A 15-year-old underclassman posts on Facebook about the election, urging her elders to vote in the upcoming election because she cannot yet do so. A sophomore girl, someone I thought to be shallow and dim all throughout knowing her in high school, shares a brilliant comment calling out sexism in politics and the misogynistic atmosphere of Trump’s campaign. As early as my junior year of high school, I cross the train tracks walking home, hearing the boys behind me discussing Trump’s political platform. In our English classes we argue over the pros and cons of the death penalty; in our history classes we voice opinions on police brutality. When we graduate our senior year, our valedictorian speaks about war, terror, politics and protests. We nod in solidarity in our red and gray gowns.
My father tells me: “Your generation just isn’t all that politically involved.”
It’s funny because sometimes that’s all we are: political. We talk about unfair teachers, parties that fell through, the volleyball game they went to on Saturday. But among this everyday chatter, we’re also talking about the economy and the loans we’ll have to pay off in when we're 50-years-old and the consequences of America’s involvement in the Middle East. We’re talking about lunch plans, awkward hook ups, about sexism in the media and the two-party system America is trapped in. In one motion, we pull out our phones for a group selfie and in another, we pull up a New York Times article on the situation in Greece.
From the moment we gain awareness of the world, the weight of it falls upon our shoulders. We face the grim future: the upcoming election, the anxiety surrounding student loans, the questions on gun control and discrimination.
The anxiety rates of the millennial generation are climbing steadily – compare our 12 percent rate of anxiety disorders to the Baby Boomers' seven percent. Perhaps, it’s something to do with the fact that while older generations could pay their way through college with a single summer job, we’re paying our way through one semester with two.
Of course maybe it’s just that we’re taking too many selfies. That could be it too.
We’re called the “selfie generation” like it’s a bad thing. It's as if wanting to document your graduation or a Saturday night outing with a picture makes you incompetent of caring about world issues. We’re told we rely on technology too much, as though the creators of the printing press weren’t told the same thing about their advancements. We’re told that we’re too sensitive and to work harder, as though we’re not desperately trying to juggle work, school and friends. It's as if we’re not struggling through high school and then college in a haze of competitive anxiety. The things we’re facing would have brought an older generation to their knees. But here we are, throwing our health and sanity off-board so that we can stay afloat.
We watch the presidential debates and put Snapchat dog filters over Trump’s face because the election's a joke. We’re keeping up enough to know it. There’s no blissful childish ignorance here because we've never had that privilege, so I refuse to hear that we aren’t “involved.” We’re more than involved. We’re panicking and vigorously fighting. We’re politicians, activists and soldiers. We’re only 18.
What were you at 18?
