Generation Z and the Good Old Days

In 1985, mother-daughter country duo The Judds released a hit: “Grandpa (Tell Me ’Bout the Good Old Days).” The song reflects on the craziness in the modern world of relationships, returning to this sad, haunting chorus:

Did lovers really fall in love to stay
And stand beside each other, come what may?
Was a promise really something people kept
Not just something they would say

Not just something they would say and then forget?
Did families really bow their heads to pray?
Did daddies really never go away?
Whoa, whoa, Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days.

I thought about that song after reading a sad, haunting article in the May issue of First Things by Freya India, titled “Has the Right Forgotten Feelings?” India, who is in her mid-twenties (Gen Z) tells us that she grew up in a place where “Christianity — and conservatism — were seen as not only backward and archaic, but cringeworthy, embarrassing, belonging to another world.” At the same time, she

lived with a feeling of something missing, a gaping hole. A hunger; a hollowness. I was sensitive and sentimental, as many young girls are, and had this idea of love, of life, that kept getting broken and beaten out of me. My family fell apart and so did I. Dating was disorienting and inhumane; I felt things far too deeply to handle it. I was disheartened by the commodification of everything, and felt that some things — my face, my body, friendships, falling in love — had to mean more, somehow.

Feeling the Void

She goes on to write, “I wanted vows and commitments. I wanted guidance and guardrails. I wasn’t cut out for a world that offered no refuge, no haven or hiding place, and I thought the problem was me.”

And, she argues, she’s not alone. Young women in her generation, she says, are plagued by anxiety, depression, loneliness, self-harm, feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, and suicide. And, of course, it’s not just women and not just her generation suffering from these things.

Worse yet, she comments, “Those feelings I had, which many girls and young women live with today, have no answer in the modern world.”

In another article, “A Time We Never Knew,” India writes about anemoia, a neologism meaning “nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known.” That piece is about the 1990s, before the great digital revolution took place. “New technologies,” she writes,

cheapen and undermine every basic human value. Friendship, family, love, self-worth — all have been recast and commodified by the new digital world: by constant connectivity, by apps and algorithms, by increasingly solitary platforms and video games.

The Good Ol’ ’90s

It’s interesting that India chose the 1990s as “a golden time to be young and free.” In his latest book, Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, sociologist Christian Smith calls the 1990s “The Beginning of the End.” Changes in that decade — including the explosion of digital technologies — set the stage for the 2000s and what he argues is “Obsolescence Assured.” Traditional religion — authoritative texts, statements of faith, hierarchies, buildings, meetings, moral standards — are, Smith argues, a “cultural mismatch” with younger Americans. And by younger Americans, he means Gen Xers (45- to 60-year-olds) and Millennials (29 to 44). How things will be with the still rather young Gen Zers (13 to 28) is harder to predict — particularly if Freya India is right about what is going on in that generation.

In the First Things article, India admits to finding herself “in conversation with Orthodox Christians, buying old Chesterton and Scruton books, wandering ­into chapels and churches, stumbling into a world I have never known.” It hints that the trends Smith outlines may be hitting a wall. As scholar Joseph Pearce wrote in commenting on Pope Benedict XIV’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy:

Without a life properly ordered and oriented towards God in worship, man becomes disordered and disoriented in himself, flailing and fumbling his way in the darkness and unfathomable depths of the unknowable ego. If man will not find himself in God, he will lose himself in his self. There is no third course.

Hitting the Bottom and Looking Up?

While Smith believes the obsolescence of traditional religion will continue and that religion “will likely remain a marginalized species in an unfavorable American sociocultural ecosystem,” he leaves open a possibility that we in the Church need to welcome with serious prayer. Smith writes, “Among the more unlikely but not impossible of history’s surprises would be if American traditional religions turned their difficult predicament into an opportunity for self-critical soul-searching. What, finally, are they trying to do and why?”

A good start would be to consider India’s thoughts:

In a world that denies and confuses young women’s every instinct, show them another way. In a culture that tells them to detach and harden their hearts, show them that it’s okay to attach, that it’s human to depend; that their desire to put other people first should be treasured, not trained out of them. In a world that gives girls no guidance on love, no rules for relationships, give them examples and expectations. In a world that measures their worth by filters and editing apps and “likes” on a screen, give them deep, divine, unconditional love. In a world where nothing is permanent, where no vows can be expected to last, give them institutions, commandments, a world that takes commitment seriously, a world of the timeless and eternal. In a world that demands compassion without anywhere to direct it, give them community, somewhere to call home. In a world where girls are left to make up their own morality, where all they get are empty platitudes to love themselves, give them right and wrong. Give them a way of life that meets their instinctive needs and doesn’t make them feel anxious or insecure or needy. Give them answers.

Dear Christian friends, we have the answers. And we can’t just tell them ’bout the good old days. Instead, we must invite them in, listen to them, and show them what life can — and should — be like.

James Tonkowich is a freelance writer, speaker, and commentator on spirituality, religion, and public life. He is the author of The Liberty Threat: The Attack on Religious Freedom in America Today and Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life. He is Instructor Emeritus at Wyoming Catholic College.