During the Sunday school, we talked about Solomon and the Proverbs. Since there are so many Proverbs about beating your son with a rod, aka disciplining your child, we talked about disciplining one's child. For about ten minutes of this discussion, there was a great bash on millenials. My brother, my stepsister, and I were all sitting in a row, three hopeless millenials. We listened as millenials were said to not have the ability to discipline children. One man began to say that all generations were criticized by the generations before. And then a woman interrupted and said, "But this generation really is messed up. The next generation is going to have to fix everything." And then the man promptly agreed.
Another few comments were about the bad work ethic of millenials. We apparently don't know how to work either. Once, I turned to my brother and stepsister and said, "We might as well just give up now." After another comment, my brother made a sign with his hand as if he was shooting himself. Guess we aren't worth it.
At another point, some of the people started using the term "snowflake" to describe all millenials. First, this is a political term, not generational. Second, it's a rude and kind of de-humanizing word. Therefore, why are we using this in church? Why do we think that it's okay to be so rude while pretending to be like Jesus? It's not.
For all those people who have such a lack in faith in Millenials, I just want to share a little about myself. I am a millenial, and I bet you already could guess. I work with adolescents, and part of my job, in fact most of my job, is disciplining children and teaching them how to have better relationships with people. Many of these adolescents have parents who are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. A great percentage of the staff that work with these students are millenials. So, I would guess that it isn't necessarily millenials that don't know how to discipline children. Yeah, we can't beat with a rod anymore, but we can sure use other methods.
And for all those who have had experiences like this at church, I'm sorry. If Jesus had been in that lesson, he wouldn't have said those things. He would remind us that the Atonement can help anyone who is willing. We are all people who have something to work on. I know I could be a little nicer and could do better to think really hard about what is going to come out of my mouth and then don't let it come out. I don't go to church for the people. If I did, I would have stopped going a long, long time ago. I still believe that Jesus is good. And He can help us, even when his disciples sometimes make mistakes. I'm trying hard to be nice. And I know this blog probably isn't the nicest anyway. I will repent later.
