The Trouble with "Youth Culture"

 “The people will oppress one another,

man against man, neighbor against neighbor;

the young will act arrogantly toward the old,

and the worthless toward the honorable.” -- Isaiah 3:5 (CSB)

The young acting arrogantly toward the old.  We are definitely suffering from this problem.  Notice that, in Isaiah, this is a curse as a result of Israel’s sin.  Today, we don’t just have disrespectful teens, but disrespectful 30somethings, 40somethings, even 50somethings.  Our culture values youth and tries to hold onto it as long as possible.  We are reaping the results of this trend of “youth culture” more and more today.

This trend started about a hundred years ago with the beginning of the “youth culture.”  Sometime after WWII, we started using terms like “teenager” and separating teens out from adults in all areas of life.  Teens were all in high school and activities with their peers, rather than spending these years learning to be adults by spending time with adults.  Families began disintegrating as both parents started focusing on their careers and they started moving away from grandparents and other extended family.  Teens no longer lived with grandparents in the house.  There was less and less respect for the wisdom that comes with age and life experience.  So now what do we have?  We have television shows with wise teens and parents who are, well, much less than wise.  We have nursing homes filled with people who never get visitors.  We have youth who think, now more than ever, that they know far more than their parents and other adults.  

But the question remains, why would we think this is a good idea?  Doesn’t it seem logical to listen when someone who is older and has already “been there, done that” explains consequences?  I’ll be honest, at 47 years old I look back at my 20something self, not to mention my teen self, and I just feel the need to facepalm.  What was I thinking?  Even now, I may listen when my parents speak, but I don’t seek out wisdom from my elders.  What am I thinking, now?

Now that my kids are letting me know that they are wiser than I (they are all teens and twenties now), I am finally starting to realize just how ridiculous I was being.  And still am being.  What happened to the days of living with multiple generations and learning from them as we did?  No one I know seems to want to go back to that, but it is clear that we have a problem.  Wisdom comes with age.  But not all older people are showing wisdom.  Some of that is because our culture does not encourage growing up, especially for men.  That is a whole other article . . . .

Is there a way to regain what we have lost?  I’m not sure there is.  When I try to talk to my kids about this, they just roll their eyes and perpetuate the status quo.  This is probably because I didn’t listen to my elders when they were younger.  I look back and see all my parenting mistakes and wonder how much better off we would all be if I had listened to my parents, grandparents, and others of their generations in regard to my parenting.  I listen to a lot of good teaching and read a lot of good books now and think, “I wish I had heard this when my kids were little.”  But until our whole culture realizes that 17 isn’t the smartest age, the coolest age, the best age you’ll ever be, and stops trying to live at 17 for the rest of our lives, those who do realize that with wisdom coms age will be the anomaly.  And we will continue to reap the consequences of letting the young pretend they are the voice of reason.

After I published this, I listened to this sermon from Paul Washer in which he discusses this, among other things.