If you could go back in time and tell your younger self a secret, what would it be?
Without getting overly philosophical, warning myself of relationship misgivings, or when to buy Amazon stocks and cryptocurrencies, I’d tell myself one simple truth:
Don’t listen to everything the adults tell you.
I don’t mean shove my head into the sand during school, or tune out the blunt but necessary instructions offered up by seasoned high school coaches. No, I mean the life instructions. Because, as I’ve discovered, so much of what the previous generation told me ended up being false. Not true.
A lie.
Some of these lies have affected me personally, financially, emotionally. Others I, thankfully, failed to follow through with. Chances are, you’ve followed many of the same lines of previous-generation thinking and wish you didn’t, just like me.
As I age, the list of lies will continue to grow, but as it stands, I’m in my mid-30s and these are just a few of the Baby Boomer lies I was spoon-fed growing up (and still hear references to even now).
1. You Have To Go To College!
If you want to make something of yourself you have to go to college.
This line was force-fed down students’ throats by faculty and teachers as soon as grades went from gold stars to letters. Recruiters would post up by lunchrooms, handing out swag in exchange for email addresses. Outside of possibly the military, there was no other talked about option. Members of local plumbing unions or metal shops didn’t visit. Maybe the local unions didn’t have the available resources to do this (although growing up in the shadow of General Motors and Ford I somehow doubt that). Or maybe highlighting jobs that didn’t require a college education went against what the schools were trying to accomplish.
More than a few high school administrators made it seem like working as a janitor in the school, mowing lawns, or serving food in the cafeteria, would be the worst thing to happen to a student. And yet, if I walked into a high school today, I bet the janitor would be one of the few professionals working there that wasn’t swamped in student loan debt.
There are plenty of excellent career paths that don’t require a traditional college education, but the previous generation hid those behind door number two. Anything besides college would be viewed as a failure. And then what would classmates think at the 10-year high school reunion?
2. You Have to Go To The Best College!
Why should you go to an average in-state university when you’ve been accepted into an exceptional college on the East Coast? This previous lie just becomes a thicker, tangled web of lies the further in you go.
I was strictly told if I wanted an even better chance at succeeding I needed to go to the best school possible. Of course, the best school possible usually meant dramatically more expensive, but that doesn’t matter! If I’m more successful I’ll have more money! At least that’s how the lie goes.
The further I’ve moved into the professional world the more I’ve realized that isn’t the case at all. Outside of Ivy League universities and maybe a dozen other schools that excel in specific areas of study, the university of choice doesn’t matter all that much. And the school matters even less when going after a Master’s Degree. Again, outside of maybe 20 schools in the world, as long as you have that piece of paper that says you paid a lot of money for an elevated degree, that’s all that counts.
3. Tick, Tick, Tick… You Have To Have Kids!
The lie of children. I get it, when the previous generation was in their 20s the world was so much larger. People rarely moved beyond their home town and, frankly, there’s just not all that much to do after living in a town for several decades. So they had children at a younger age, and that expectation was pushed down onto the current generations.
If you’re in your 30s, and especially if you are a woman in your 30s, you’ve probably been asked more times than you can count when you’re going to have kids. A few of these inquiries probably came with a “clocks ticking” comment.
This isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with having kids at any age. Do what works best for you and what you want to do in your life. But the expectational lie of you must have kids by such-and-such age is ludicrously outdated.
Of course, personally, I’m still waiting on the “no kids tax credit.” After all, the best thing anyone can do for the environment is not procreate, and if electric car owners can get money back, seems like the most eco-friendly people should as well. But that’s a different rant for a different day.
4. You Have To Get Married Young
“When are you going to settle down?”
I don’t know, grandma. Maybe when I can buy the same house as you for the $40K you paid for it.
Tied at the hip to having kids early, so many of the previous generation had this idea it was necessary to map out every step of life, which meant finishing school, going to college, marrying someone while still in college, then working the same job for 40 years before retiring.
Again, I understand why marrying someone young back in the day was necessary. When there are 12 other people in the same age range in town you want to nab your pick of the litter before someone else does. Of course, most of those marriages ended up with two adults hating each other but remaining together “for their kids” so society didn’t judge them.
In other words, they married the wrong person, refused to admit it, then followed through with a second lie by having kids young, and then remained in a terrible mental health situation because they listened to the lie of getting married young and the lie of having kids young.
Oh yeah, sign me up for that one. Sounds fantastic.
Truthfully, I was following this lie. I was married at 25. But she was cheating on me before the wedding, cheating on me after, and it ended 6-months in. Had there not been that pressure to fall behind in life, maybe the entire incident wouldn’t have happened.
But at least I have kids in hope of saving the marriage and then riding it out with someone I disliked.
5. The Best Years Are Your Young Years!
The number of times people my parents and grandparents’ age told me the best times of life were the young years far exceeds my ability to count just how often I heard it growing up.
“So, the best years of my life are my younger years, and so you want me to better enjoy them by jumping into a marriage I’m too young for and having kids I’m not financially prepared for.”
Perhaps to them, the young years were the best years because they didn’t have all the responsibilities of the tangled lies they had listened to themselves.
Now, there are plenty of times I do miss. I miss summer break and riding bicycles with friends or playing video games all night while eating the worst food in the world. I miss working pointless jobs and the only bills I had were my apartment and cell phone. There is something nice about the lack of responsibility.
And yet there’s so much to enjoy later on in life. I’ve traveled. I’ve spent a year outside the United States, and that came after visiting 49 of the 50 states (I’ll get to you soon enough, Alaska). I can write books at night without worrying about taking time away from children I don’t have. There’s limitless potential. In fact, the only handcuffs I do have are chained to the student loans I’m paying off, all thanks to that first lie I was force-fed.
6. Don’t Ever Act Like Any Other Gender!
Society-created gender roles are so strange. The predefined notion that someone needs to act a certain way because of how they look or the reproductive organs they have between their legs.
How often have men been belittled for not being emotionally available? It’s hard to do after a lifetime of programming and being told not to show emotions. To suck it up. Boys don’t cry.
Or to girls, who were chastised for dressing like a Tomboy. For not acting feminine. For being told not to follow dreams because those were jobs for men.
The idea of gender itself is fastened to the society-created roles of men and women, but those roles were created by other people, not the person in question. Maybe one of the most damaging things the past generation did to the current generations is preventing them from being themselves.
I cried once at soccer practice. I can’t remember what for. I was told by the adult (the coach), boys don’t cry. It made me ashamed. It made me embarrassed. And it made me cry more. I was six. I was sent to go sit by myself until I stopped. Not only was I yelled at but I was separated from everyone else. It killed my confidence, and that made things worse. It took me years, and I mean many many years, to ever build it back up.
The adults didn’t realize just how damaging they were, and how far back someone falls when they are told to “act like a girl” or “be a man.” It can have years, if not decades, of dominoed problems.
Listen To Yourself (When Possible)
It’s sometimes difficult listening to oneself when the older generation lies began when we are so young. A few of these date back to kindergarten and continued for decades.
Hopefully, we have all learned from the previous generation’s mistakes, so that we can make the necessary corrections (and, of course, make our own mistakes that future generations will likely have issues with).
But if you’re single, don’t have kids, never went to college, were treated differently because of how society instructed you to be treated, it’s okay, because you’re here now, And you don’t have to abide by those lies any longer. You can live life as you want, and enjoy it to the fullest. After all, you have only one, and the last thing you should be doing is living it based on someone else’s expectations.