Born into Change
A funny thing has started happening to me recently. An old picture of my kids popped up on my phone which, by itself, is nothing notable. But now, when my phone delivers delightful photo memories from years past, they have become true reminders of things that are no longer at the front of my mind. They’re the things that I don’t think about constantly, but still vividly remember. They’re special ones that bring back not only the memory of when that picture was taken, but also how I felt. They’re nostalgic, and it’s hard to believe that I’ve already reached this point in parenthood.
The picture in question is from October 16th, ten years ago. My two oldest were making Halloween cookies, with my two youngest not even born yet. I remember their sweet personalities, and how excited they were to eat the cookies. Even though my wife wasn’t in the photo, I know she was there, which isn’t a given for an ER doctor’s schedule. She was pregnant with our third kid. I was still commuting into the Boston law firm that gave my legal career its start. I remember my daughter asking if every building we passed was a barn because this was our first Fall living in a place as rural as Hollis. I remember my son was waking us up at five in the morning every single day. I remember all the good things from that evening.
Fast forward two years from that picture, and we’re on the verge of paying for early education for four kids. It was just for one year, but we did nothing, went nowhere, and worked really hard. We made it to the other side of daycare, but it’s a time in our lives that my wife and I will never forget. It’s been three years since we were first able to have all the kids in public schools and I still sometimes think about how good it is to be through the stress of that period. We have new and different challenges as our kids become more independent and start becoming their own people, but the expense of childcare is still a very clear memory.
The cost of childcare continues to be high here in New Hampshire, which some may say falls at the feet of Free State legislators, who have been successful in taking over the NH GOP and pushing to deconstruct our state government with its iron-fisted control. But it’s also high in a place the NH GOP is repulsed to emulate and quick to distance itself culturally, but is still happy to cheer on their professional sports teams, work there, and take their political donations. What appears to be an apolitical problem doesn’t, however, discount the fact that the average age of New Hampshire’s legislators is one of the oldest in the country, many of whom are far enough removed from the challenges of raising children to not take it as a serious threat to the state’s economy.
Will there be a time when I, too, forget how intensely difficult parenthood is? Likewise, will there be a time when I’ll be grasping to put together what exactly was happening when those special pictures pop up on my phone without context? Most pictures nowadays are taken close to others, and it’s easy to determine what was happening days or even hours before that one special picture, so probably not. This technology is available to all of us, but one thing that isn’t, or wasn’t, is the same thing that makes it easier to remember the past, and that’s being born into change.
My children have never known a world without smartphones or a digitally-connected world. They are digital natives. I’m a Millennial that’s old enough to remember when we were Gen Y, which means that I’m part of a group of people that learned to expect change. We started on AOL, chatrooms, and Friendster, and have gone through many-multiples more social media platforms. We’ve had numerous “last-ever” email addresses. We entered our working years when high income, not reliable pensions, were largely the goal, and so geography and being close to family wasn’t a priority like it was for our parents. Our teachers didn’t have to teach us to roll with change because the world changed rapidly as we were trying to understand it. We’ve never really known a time where change wasn’t always around the corner, so it’s the knowledge that change is inevitable that has pushed us to not only remember the past, but internalize it.
And so here appears to be the dividing line between generations. Not to say that older generations can’t and haven’t learned to live in a world where rapid change is expected, but the gap in understanding between the generations with grandchildren and the ones raising the children of today has only grown larger. At times, leaders from those generations can be scolding; do things the way they did and life will work out. Most are far more charitable. They comprehend the challenges of the current “sandwich” generation, which is more accurately described as a generation of keystones. What not enough of them seem to understand is what it takes to raise children in 2025, and that it has changed dramatically since they were doing it.
Although many people of my generation have done well enough to own a home and provide a stable existence for their kids, I think many of us understand how fortunate we are to have missed a lot of the greatest challenges of Gen Z; a changing and challenging job market, a housing market devoid of affordable starter homes, and the financial and existential barriers to starting a family. We remember what it was like to just start off our adult lives, and we don’t need reminders from our phone to unearth what we felt like when we were in the same position.
I won’t make the connection between not having been born into change, and the expiration of SNAP benefits today, as the Federal government shutdown continues, but it seems a little too convenient that a government controlled by old ideas is the one who can’t see or doesn’t care that life has become dramatically expensive for everyone and outright unaffordable for many. The cost of living has changed for the worse, and the people in charge of our government can’t show up for those who need help, not for world peace, not for a financial safety net, not for a job, not for shelter, not for healthcare or mental health, but for getting the most basic human necessity besides water. It shouldn’t take a judge’s ruling to force their hand. Allowing Americans to starve cannot continue and while it does, we must demand change.