). Talk about a Generation Gap!  They went on to request some song we had never heard of, from an artist we also had not heard of.

     Ever have these laughable times of realizing how out of touch you are?  What generation are you from?  What generation do you wish you were from?  Do you find you resent the stereotypes associated with your generation?  Do you have friends all across the board generation-wise, or are most of your friends from your generation?  I'll go right out on a limb here and say that I don't care for the generation labels.  They really do paint with too broad a brush.  Also, there seems to be some confusion as to where some of them begin and end...

This picture was taken from a 2019 article, so depending on your age in 2019, that's what this article would classify you as, generation-wise.  It places me in Gen X.  Since it isn't an agreed-upon consensus, I am sometimes among the younger Gen Xers, and other times, among the very oldest Millennials (or Gen Y).  By some definitions the millennial generation doesn't start until five years after my birth.  It's really confusing.  However they slice it, I'm always part of the micro-generation knows as Xennial.  We grew up without cell phones and the Internet, but had these things in our 20's.

          Here's a big fallacy with generations.  Let's say some man was 70 when the above-referred-to article was written, but his wife was a few months older than him, and was born in December of the previous year.  According to this (and other generation cutoffs), that would make his wife a different generation than him!  That's ridiculous!  You obviously have more in common with someone a year older than you than someone a decade younger than you, and yet that's how some of these generations classify people.  My husband was born less than four months before me, though he was born the calendar year before me.  His birthday is October and mine is February.  By one definition I read, he and I were classified as different generations!  That's crazy! We were in the same grade through school (but didn't know each other--but we could have been in the same class had we gone to the same school).  

     While I am someone who believes in absolutes, I do not think generations are an absolute thing.  They're just social observations.  Sometimes, people get left behind too.  As I've said, I tend to be on the very edge of Gen X and Millennial.  However, when I hear each described, neither fits me.  For example, they often refer to Gen X as being in high school during the Reagan administration...which is older than me, since I was in high school (and some of college) during the Clinton years.  But then, when they describe Millennials, they say that they were in grade school during 9/11, which is much younger than me, as I was already an adult then, done with much of college (at the time, I though I was done with college, but I later went back).  In these descriptions, they kind of exclude those of us who fall in-between.  I think it's true with all of these stereotypical generations, though, not just the one's I may fall into.  They often describe Baby Boomers as being born between 1946-1964.  Some of these people were almost adults when Kennedy got shot, and others were born after this notable event!  

     Having said this, I don't think cultural generations are as long as these listed.  Within five years either direction, someone wouldn't relate to the same cultural world as you--at least not precisely.  I remember Ronald Reagan being the President, but my baby sister doesn't (she was born then, but was a toddler when he left office).  I think of myself as a child of the 80's and a teenager of the 90's.  The first Presidential election I remember and was really aware of was 1988 (George H.W. Bush defeats Michael Dukakis).  Other people who are around my age grew up watching the same Saturday cartoons (at TGIF with Urkel!), seeing the same movies, and listening to the same music (like Rich Mullins--if you listened to Christian music like I did).  Our lives were shaped by the same world events (for my "micro-generation" Operation Desert Storm was the only declared war in our growing up years).  We were adults by the time 9/11 happened.  I'm old enough to remember the Soviet Union's existence, and was aware of when the Cold War ended (I got my first zit the day the USSR collapsed--and I'm sure it was all Boris Yeltsin's fault!).  I remember in school, I had just mastered spelling Czechoslovakia and then a week later, it ceased being a country, and I was really mad I had gone to so much trouble!  I try to write Czechoslovakia as often as I can, just to make sure I didn't waste my time!  Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia!  So there!  Someone five years older or younger than me probably wouldn't have the exact milestones I'm describing, though it would be similar.  

I am pictured (the taller girl with the really cool late 80's/early 90's bangs!) in 1992

    

     My having shared this probably makes you think I am either very young or very old--unless you're my age!  I've dated myself either way!  I recently learned some facts they didn't teach me in school, just like Grandma Shirley learned that Alaska was bigger than Texas.  I just found out there's no more Yugoslavia.  I also found out that there are now five oceans!  There were only four in my day!  Also, Pluto isn't a planet anymore (but that was big enough news at the time that I heard about it when it happened in the mid-2000's).  I didn't realize until this week that South Sudan is a country--when I would hear people talk about it, I just thought they meant the southern part of the nation of Sudan.  I also just found out there is no more North Yemen.  Canada has a territory called Nunavut (which separated from Northwest Territories after I had already learned the Canadian provinces and territories). I was always taught the Amazon was the longest river, but now they're saying it's the Nile.  This stuff all happened after my school days.  I guess this goes to show we never stop learning.  

     So what should you do in a Generation Gap?  Laugh at yourself (Walter and me singing Rich Mullins songs really enthusiastically while the kids looked confused was pretty funny)!  Embrace when God chose to create you!  It was for your very best (Acts 17:26-27).  At the same time, be friends with people of all ages.  You can learn from each other, and you already share the most important things in common.  That's the takeaway...and also, if you're ever leading a bunch of teens and they ask for a modern song, they probably mean something from this century!