Please stop telling me I’m too young to understand what is going on. I don’t care if you’re 40 years older than me, my age in relation to yours has no bearing on how much I do or do not understand what goes on around me. Recently I have been bombarded with sources telling me what “people my age” think they know. I’ve been told that we have no respect for the wisdom of our elders and we feel entitled to certain privileges without putting in the work to earn them. I realize that sweeping generalizations are an important facet of American culture, but I think we need to stop believing that the year a person was born has any bearing on how they think or what they value.
When you tell me I’m “too young to understand” you are making a lot of assumptions about me. Once upon a time, life events happened on a specific timeline and people were able to mature into adults over the span of 18 years before they had to face the entirety of reality. I realize this is also seems like a broad generalization (which I just said was bad), but almost all of the people who have told me I’m “too young” to understand something have lived a life that followed the roadmap of a nuclear family in a sitcom. This isn’t the reality for most of the people you have branded “millenials”. As a sophomore in college, I have lived through a difficult economic recession, lost three close family members without getting to say goodbye, battled a crippling illness, and had to move to a place where I didn’t know a soul without anyone by my side.
I don’t say these things to garner pity; I say these things to make a point. I’m not “too young to understand” because age has no bearing on life experience. I think I’ve experienced enough at this point to have valid political opinions and ideas about the kind of world I want to live in. When you were my age, you may have not had these experiences and that would affect your understanding about situations and opinions you had and that’s totally fine. There are people who are my age that haven’t had the same experiences I have and there is nothing wrong with that either. What IS wrong is telling me that my age is the only indicator of my capacity to understand something.
There are ways of challenging a person’s rationale without bringing age into the equation at all. Phrases like “you may change your mind when you have children” or “I see it differently because (insert respectful explanation here)” imply that you HAVE been through something that influenced your opinions on a topic or situation and the person you’re talking to may change their mind when they experience this as well. Every single one of us has growing and learning to do. We all have the capacity to change our stance on an issue when our understanding of a situation changes regardless of age. The years you’ve spent on this Earth have no bearing on how much or how little you understand anything. I respect your experience; please do me the courtesy of respecting mine as well.
