Typically, it’s the boomers and Gen X who express confusion about Gen Z. However, now it’s Gen Z expressing their own confusion about older generations.
For those who, like me, may not know the specific age range for each generation, here’s a quick overview.
The Baby Boom Generation includes those born from roughly 1946 to 1964, while Generation X spans from 1965 to 1979.
Millennials, often characterized by not having internet access during their childhood, were born between 1981 and 1996.
Individuals born from 1996 to the early 2010s are part of Gen Z, a generation often described as being quite ‘woke’.
Considering their woke-ness and the tendency to do things ‘for the gram’ (as the saying goes among the youth), it’s typically the older generations who have comments about those from Gen Z.
For instance, a trend that seems to bother many is Gen Z’s habit of photographing their belongings arranged in a tray before passing through airport security.
But recently, BuzzFeed shifted the focus and asked Gen Z individuals what they don’t understand about their elders, particularly older women.
One respondent mentioned: “I don’t understand why they don’t love themselves more. I look up to some older women in my life, as they’ve faced hard situations and still have the courage to live another day.”
Another commented: “Older women, what is it about Lin-Manuel Miranda that you love so much? I know he’s an incredible composer. But let’s be real, his singing and acting are OK. Why are we so obsessed with him?”
The question they might want to ask themselves is why they’re not as captivated by the songwriter.
Another person shared with the outlet: “[I don’t understand] why some older women [are] rude and entitled towards service industry workers.”
One individual wondered why women from older generations ‘accept so much negativity from their husbands’.
“[I feel like older women] don’t extend grace to younger women,” another person wrote.
“They expect you to know all the life lessons as if they weren’t young once… and they expect you to have it all figured out.”
Not all responses were profound; someone else simply expressed confusion over older women’s haircuts.
If low-rise jeans can come back into style, who’s to say perms won’t make a resurgence soon as well?