I’m learning so much from my sons. Isn’t that the way it should be?
The morning usually starts with a hug and cheek kisses before a bowl and cereal is in arm reach. Jonny, who we’ve taken to calling J, calls me doctor! “Morning Doctor!” It’s taken sometime getting used to, and started with my sister larking around who’s gone from calling me by my pet name, Marcus, to Master, and now Doctor! It’s a Ghanaian thing!
This afternoon’s a busy day for Rob, J’s younger brother. London Fashion Week is here. Last year he sprung a surprise. “So I’m just off to a show”, he says, before we later realised he was on the Vogue runaway and then an appearance in the Guardian newspaper. 2023 gives him an opportunity to work with the uber Saul Nash for a second time, and add to his portfolio.
By day he’s at Rambert, one of the country’s leading dance and ballet conservatoires pursuing an ambition as a dancer. Accounts of his time are rich with stories, when we see him on his way and back from his Saturday job teaching 15 year-olds dance.
Something about this piece he did last year on BBC Young Dancer getting…. am I supposed to say this? Best keep quiet.
A conversation ensued in his year about whether all Black ballet groups should exist. His answer reveals a maturity that makes me smile inside. I catch myself looking at him. How the years have flown by from that ebullient lad who, if he could say he, was little understood back then.
“It shouldn’t be but it’s necessary”, he says was his response elaborating on the legacy of inequality he is aware of, and will have to navigate.
We’re happy though. His social skills, emotional intelligence and etiquette provide a pathway through these worldly time where politics of the absurd has taken root. He knows what he wants, but is keen to listen and assess any decision before an outcome. He’s had The Talk, as has his brother. Last year he was stopped by police whilst with a group of friends. The police said there were deals of varying kinds going on in the area he was, whilst he was having a laugh with mates.
His older brother J is starting his creative journey as a character rigger. Apparently it’s one of the more trying jobs within the work flow of animation, but that suits him fine. Less extroverty than Rob, but a quiet steely confidence brews. My phone or morning calls transcends into the wonderful world of animation. This below eponymously labelled Bond, is how we view our relationship.
J too can claim to be award-winning, and yes we’re proud.
J and R are both Gen Zs and by all accounts the world is not being kind to them or their generation. Their generation’s ambitions to interact and extend their horizons to friction-less work on the continent have been stymied by the decisions of those largely three times their age.
The gig economy, low wages, not being listened to, job and housing insecurity — these are the 9 O’clock shadows they try to avoid. In Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age authors Roberta Katz, an anthropologist; Linda Woodhead, sociologist; Sarah Ogilvie a linguist; and historian Jane Shaw shed some light on the plight of their charges.
They were born into a world of broadband. The idea of a world without the Internet is unfathomable. At some point everything was free on the net, why wouldn’t it be ? Creative Commons should be the norm. That seems to have changed, with personal agency and permissions out of respect becoming more the norm. They listen to lectures at 3x the speed to prevent them from being bored. Fair dos.
From my own interactions as a lecturer with Gen Z, it’s not that they’re not interested in news. That’s the big lie, as I found out empirically lecturing in Vancouver. Ninety percent in a show of hands would pay for it — but it has to be relevant to them. It’s not that they have no use for news, they’re just not interested in the narrative and the whole schtick news talking-at-you approach, when somewhere in that discourse is a conversation to be had.
Tech savvy, and sociable, their value system, as if some how it can be paraded across all Gen Zs is grossly misunderstood. Their attitudes are intersectionally stratified by sociologists into broadly three areas: period effects, lifecycle effects and cohort effects.
Period refers to how cultures at any time change and thus impact behaviour. Lifecycles tells you how any transition from young to older brings about necessary attitudinal changes, such as perhaps taking less risks. I still look back on the crazy motorbike move I made on the Greece Isand of Falarakhi in the 90s sandwiched between two cars at 60mph because I wanted to beat my friend racing. Then there’s the experience of cohorts.
When I look at J and R, of course those influences loom large as much as they might in your social network, but both are independent, and willed enough to make distinctions. The myths behind Gen Z, derogatory terms like snowflakes, and that they’re uncaring are generalisations that are flippant and dangerous.
At times when I inform friends of my own experiences teaching, and how mobile phones have become indelible resulting in second screen watching, or that note taking may have receded, I have to remind myself of how society or education has not caught up, or even screwed up. Legacy behaviour means adults don’t want to move on from their own habits. In a world without the net these inequalities across continents could not be exposed. Today its a click away.
How might we get younger people (Gen z) to problem solve using the assets they’re most familiar with? How might J and R ( 2 different people) see the world as case studies we parents etc might entertain? Wisdom an accumulation of knowledge and its dispensation in acting responsibly certainly places many adults in positions to mentor Gen Zs, but equally too to listen.
On one of our mentoring programmes, by the end of the 10 week session, we ask the mentees whether they can give something back to their mentors which didn’t involved a purchase. They’ve included recommendations, drawings and photo-journalistic shoots.
Is it that we’re used to an automaton, a generalisation, even in studies to truly understand that the digital world upended how people are sorted into groups because of age, or colour? But that somehow the politics of people means systems are needed.
But that if there are no system to categorise, consumerism and commerce for one would take a massive hit. How do you advertise to a group to reap dividends and huge profits? I don’t have the answer, but I do know the more I listen to J and R the more I see my own flaws when I was growing up and now, and how easy it is to be judgemental.
Yes both of them are grown now and the truly Adrian Mole years are behind us and they did have their moments, but I’m reminded still by the mutual respect at a very young age, the tooing of questions and answers, that has seen them today develop into young men.
But that the calcified walls of how the world was, and how power should be, is an impediment to them and I imagine many of their cohorts.
Thirty years ago, I was a reporter on a BBC programme for youth, Reportage. The clarion call for better housing, more rights, more opportunities was as strong then as it is now. The concentration of power from the many to the few is what’s significantly changed over the years, and how that few seek to drive and frame their culture and society as the hegemony.
J’s going to be home soon. Sunday Football, or is that Basketball, and how their team might have done better, then I’ll hear about the latest crypto currency movements. Rob, has his weekly shopping to do. I ought to get a move on. Time to learn some more.
