Generation WhY?

I’m currently working on a concept presentation for a big online gaming event. And as I was doing some research on my proposed theme and the event’s target market, I was suddenly appalled by the results of the behavioral studies made on today’s kids. As we all know by now, they’re called the Generation Y, shortcut for “Why” because apparently this new breed can’t just get enough with one answer. They’re also called several other things: Generation Speed. Millenials. Net Generation.

I was alarmed because as I was reading the thwarted realities of this new generation it dawned upon me that our little boy Kean actually belongs to it. A generation that grew up at the speed of online games and broadband internet. Kids that can't imagine life without cellphones, email and MP3 players. For them everything should be fast and instantly accessible. Life is seen as a drop-down menu of choices accessed immediately with the click of a mouse. A generation that will wait just three seconds for a page to download ‘til they click away. Instant technology. Instant gratification. Definitely no 2nd marshmallow kid here. For them, these things aren’t rewards. This is their reality.


And true enough, I could see traces of that in Kean. At 6 years old, he’s more capable of clicking his way through an internet browser than my 50 year old dad. You can toss him the PSP and can learn any new game on his own. It’s like kids these days have an extra gene or chromosome for understanding technology. However, as much as they’ve got the IQ for anything digital, they don’t have the EQ for the real world. Well, at least for the real world THAT I KNOW! God knows what kind of world they would be having decades from now.

I noticed that like most kids, Kean is so impatient. Blame it on the instant world that they were born into. I am amazed and sometimes worried that Kean is so hyper. We even thought he might have ADHD but whenever I would see him in school with his classmates, I’m proven wrong. They’re all hyper! These kids don’t run on mere life batteries. They don’t seem to wear out at all. It’s like they’re nuclear powered. I also played like there was no tomorrow when I was a kid but somehow I knew when to stop. In my generation, we followed a schedule. We kids are allowed to play with our neighbors the whole day outside just as long as we get home ON TIME!

I was passively aware of these facts about Gen Y. It just never occurred to me that much until I realized that Kean is actually one of them. I read in one article that the typical Gen Y kids are coddled by their parents. They receive trophies for simply participating on a team. Parents tell them they are special and capable of doing anything. Their non-school activities are scheduled (e.g., karate, soccer, etc.), and their parents are not afraid to call a teacher, coach or Boy Scout leader if they did not think their child was being treated fairly. Yikes! I think as a parent I’m also guilty of raising a diabolical Gen Y kid.

Since Gen Y kids have been raised with instant communication, unrealistic feedback and
rapid decision making as the norm, they would grow up to believe that they have the world in the palm of their hand. And, with their knowledge of today’s technology that is not impossible at all.

As a second parent to Kean (he’s actually my nephew if you don’t know), I am sometimes overwhelmed with the many (contradicting) parenting theories and principles. I know that as a Christian parent, the Bible should be the basis of our family values. But WITH ALL HONESTY – following this strictly is sooo difficult to do. I think competing with technology with all its pros and cons intact is the biggest challenge of any 21st century parent.

Maybe I’m just not confident that I would be able to strongly lay down the foundational truths with Kean. Blame it on my own insecurities and messed-up childhood, and my dysfunctional non-Christian family who have their own ideas on raising the boy. It is really a battle. And to top it all, I realized that even his own mother is a Gen Y kid herself (she’s only in her early 20s). So when Kean finally leaves my care and joins his biological mother in the US, how do you think a Gen Y mother would care for her Gen Y child? Hmmm… or maybe they’d probably understand each other better than we would.