I’m a soft-handed, coddled Zoomer. Boomers, teach us how to cope

During the Red Terror, the Bolsheviks had the somewhat belligerent habit of forcefully inspecting civilians’ hands. They looked for softness, for the absence of calluses. When smooth-handed Russians were found, they were deemed bourgeoise and consequently shot.

My grandfather has recently taken up a similar habit. Thankfully, he doesn’t own a gun. But he does like to cast judgement on my entire generation. Accusations of softness, weakness and over-indulgence are plentiful. My father is easily influenced and also likes to chime in by telling the over-embellished story of his route to school during his own childhood, which apparently covered mountain passes and dramatic gorges.

Even boomers were young once: teenagers do the stomp at Surf City in Sydney's Kings Cross in 1963. Credit: Fairfax

George Orwell said something about the tendency of each generation to think itself “more intelligent than the one that went before it and wiser than the one that comes after it”. Until recently, I put my grandfather’s musings down to this age-old truth. But recently, doubts have begun to creep in. Is he right? Are my generation (Zoomers) really a bunch of snowflakes and incessant complainers?

At first glance, it seems the nay-sayers (Baby Boomers) have a point. My childhood showcases this. There was no “A team” and “B team” at primary school, only “blue team” and “green team”. In running races, every kid got a medal to celebrate their participation. We could not look directly into the sun, go an hour without sanitised hands, or omit a trigger warning from even the most basic sentences.

So, sure, I’ll let my grandfather win on that one. By and large, young Australians are more coddled than ever before. Yet, the product of all this so-called “wellbeing” is a distinct lack of wellness.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, mental health disorders in young people have risen by nearly 50 per cent in the past 15 years. Furthermore, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute reports that hospital data shows “a rapid increase in food allergy and anaphylaxis, with admissions in Australia increasing by 350 per cent over the last two decades.” Intellectually, too, we are struggling – having grown up with syllabuses increasingly cleansed of books which tackle difficult issues, we can barely hold discourse on trying subjects without descending into willing ignorance. Cancel culture is a testament to this recent degradation of our rational thinking capabilities.

So, in very significant ways, my generation does suffer. Sure, mental health problems are as old as time and the hullabaloo about a “growing crisis” fails to recognise that the generations before us suffered largely in silence, but by and large this modern crop of adversity is more serious than almost any seen before.

Yes, my father had to walk a serious distance through beating heat to and from school, but at least he did so underneath an intact ozone layer. Yes, my grandfather had to amuse himself for hours on end in the backyard or by twiddling his thumbs, but at least he wasn’t propped in front of a desensitising, attention-reducing iPad. He may well have had less to eat growing up, but at least his food was free of additives, preservatives, microplastics and other chemicals. And, while he didn’t step foot on an aeroplane until he was 40, at least it was possible for him to buy a freestanding house before he was 25.

So, sure – Boomers had it tough. But so do Gen Z kids. And, while there are differences between our generational struggles, we suffer all the same. My “snowflake generation” might need its avo toast and mental health breaks, but we’ve had to grow up in a world that is far less simple – and far more livestreamed – than ever before.

The solution to the softness of Zoomers? Stop denying us reality. Let kids scrape their knees and place last in the school cross-country. Let only one person win pass-the-parcel. Let arguments ensue and let difficulty be experienced and overcome. This is how you can help us.

While we have vaccinations for everything under the sun, we’re currently unvaccinated for real life; for many, our systems haven’t experienced a small dose of reality and learned how to deal with it. We ask, then, that you teach us strategies to cope, ways to press on. That you recognise the struggles of modernity that we face and help us to tackle them properly, instead of just pointing out our soft hands.

And one more thing: stop telling us we have it easy. You got to grow up with Donald Bradman. We got Donald Trump.

Daniel Cash is a law student at the Australian National University.

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