I am Gen X. A latchkey kid. I free ranged and came home from school when it either got dark or was hungry. My parents never organized playdates for me and I took myself to school and all the public (and free) extracurricular I signed myself up for. If I was given something, I’d recognize it and took care of it. If I didn’t have it, I’d go without. Life was simple.
As much as I want to raise my daughter in the same way, the reality is that society is just too different now. For starters, she doesn’t go to a school that is walking distance. So, she never really had neighborhood friends. That means hanging out and staying out means different things. The free-based activities I once enjoyed are simply non-existent now. Even if some are offered by the city, they are oversubscribed and very reduced. So, she’s driven to all her fee-based activities. But setting all that aside, I still try to instill Gen X attitudes in everything she faces.
She must take responsibility for her whereabouts. Although I don’t track her anymore (yes, I used to), when and if I call her, she needs to answer and tell me where she is and how she’s getting back. And by when. Navigating the big city we live in is table stakes for a teenager. She’s had plenty of practice finding our boarding gates when she was younger; eventually, she’ll need to use her street-smarts on her own.
She must take responsibility for her own actions. Actions have consequences. As early as the age of 7, I made her spend her allowance to fix a hand-me-down cell phone she dropped. She wasn’t expecting to use her own money and although I secretly put the money back into her piggybank afterwards, she understood the value of the dollar and the practice of repair versus replace. She learned very early that natural consequences make punishment unnecessary.
Actions have consequences. She learned very early that natural consequences make punishment unnecessary.
She must take pride in all her things. I have a housekeeper once every two weeks and my daughter knows to pitch in and clean her room beforehand or our helper won’t cleaned her floors and dust. She must have some skin in the game and especially for shared resources as she can’t pick the best and leave the rest.
She must learn to be under her own steam. My generation was seen as slackers because we didn’t tow the establishment’s line. Our skepticism wasn’t based on apathy—quite the opposite, it was based on the belief that there is a better way. I want my daughter to work smarter, not harder.
She must be tech savvy, but not tech dependent. Most of our generation didn’t get an email address until we were nearly finished university. Surfing the world wide web using Netscape opened many eyes and career paths. We embraced the novelty of technology as a means to an end and enabled the greatest rise in productivity and wealth creation in history. We knew its humble beginnings and weren’t afraid of the DOS Prompt. While my daughter has no interest in learning to code, she needs to know how to function in a blackout or even a dead phone battery.
So, in the end, I’m raising a kid in the way that worked for me and builds her independence. She makes many age-appropriate decisions and it’s all good practice. Her Generation Z needs to build and rebuild a better world. I try to give her the best tools from my generation.
