“You're too young to understand” is a phrase that I categorize with others like “I'm not racist but...” and “you're just obsessed with political correctness,” along with other phrases that are commonly used to rationalize stupidity. Rarely is “you'll know better when you get older” ever used with topics that actually have to do with age or things that our elders have to deal with more so than younger people. You don't discuss home insurance or retirement with your parents only to be dismissed with “you're too young to understand.” The only time I've routinely heard the phrase was when discussing difficult topics like racism or abortion, and it's always when someone's ran out of arguments. Put bluntly, “you're not old enough to understand” is more oftentimes code for “shut up.”
The assumption has always been that I, as a young person, must have no experience or knowledge in a subject worth talking about. Apparently, I've absorbed all my opinions from television like a sponge, and my claiming anything different comes from an arrogant sense of entitlement. Clearly, I know nothing. At least, not as much as someone who's been around for a decade or two longer than I have, no matter what the context. It's like a get out of jail free card, each year you survive is a notch on your belt with which you can then claim is wisdom. Wisdom that trumps any argument you can have.
“You have empirical evidence against my claim? That's nothing compared to the fact that I am older than you! My logic is impeccable!”
For as long as I can remember, people older than me have assumed I have the same mental capacity as a car alarm. I recall all the assemblies I was forced to go to in my youth. We were herded like cattle to a gymnasium or auditorium to have someone acting far too excited to deliver a disposable lesson about drugs or positive thinking that every child under 10 has already had forcibly shoved into their consciousness. The forced enthusiasm that went into talking down to us as kids as they told us how "cool" it is to stay away from alcohol before turning 21 was alarming. Think of that clip of Steve Buscemi with a skateboard and a red hoodie going “how do you do fellow kids” to a group of high school students, only lacking the satire.
The point I'm trying to make is “you're too young to understand” is the exact same patronizing nonsense that's always been used to talk down to Millennials. It's no different from when we were 12. The same mindset that condemns us as a lazy generation of phone-obsessed freeloaders is also attempting to dismiss anything we say that might suggest otherwise. Not only do people think of Millennials as the worst generation ever(!),they also feel the need to prevent us from proving ourselves otherwise. At what age does this dramatic shift take place in my life where all my opinions become ones older generations can agree with?
It's not a new thing. “Those kids these days with their sex, drugs, and rock n' roll! Things were better back in my day when technology sucked and everyone was really racist!” has always been the go-to complaint of anyone over the age of 30. It's called “juvenoia,” or at least that's what I heard from a YouTube video. The previous generation enjoyed a booming economy and a job market that made today's job market look like the aftermath of an atom bomb. We step up to the plate and meet a world where the economy just sits in the corner and cries hysterically. Only the Baby Boomers and Generation X could wreck everything and have the audacity to inform us that Millennials are to blame for the moral decay that's apparently ruining the world.
Yes, our generation has cell phones, the Internet, and video games. You know what else it has? Communication. The world has never been more open. The other day I had a polite conversation with a woman living in Paris about gender's role in body image. This interaction would have been impossible 30 years ago and communication like this happens on a daily basis. Maybe one of the reasons immigration has become such a hot button issue is because the invention of things like the Internet has opened the world up and the xenophobia of previous generations is now challenged. This generation has been obsessed with social justice movements like LGBT rights, perhaps because we've grown up learning about the ever-shrinking world. Maybe older generations don't hold similar opinions about certain issues young people face today simply because they have more years on their scorecard.
If you belong to a previous generation and have used this argument to shut up someone younger than you, maybe you should dismiss the notion that you know more about Millennial issues than a Millennial. Maybe think about the issues the young adults of today grew up facing. Similar to how the Baby Boomers and Generation X grew up with the fear that a man with a twitchy finger and a button could cause WW3, we grew up with 9/11 revealing how fragile the state of the world really is. We were told that scary terrorists were going to attack at any moment and something as docile as opening a letter could spell death. We were told that we could grow up to be anything, only to find the world in the worst recession since the Great Depression. We were strongly encouraged to go to college only to find ourselves swimming in debt and working in minimum wage. Maybe the disconnect between generations didn't begin with us.
Or, you know, it might just be that we're too young to understand.
