June is a traditional time for graduations; a ritual that once was a formulaic part of American life. Happy graduates filing in line to receive diplomas and handshakes, as proud families look on. This was a well-engrained part our culture until the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on this tradition, as well as so many others.
As we all know, we usually can’t go back in time and we don’t often get an opportunity for a re-do in life. But on one Saturday in Maine we did.
Our son, a 2020 graduate of a small liberal arts college in New England, gathered with the two-thirds of his classmates for a do-over, a mulligan, and a cherished opportunity to put some closure and distance on a profoundly confusing and difficult time to be a newly minted college graduate. As a parent, I gained a fresh perspective on why the past two years have been so challenging, indeed miserable, for so many kids and young adults.
This column is an open letter to parents and employers of twenty-somethings. We happen to have two in our family and this is a topic that needs some flushing out. More than any other generation of children, these kids seemed over-scheduled and stressed out in a hyper- competitive college admissions and job market. Whether it was 24/7 robotics camp, or lacrosse camp, or running your own organic farming business, or working in a lab to publish a medical study at 16 years old, this group of teens felt the pressure we put on them to individualize their success and reach for the prizes we told them would come with all that hard work and goal orientation. Well, it worked until it didn’t and we are all responsible for the disillusion that has followed.
I leaned on my children with a focused message: if they worked hard, got good enough grades, did well enough on standardized tests, and out of school activities, they would land on a campus that would be wonderful. And, that their college experiences “could be the best time of their lives.” They believed me! Since the onset of COVID, it has been painful to help them unwind all of those cancelled expectations as life as they were promised didn’t pan out. Painful, too, was the recognition that I was one of the many authors of their misery.
It doesn’t mean they aren’t better off as a wiser, or more realistic generation for the adversity they’ve experienced, individually and collectively. But we did offer them a hyped-up view of life that is not happening. As I watch my kids and their many friends sort out disappointment that mounted these past two years, I feel a different sort of responsibly to them and their generation.
I feel duty bound to offer empathy, to understand that we greased the skids and they felt the impact of the crash. I feel that it is my responsibly now to get out of they way and let them interpret and process events as they believe. I think that we should have more understanding for how and when they make decisions about where they would like to be, how they would like to earn a living or simply, how they want to live. Shouldn’t we try and listen better about what they think is a good work-life balance, and not quickly judge their motivations? Maybe we should encourage them to talk it out, but not just to us, realizing that it does take a village. And, this is just a start. Maybe we should begin to think that it is our responsibility to have greater empathy, to listen better and maybe this generation will be the next greatest one. They sure deserve to be.
