Journey from Gen X to Generation Alpha
Ours is a queer generation of adults who grew up on a staple diet of mother’s admonishment and father’s steely glare. I am not discounting the love they showered upon us, though we must admit that love came in bits and phases. It was always there, but the hugs and kisses were not freely distributed. Our childhood was mostly defined by a strict regimen of conventional discipline.
Attending summer camps and classes was not popular back then. Our summer vacations meant freely cycling about the neighbourhood in the scorching afternoons, while mother napped. This was followed by innocuous games in the park. Remnants of our wild abandon, scraped knees and bruised arms, were carried into the following months to school, when it reopened.
Calling up a friend entailed open scrutiny by the whole family, thanks to the strategically placed landline phone in the lobby. Television time was unforgettable. It meant watching whatever the parents watched. Hence, DD News was a constant. The woman in the background, perfectly exhibiting sign language, was the highlight for us silly kids. Little did we know the significance and seriousness of her work. But that became the secret job I wanted to do when I grew up. It looked fun, and one could be on TV every single night.
Cut to the present. My fiveyear-old is clear that she wants to become a pilot in New York. She even mimics the flight of the plane and tells me to tighten the seat belt during ‘turbulence’. As a mother, I am impressed and also a little intimidated. The researcher in me wonders if this is a trick of evolution? Evolution of Homo sapiens has happened at an exceedingly fast pace within the span of one whole generation! My former 10-year-old self would have had trouble even pronouncing ‘turbulence’.
Just recently, in a bid to make my little one finish her evening cup of milk, I challenged her to beat me by gulping it down fast. Alas, those tricks of my childhood have become stale. I wonder what my disciplinarian mother would have done. Resorting to ‘one tight ones’ has been reduced to a hollow verbatim threat. Because you don’t want to kill the child’s confidence by administering ‘corporal punishment’. Yes, that is what the mother’s whack is called now. However, after waiting patiently for far too long, I gulped down my glass of milk and began chiding my daughter for losing out to me. Pat came the reply, “Mama, why do you make a race out of everything? Just enjoy your drink.” She coolly continued to sip the milk. I was rendered speechless. Generation Y has not been trained to retort, has it?
I guess we’re the in-between generation, which gets its share of wisdom from the previous and next generations. But what you may ask do we give back to the evolutionary species? Charles Darwin couldn’t have put it better, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” I choose to assume we have filled the gap between hard taskmasters and the blithe ones.
While you ponder, Generation Alpha continues to sip her milk, to the very last drop.
I GUESS WE’RE THE INBETWEEN GENERATION, WHICH GETS ITS SHARE OF WISDOM FROM THE PREVIOUS AND NEXT GENERATIONS