Nobody wants to be cancelled – least of all by their own child. But it happens.
I was speaking recently to one parent of two teenage girls. She relayed a conversation she’d had with one of her daughters who had mentioned ‘the f slur’. Not knowing immediately which word she was referring to, her mother made a suggestion out loud, at which her child apparently screamed “Oh my god, Mum you can’t say that!” and stormed out of the room.
I hear stories like this all the time – my job takes me into about three schools a week. There’s a huge gap in understanding between generations on how to discuss and think about issues like race, sexuality and gender. Social media has also surgically extracted any nuance from our conversations whilst simultaneously allowing private interactions to become public.
Furthermore, broadly speaking, Gen X tend to focus more on intention, whereas Gen Z are more concerned with consequence. Take the recent controversy over Lady Susan Hussey’s conversation with Ngozi Fulani (in which the former asked the latter, a Black woman, where she was “really” from several times). Older people tended to argue that Lady Susan meant no offence. Younger people mostly maintained that this was irrelevant. Racism had taken place. End of story.
Two-way street
My advice? See this as a mutual learning opportunity. You might feel your child needs to take on board your perspective, but it’s a two-way street.
The increasingly-accepted wisdom is that teenagers are intolerant of any view which doesn’t match their own. I don’t think this is right. What motivates them, I think, is a combination of admirable purity of principle along with fear of social exclusion.
The first motivation is a laudable one. Teenagers don’t all think alike, but whatever socio-political opinions they’ve arrived at are, in the vast majority of cases, because they want society to be fairer for everyone. How many adults can say that? Certainly, I find it useful to check in with young people as my own view of the world inevitably pivots towards more selfish considerations, like how much tax I have to pay.
Parents can do the same. Think of your child’s views not as naïve, but idealistic. Idealism isn’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly during these dark times.
The fear of judgment from peers is trickier to navigate. Our generation had the luxury of knowing we could make mistakes, spout nonsense opinions and generally make idiots of ourselves without anyone documenting it. Those who, like me, went to school during an era when Oxford-union style debating became trendy and lament its passing should bear that in mind. We were encouraged to argue points of view we didn’t believe simply to hone our skills, but no one was videoing it and uploading it to the web where it would create an indelible digital footprint and haunt us for years to come.
Taking all this on board is the first and most important step towards having a productive conversation across the generational divide. Think of it not as a cancelling, but an opportunity to evolve, for both of you.
