Letters To Young Men: OK, Boomer

Dear Young Man,

I haven’t written a letter like this in a while, but having watched online interactions over the past few years, it seemed prudent to take up this format again. Generational hostilities have heated up on social media, especially coming from millennials and Gen Z, and I want to address it.  (If you are not part of the social media militia, you can still read this letter with profit, but it won’t apply to you as directly). The “OK, Boomer” attitude has become a standard meme. Older generations (including Gen X, of which I am a part) are railed against for the messes they have left for the younger generations while providing them few, if any, tools with which to clean them up. Many of the accusations are legitimate. Boomers, having been raised by Silents who had to scrape by during the depression and face the harsh realities of World War 2, wanted an easier life for their children. My grandpa, a Silent who was, for all intents and purposes, my father, told me that he wouldn’t teach me to weld (he was a master welder) because he wanted me to get a college education so I wouldn’t have to work as hard as he did. The Silents gave their children everything they could, making life as easy as possible. It turned into a culture of rebellion, “free love,” Second Wave Feminism, and a general self-centeredness whose greatest aspiration was to retire at a young age to free themselves of as much responsibility as possible.

On the whole, Boomers didn’t raise Gen X to be much better. We were “free-range” children and developed some toughness (or callousness?) both emotionally and physically. We had to live with the skyrocketing divorce rate and the consequent broken homes. However, like the Boomers, we wanted something better for our children. We turned into the therapeutic parents Abigail Shrier describes in her book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up and Jonathan Haidt exposes in The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Many young men nowadays have been raised by single moms, and, if they had a father, he was a man conditioned by feminism. Your generations have been bubble-wrapped and are, consequently, emotionally fragile while also believing that you are or should be the center of the world. Your feelings are reality, and everyone should submit to them. You have the right to splash your emotionally charged opinions all over the internet, daring anyone to challenge “reality.” Silents, Boomers, and Gen X have made many mistakes at the familial and governmental levels (though it appears that Gen Xers will never be represented in the presidency. I’m not bitter.). (If you want to understand the differences in the generations, Jean Twenge’s book, Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents–and What They Mean for America’s Future.)

None of this is to say that these generations were all bad. Many good individuals parented well. As a generation, we have done many good things, which is why you are able to live in relative wealth in this country. Our generations have been innovative and productive, moving technology forward. Granted, many times, we took good things too far. For example, we took safety all the way to safetyism, eliminating too many dangers from your lives so that you wouldn’t suffer any pain. Risk and pain are necessary for maturation. Shielding you stunted your growth. We are the cause of all the safe spaces for the emotionally fragile who believe they are being abused if someone disagrees with them. We meant well, bless our hearts, but it was bad.

The church has been a part of this failure as well. Teaching the soft masculinity (borderline effeminacy) of “servant leadership,” our generations have handed down the belief that to be a holy male is to be non-aggressive, to simp with women, and to be risk averse. We have, on the whole, created churches that aren’t friendly to genuine masculinity. If a man desires affirmation, he must act more like a woman. This only encourages more effeminacy and its twin brother, machismo, both of which are unholy distortions of masculinity. Some young men in the church have rightly rebelled against the soft male model and have tried to recapture genuine masculinity. They have turned to online influencers who are far less than ideal models of masculinity, trying to find a target for this newfound aggressiveness that easily becomes anger. Machismo is the result. This is the over-the-top exaggeration of masculine characteristics with no genuine gravitas; that is, there is no serious, solid, stable character. Machismo-type males are little boys who are trying to act like men through bluster and foolish risk-taking but have never taken the time or had the opportunity to learn how to be a mature man from a mature man. The reaction to the evangelical male model creates an opposite problem, but it is as much of a problem as the effeminate man. The impulse is right, but the pendulum has swung too far. Evidence of this machismo masculinity is all over Christian, and particularly Reformed, social media.

Previous generations have failed you.

What’s new?

From the time of the first man and woman, every generation has failed significantly in some way, leaving a challenge for the next generation. Your situation is not unique in world history, though some of your online tirades indicate that you think it is. I see the victim card being played quite a bit. You can’t be the men that you are supposed to be because of the failures of the previous generations. Those failures may be at a personal level in which you had a bum for a father, your father left you through divorce or death, or he just didn’t teach you how to be a man. There are masculine failures at a cultural level as well. For generations men have not stemmed the tide of Feminism but have allowed the poison to seep through the body politic.

I get it. The failures are real. But playing the victim card is an abdication of genuine masculinity. Stop it. Genuine masculinity is about taking responsibility. If you have been left a mess, you recognize the problem and seek to overcome it. You don’t sit there and wallow, playing the victim. If no one has told you that up to this point, I’m telling you now. You don’t have to deny all the bad things that have happened to you or that have happened in the culture. Taking responsibility is about not allowing the failures of the past—yours or someone else’s–to determine who you are and your future. Yes, you have some ground to make up because of the fathers or father figures you didn’t have. But if you want to be a genuine man, a godly man, you discover what you are supposed to be doing and take responsibility for your actions now and your future.

You don’t do this while whining and complaining all the time about the Boomers. When you do, you’re acting like the CRT/BLM crowd who blames all their ills on their oppression and deprivations. In that crowd, there is no possibility of forgiveness. They tell you that there will be forgiveness when there are complete reparations—that is, when they get everything they want—but they are like the leech that has two daughters: Give and Give (Prov 30:15). They are insatiable, a black hole of bitter desire that seeks revenge and an escape from personal responsibility. They, like many of you, want their “oppressors” to live in perpetual guilt so that there is always an excuse as to why they don’t have this or they haven’t achieved that.

