Older generations have always judged succeeding generations as failing to measure up to the standards that their own had to meet. Today is no different, but now we have a condescending label to lob at today’s youth: “Snowflakes.”
We’ve tagged them as “special snowflakes” needing “safe places” where they can avoid “trigger words” or other “offensive” terms. We envision these safe spaces as places with crayons, coloring books and juice boxes (organic of course).
We generalize that they’re self-absorbed, believing that they’re special and unique with delicate feelings that are easily hurt. Cynicism toward the snowflake generation isn’t new but it accelerated as we witnessed reactions on our nation’s college campuses and in secondary schools after Donald Trump’s election victory.
Where did they learn this “safe space” mentality? They learned it from us.
As I’ve written before, when we point at the younger generation and their safe spaces we ignore what we have done in our own lives. How many political discussions do we shut down because someone we know will disagree with us joins our table for dinner, or joins a conversation? Because every disagreement is taken as a personal affront, we too create “safe spaces” in our lives and on social media to avoid anything that might make us uncomfortable.
Yet we point and label them as fragile and less worthy of our respect. We say their softer generation wants everything handed to them because they grew up when everyone gets a trophy. We see them as a generation of egocentrism living their own reality-show lives on social media, posting selfies and videos of everything they do. But these days egocentrism is not unique to that generation, there are plenty of adults doing the same thing.
Throughout history inter-generational criticism has been present. It’s human nature to find fault with those younger who do not have the same challenges we had. Conversely it’s natural for younger generations to resent the lectures of an out-of-touch older generation.
So older folks condemn the “special snowflakes” and the “snowflakes” resent the judgment of the people who created them. Yes they are created not born.
Snowflakes are created by certain meteorological conditions. If this generation is indeed a collection of snowflakes, guess who put those conditions in place? That would be the generation of parents and a society that values the individual over the group, and values celebrity over talent. We have a society obsessed with being liked.
It goes all the way to the White House.
Agree or disagree with the policy and politics, we have a president and administration that find offense to every perceived slight, criticism or insult and shout down every negative news story or poll. While they, too, act like snowflakes, they’re angry at many in the “snowflake generation” for taking to the streets to stand up for what they believe. It has been interesting to witness campus activism rising to levels surpassing what was evident when I went to college.
While we gripe about how fragile and self-centered they are, we should credit them for stepping up for speaking their minds. They’ve surprised us by abandoning what we thought were their safe spaces with a passionate fight for the rights of all people and the things they value.
Raising their voices together they maybe understand for the first time that, united with others, they become bigger than the sum of their individual parts.
But still we judge.
“There go those selfish snowflakes.”
“Why don’t they just shut up and accept the election?”
“They probably didn’t even vote!”
We sound like old people griping yet didn’t we hate it when our elders lectured our generation when we were young?
But perhaps we should be careful casting snowballs from our glass houses. We too are snowflakes if we’ve formed our own unmovable opinions and sets of facts. Are we not also guilty as safe-space snowflakes if we’re uninterested in hearing contradictory ideas that force us to question our own views?
But take a moment to put down the labels, stop pointing fingers and listen. We may be surprised by what we can learn from a generation that has access to information and technology that we didn’t even dream about in our youth. We may learn something from a generation that has never really known an America that wasn’t at war.
The burdening yoke of our judgmental human nature is hard to throw from our shoulders. If we don’t, we may one day wake up to find that the snowflakes have become an avalanche, a torrent of energy. It can be a positive wave we ride or it can bury those of us locked inflexibly in our set ways under a suffocating layer that leaves us gasping for air.
