Not long ago,The New York Times ran a story about a mental health crisis among today's teens: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/health/mental-health-crisis-teens.html
I have two teenagers myself, and I'm going to respect their privacy and not out them on my blog. But high school has had its ups and down for us all. I wish I could say it has all been Facebook photo perfect but it has not. What I will say is that I've had a front row seat to the Gen Z population for a few years now. And a many of them do seem deeply troubled. Some have had suicidal ideation -or worse- and far too many, in my opinion, are medicated. There is anxiety, depression, demotivation, substance abuse and for the older kids, an overall failure to launch. They just don't seem very excited about the future.But are their reactions really that far off?
What is the line? I think it's attributable to Thomas Stephen Szasz.
"Insanity is the only sane reaction to an insane society.”
It's no wonder Gen Z is having such a mental health crisis.
They have weathered a pandemic during developmentally critical years. Schools are underfunded and overcrowded, and mass shootings are always a possibility looming over them. I mean, really let that one sink in. They could get murdered. Murdered. Every day that they show up to learn.
Ans frankly there is not a whole lot for them to look forward to.
There is climate change, which is already in motion.
It's gotten very expensive for them to strike out on their own. Many return home.
And they simply aren't buying what we are selling. What was sold to us.
They don't want the 40+. hour workday grind that we've numbed ourselves to do.
This is my daughter at her 7th grade "Career Day" where the students got to pretend like they lived and worked in this little town. They chose their jobs. Helena aimed high - she was the CFO of a bank I was all "That's my girl!" until I went to pick her up at the end of the day.
She'd done tedious things like run payroll. The kids were working with fake money which paid the other kids for their jobs, and there were little trinkets they could purchase in the "store" with the money. So it was kind of realistic.
She dealt with these money requests all day, and was actually pretty stressed out by the end of it.
I saw her in her little corporate blue suit, in front of a printer, under fluorescent lights, looking defeated, and my heart just tanked. How could all the joy drain out of her like that after only 2 days in the working world?
As we were walking out, she looked wistfully over at the "bakery" where kids were eating sweets. She said she always wanted to be a cake decorator. She said she wished she'd chosen that instead.
It was like this mini-microcosm of real life and the consequences of our choices.
So I hope that she remembers this, and that she does one day when it really matters,
choose Joy.
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