Children are the future. It’s a phrase so commonplace and so overused that the words have become somewhat hollow and meaningless from constant repetition. But, that doesn’t change the fact that the old adage holds true and children are indeed the future of this country. If you ask any older adults you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that disagrees with the statement either, but all of that leads me to a question my friends and I came upon: If children are the future why don’t we let them BE the future and innovate? That question may seem out of left field, but please let me explain.
The phrase, "children are the future," comes from the fact that inevitably the adults and elders of the present will all grow old and eventually leave us, but it’s up to the children to inherent the society they made and build upon it.
The phrase is supposed to be about nurturing and educating the youth so that society keeps growing and changes with the times, something it has to do in order to sustain itself. Right now, we find ourselves in the midst of a great change occurring in society.
My generation, “The Millennials,” are almost all adults now and as a result we have a bigger voice and more influence on what form society will take. And that’s when the problem of the phrase “children are the future” is occurring because as the younger generation begin to form their own ideas and try to shape society the older generation is showing stern opposition to changes they want to make.
Our generation does things differently than the one that came before because things are different and times have changed. The internet has made it so that any and everything is knowable seemingly at the click of a button. This has had an obvious effect on us, we are more dialed in about different problems that people face. We’re more empathetic and likely to listen to the problems that people are having.
We’re also more open to new information and knowledge as it becomes available. In a climate where information is everywhere it only makes sense that people are likely to listen to each other and these changes have become manifest in things like Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ Movement, and a heightened consciousness about how we treat the environment. These are all example of children who have grown up attempt to make changes to the society that they deem important and, unsurprisingly, they have been met with resistance from the older generation.
The generation before us acts as if any and all changes we attempt to make will be the end of the world. They act as if we haven’t grown up and can’t make our own informed decisions. And they act like we can’t be different from them in any way. This is not a new trend at all, every previous generation believes that the new one is worse off than they are and they are always wrong. At one point, it was believed that the Women’s Suffrage Movement was going to be the end of civilization, that the Civil Rights Movement was a problem for everyone, and that Black Panthers were too radical to do any good. Just like with our generation, causes that were important to one generation were seen as a problem for the previous one.
We need to learn from past mistakes. Our generation can’t be afraid to be innovative and try to spread new ideas because the older generation resists them. And the older generation needs to be more open minded to the causes and issues that we find important. 20 years ago, it was said that children are the future and we’ve now arrived at that point so please: Let children be the future that was so hopefully spoken about.