You want things handed to you. I’ve seen this among Christian young men. They want Boomers to “hand over the keys.” It may be that older people have a difficult time handing over their life’s work to a younger generation just because they don’t want to give it up. But it may also be that a younger generation of men don’t understand what it took to build what has been built and haven’t paid the price to learn how to handle the keys. Some young men think that when they become adults, they ought to be able to have everything their parents worked thirty or forty years to have. They want things handed to them. It’s not good when men refuse to hand over responsibilities when those responsibilities are now past their capabilities. But it is equally bad when young men think they are entitled to something when they haven’t paid their dues … and, yes, sometimes the older generation determines what those “dues” are since they are the ones who built what you now desire. You don’t make all the rules just because you have a number of people following you on social media who think you are the bees’ knees.

I have also heard the complaints about not having mentors or “fathers.” I’m going to talk frankly to you right now. You are sitting there like a girl at a dance waiting for a guy to ask you to dance instead of acting like a man and taking initiative. “Well, older men ought to be reaching out to me!” Maybe. But why are they obligated to pursue and you’re not? I can’t say that I have much sympathy for you in this regard. Older men didn’t pursue mentor relationships with me. I observed men that I respected. I watched their character and their families. When I determined that they were men I respected, I called them. I didn’t force anything. I simply started asking questions. They were happy to answer my questions when they saw I was genuinely seeking answers. Long-term friendships were developed. Many older, godly men will do the same for you. But if you sit there thinking that everyone else has an obligation to pursue it and you don’t, you will wait a long time. One aspect of being a man is seeing what you want and pursuing it. Stop sitting around like a little girl waiting for a dance partner and seek out friendships with your older men.

Finding mentors from your own generation online through podcasts and following on social media is not the answer. You can certainly learn some things from your peers. I’m in no way discounting that. But they shouldn’t be mentors because the only thing most of them have accomplished is getting an audience, and we all know that an OF girl can get an audience without a character that deserves to be a mentor. Many young influencers don’t have proven character. These influencers are stirring young men up, helping to produce loads of insufferable young men who are virtually unteachable. You know everything about the church and what it ought to be doing. I have heard, “What they need is to be pastored.” I couldn’t agree me. But as a pastor for approximately thirty-five years, I have dealt with plenty of young men like this. Pastors can’t pastor untamable sheep. These young men don’t come to be mentored by older men. They come to teach the Boomers how it’s done. They come to instruct them on the post-WW2 consensus, racism, head coverings, church polity, etc. I know it may amaze you, but I watched churches form with young know-it-alls like this and blow up time after time. Young men need humility. Just because you’ve read a book or watched a video on a subject doesn’t mean that you have all the answers. Some of you are like 13-year-olds who picked up a machete for the first time while drinking your first beer without having been taught how to handle either of them. You’re dangerous. Unless you become teachable, the Boomers will warn people to stay away from you, and they are right to do so.

This doesn’t mean that you must always agree with the older generations; you accept everything without thinking. We are wrong at times. But you should show respect by being humble and realizing that you have a great deal to learn. Maybe, just maybe, their years have taught them some valuable lessons. When you disagree with them, it shouldn’t be in-your-face, vitriolic, or condescending … “OK, Boomer.” You should be willing to take the time to re-check yourself and say things like, “It looks like we’re going to disagree on this point,” or maybe, “I was wrong.”

One issue that plagues your generation is the commitments made on social media. Gaining followers and getting reactions is like a drug. It gives you a high. You like that high, but the next time, it takes more to get you and your audience even higher. You make edgy comments. Then, you make incendiary comments. You get into the comment section of a well-known older man and try to make a name for yourself by taking him down. Your echo chamber squeals with delight, and it feeds your ego. Your “fans” need you. You are the anointed teacher. Consequently, the comments keep rolling, and they become much more eccentric and controversial. When you write it, you have now made a commitment, and that commitment is difficult to walk back because of your pride. Admitting you were wrong or out of line is difficult to do. Will your followers trust you anymore?

Some young men have said so many things online about the older generation that older men will stay away from them because they don’t trust them. The next online tirade may be against them, and they don’t have the time to deal with useless social media arguments where the angry militia gathers like buzzards on a gut wagon.

While many young men believe that scoffing at the older generation is bolstering them, what it is really doing is undermining their future. If you don’t respect the older generation, you are teaching your children how to act toward you in the future. You are cutting off your own legs. Your children will learn more by example than what you tell them.

Teaching does not only flow in one direction: from the older generation down to the younger generations. The older generations can learn from you. I’ve raised four boys to be men, men I am proud of. I raised them so that one day they could teach me. I didn’t have that same father-son relationship, but I determined that it would be different with me and my sons. Even if you are the first generation, so to speak, this can be done. My oldest son (who is thirty years of age at the time I’m writing this) is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and is involved in real estate investments. My second son is an engineer. My third son is an accountant. My fourth son works in IT. I’m a pastor and theologian. I don’t know as much about their areas of expertise as they do, obviously. If I have questions, I ask them. I learn from them. I raised them to the point that they can be my counselors at some level. They still respect me and learn from me, but now there is a friendship that recognizes the age and position distinctions while mutually respecting one another and each other’s gifts. We can learn from one another. But you can’t “force” your knowledge on older men. You must gain their respect first. The same is true in the inverse, of course.

Don’t be an effeminate wielder of the victim card, constantly whining and complaining online about the older generation’s sins, past and present. Act like a man. Take responsibility. Downplay everybody else’s faults and do what you are supposed to do in daily faithfulness without the online fanfare.