One night, after a particularly excruciating day of remote learning, I happened to be scrolling through FaceBook in the sunroom, only half paying attention to the television show my parents were watching. My feed was normal, or, as normal as it could be during a pandemic; jokes about not leaving the house, friends of mine bashing the president, and a good amount of cute dog photos. And then, I happened to come across this, posted by an old family friend of mine.

For a long time, I stared at my phone screen, unsure of how to respond, or if I should just ignore the post, and just keep scrolling. But I thought back to the moment Pritzker announced that school would not resume for the rest of the year; to the incredible sadness and anger that I’d felt, and resolved to say something to this woman, but what? Most of all, this pandemic has taught me that life isn’t fair. I mean, of course I’d heard the saying thousands of times already in my short, eighteen years. It’s something I’ve experienced firsthand, and should have known already. Life isn’t fair, but neither is comparing the trauma two different generations have gone through (I’ll share my response at the end).

Just as “life isn’t fair” is a common saying, I’m sure many in my generation have also joked about the phrase “back in my day.” The saying, so common for older generations (ie. Generation X and baby boomers) to say that it’s almost become a meme in itself; right up there with “Okay boomer.”

This got me thinking: why do the older generations love to compare their lives to ours? What makes calling us lazy and ungrateful so gratifying to them? According to Psychology Today, “Measuring the self against others is a modus operandi of the human mind.” We are hardwired to compare ourselves to others in order to both validate ourselves, and to aim higher in terms of goals. From this article, I believe that boomers constantly compare themselves to my generation because they want to feel relevant. We live in a fast-paced society where they feel isolated: not only are they old and have back issues, they also don’t understand how to work Snapchat, or even take a screenshot (and by the way, I did actually have to teach my mom how to screenshot). This has led them to a feeling of inadequacy, which I can say from personal experience, is one of the worst feelings of all. Boomers don’t compare their lives to ours out of sheer spite, they do it so that, just for a moment, they don’t feel so obsolete anymore.

So what can we learn from this sad generation of old-timers? Well for a start, we can learn to do better ourselves. We can learn to embrace the newer generations, not try to make them feel inadequate for not going through the same hardships we went through as kids.

And as promised, my response.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201711/the-comparison-trap