Think Gen X and Boomers are too close to their kids? Just wait til we’re moms and dads.
Gen Y has learned that normal parental behaviour involves constant checking-in and hand-holding. For better or worse, that’s another article for another time.
Imagine the big-brother-like level of coddling Generation Y will bestow upon its children. Armed with technology, our ability to stay informed about everything our children do will be almost total.
At least Gen X had freedom
I stay in touch with my parents through email regularly. The great majority of my peers do the same. Everyone in my immediate family has a cellphone and we call and text each other almost daily. A smaller slice of my friends have their parents on Facebook and on their instant messenger, also using those channels to stay in touch.
This might seem like too much communication — but the thing is, I want my family to know what’s going on with me, and I want to know what’s going on with them. In conversations with some Gen X peers, the last thing they wanted is for their parents to be able to keep tabs on them. To quote one directly:
If there needs to be a leash of some kind, I want the longest one possible.
When Generation Y has children (and some already do), technology is going to play a massive role in the way they interact with one another.
Gen Z: nowhere to hide
For example, if we ever became the slightest bit worried about where our kids are — we’d just call them on their cell phones (which, in the near future, will likely have GPS-tracking functionality). So I might not even need to call them, I’d just push a button and some kind of interface will show me where my kid is on a street map. A lot of parents add their kids to MySpace/Facebook/IM to monitor their activity, a trend which will continue in the future. This gives us information above and beyond your whereabouts — we’ll know who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about.
Gen Z: don’t even think about lying to your Gen Y parents, we’ll have documented evidence. Of pretty much everything you do.
cute kid at the park courtesy of mikebaird
August 17, 2008 on 5:19 pm
As a Boomer (a really YOUNG Boomer!) and being the middle of the sandwich between my mid-70’s parents and my tween-age niece and nephew, I can say this tracking has already started. Granted, my parents don’t always keep their cell phones with them around the house, they check them regularly to see if they’ve received a txt from me, the grands, or their friends. I just txt’ed my 74yo mother that she’s in the zone of a severe thunderstorm watch, and she txt’ed me back that my 12yo niece had just sent her the the same msg and told her to get out the flashlights and candles. We’re all very connected already. I don’t really see a downside, except from the author’s last point: there is Nowhere to Hide!
August 18, 2008 on 8:33 am
Your assumptions are off. Generations don’t follow lock-step in the footsteps of the generations that precede them. Take a look at the G.I. generation and their prodigy the Boomers. Everyone thought Boomers would turn out to be like their parents (the G.I. generation) only MORE. That didn’t happen though. Can you stay “Woodstock”? Free love, long hair, hippies, don’t trust the establishment, etc. Not at all like the G.I. generation. Generational historians like Neil Howe and William Strauss (authors of “The Fourth Turning”) will tell you generations move in cycles (or “seasons”). Gen-Y will not parent like the generation that raised them (Boomers). We’re already starting to see a backlash – - just take a look at the article in the NY Times “Free Range Kids” which hit such a nerve that it turned into a website: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
I predict the pendulum will begin swinging in the other direction and when Gen-Y starts to have kids they’ll look for ways to give them more and more space – - they will recognize the problem of “helicopter parents” and rebel. History is not linear. History moves in cycles. Listen to this audio interview with Neil Howe to learn more about how history moves in cycles and you’ll get it:
http://tomheck.blogs.com/teachmeteamwork/2005/06/the_fourth_turn.html
August 20, 2008 on 5:30 am
Do predict that genZ will live without any communication technology or would not be free?
August 20, 2008 on 8:16 am
Loved those links Tom. Anything from Strauss/Howe is always a great read.
@stetoscope — there is absolutely no way that Gen Z will live without technology to communicate with each other. That’s like asking Generation Y to live without TV.
August 27, 2008 on 3:49 pm
My colleague at Juice Inc., Brady Wilson, tells me that because of their parents behavious, unlike any other Generation, Gen Y employees respond best to an authority figure with which they have a relationship similar to that of a child and its parent. This is where the emerging notion of love in the workplace is sparked.
On another note, David, Ryan Paugh of Brazen Careerist forwarded me your contact in regards to getting a BC meeting organized in Toronto. I’m in Guelph and would love to meet with my fellow BCists sometime this fall. You can reach me at bcarlos@juiceinc.ca or through my blog at http://www.prninja.wordpress.com
January 4, 2009 on 1:05 am
I always feel so non-Gen Y in this way because since my mom passed away almost five years ago, I’m the one who has to constantly track down my parent and let him know what’s going on in my life and in his. My dad is a Boomer workaholic and the least communicative person in the world.
I don’t relate to the Helicopter Parent experience at all except that I find myself being one to my younger brother at times, and it was especially true when I still lived at home. I know my (hypothetical) kids are going to have it rough.