The generation that brought you Friends, who embody extended adolescence in every way, are now seeking to eliminate the label of of middle age.

Patricia Cohen, New York Times reporter and author of another new study of ageing, In Our Prime: The Invention of Middle Age, might not be overly sympathetic to Berkmann’s plight. The mid-life crisis, she suggests, is a marketing trick designed to sell cosmetics, cars and expensive foreign holidays; people in their 20s and 30s are far more vulnerable to such a crisis than their parents. Cohen finds little evidence for so-called “empty nest syndrome”, or for the widespread stereotype of the rich man with the young “trophy wife”.

The New Ages of Man, Tim Walker of The Independent, March 6th 2012

These are my people. I get it. We are fast-approaching our 40s or now ungracefully fighting our 40s by voluntarily putting ourselves through bootcamp-worthy physical pain with names like Insanity and Crossfit. We are middle-age but desire to see ourselves as young, hip, and virile.

Last year, I reconnected with a high school friend via Facebook. As we caught up on life she was shocked that I married at 21 years old and had kids at 25. She said, “I’m 35 and I have a hard time keeping a gold fish alive, I’m not ready for marriage or children yet.” As we got to know one another I couldn’t help  thinking… What went wrong here? Why did some of us take on adult responsibilities in our late teens and early 20s and others didn’t? Was I more mature than my peers? (Um, maybe in some ways?!?)

It’s normal that each generation would morph and change things a bit. But I find it interesting that my peers reshaped adolescence, extending it through our 20s and into our 30s to the point that we now call it emerging adulthood and these same people are now denying the existence of middle age, as if this stage of life were not the middle of our lives. Those ahead of us, our Baby Boomer parents, have lead the way. With their tummy tucks, cougars, and second careers, they could be named Generation Denial.

Here’s what I know. If my generational peers don’t step up to the plate and embrace who they are… our kids will rename us into what we really are, Generation Regret. 

I’ve got a bone to pick with men who describe their wife as “hot” all the time. To me, it’s in the same category as the “I heart boobies” bracelets. It makes me cringe every time I see it or hear it.

A few reasons why I don’t like it:

• It’s demeaning to your wife. If the first thing you can think about to say about your wife is that she’s hot than that says a lot about what you think of her and women in general.
• It’s immature. No one is going to hear you say that or see it on your Twitter bio or Facebook profile and think, “Now that is a man worthy of respect. Look at how he talks about his wife!“
• It shows off your insecurity. I think it’s in the vein of thought of, “My wife is way out of my league.” While it seems like a compliment it is displaying your insecurity. It’s comes from a place of, “If I can’t say nice things about her publicly, maybe she’ll leave me?“
• It’s not getting the joke. For a lot of people it comes from Talledega Nights. I get it. That’s a funny movie. But that’s not how you talk to or treat a woman.
• You are sleeping with her. It’s implied that you think she is hot.
• There’s nothing appropriate I can say about your wife in return. I mean, what am I supposed to say back? “Yeah, I heard she makes a mighty fine meat loaf, too.“

My new response when I hear this or see it:

“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”

Still funny?

Kind of reminds me of the movie When Harry Met Sally.

It seems some things in college life never change, right?

Here’s a brief history of sexting.

• Some students got in trouble for sending sexually explicit pictures of another student around a school.
• Local news reported on it, after all it contained “teenagers” and “sex” in the same story. Brittany Spears must have been on vacation.
• In another town a similar case was reported.
• To make it more interesting, a regional or national news editor aggregated the two stories and gave it a sensational title: sexting.
• A single national news organization ran a story with the title “sexting.”
• Other news organizations and certainly those not in the media but whom enjoy making comment on news items (aka– bloggers) picked up the story and repeated it.
• Remember, this was 1-2 isolated cases aggregated together as an emerging trend.
• Someone does 45 minutes of research into teen texting behavior from an unrelated marketing survey and determines that 20% of teenagers have sent a sexually explicit text message.
• Forget that fact that the study was likely unscientific and didn’t study sending/receiving photos or videos… the thing that gets codified is that 20% of teenagers send sexually explicit texts.
• Any new case similar to this, among the millions of teenagers in America sending trillions of text messages monthly, was now labeled as “sexting.”
• Sexting began appearing in the vernacular of the public… and an assumption formed that “sexting is something a lot of teenagers do.“
• Sexting, now a thing, begins to be written about as if it is a real trend affecting millions of teenagers.
• A news agency, not to be outdone, labels sexting an epidemic.
• Legislators, keen to make it on the news, murmur about the teenage sexting problem.
• School boards and soccer moms start to talk about the horrors of sexting.
• “Sexting cases” start to get aggregated with ANYTHING teenagers do. Any music trend. Prom. Sports. Everything now has a sexting potential.
• Some students actually start sending explicit photos of one another around… because they hear about how prevalent it is among teenagers on the news. 
• Sexting begins to appear in the litany of prevention literature. Teenagers and their “malformed pre-frontal lobes” can’t help themselves. Left alone for more than 14 seconds, they will drop their pants and send pictures of their privates to everyone they know. At least that’s what you’d learn from these “concerned organizations.”
• Soccer moms, parenting from a cocktail of fear and living vicariously through their children, buy the whole thing. They start looking through their children’s texts while they sleep.
• Sexting becomes something every adult assumes is happening rampantly among teenagers.
• Someone actually does a study and proves that the whole thing is a fabrication. About 1% of teenagers have ever sent or received a sexually explicit text message.
• And of course the news machine makes money talking about why sexting isn’t happening at the rate everyone thought it was.

“Even if you look at 1% or 2% of kids in a high school of a thousand kids, that’s 10 to 20 kids, and that’s plenty of people for whom this is a big issue and for whom this is a troublesome problem in their lives,” says Lenhart, who has researched teen sexting but was not involved in the new study.
Source

1% of teenagers isn’t something we need to have a prevention focus on. Stop this perverted fascination on adolescent sexuality! As long as humans could write, people have drawn and written sexually explicit messages.

As advocates for adolescents, we need to call this stuff out. Our cultures bias against adolescents, including the false creation and labeling of phenomenon, is a form of discrimination that we need to root out.

Want another example? Look at this Fox News piece.

It has every stereotype of teenagers in one story. Teenage sex is bad. (Er, look at history. We wouldn’t exist as a society without teen sex.) Malformed teen brains. Negative brain development ties with experiencing sex in the teenage years. (The study is of HAMSTERS!) Fear, fear, and more fear.

Two moments at SDSU from last weekend… both are jaw-dropping crazy and deeply sad at the same time.

1. After the basketball game Friday night Megan (10) and I were walking through campus on our way home with a ton of underclassman. Two girls who seemed like new friends were chatting about why they chose SDSU versus other schools. One girl asked the other, “Oh, what other schools?” Westmont, Azuza Pacific, Biola… she listed a bunch of Christian schools. Her friend goes, “Oh, my parents wanted me to go to a Christian school too.” And she listed off a few on the east coast. The first girl kind of quietly says, “Yeah, well I didn’t want to go to a Christian school because I wanted to F a lot of guys.” Her friend said, “Yup, that’s pretty much it for me too.”

Scary. I nearly stumbled over my jaw when they said that.

2. Same walk Saturday night. After the game Paul and I are walking. Uneventful past the freshmen dorms and off campus into the frat/sorority area. 10 o’clock is pretty quiet. All the dudes are usually out at Rite Aid trying to score a 30 pack of Keystone. (Or pre-gaming while watching Sportcenter) So it’s dead quiet on frat row. But up ahead I see 4 girls coming towards us. Then one of them sees us and they all try to hide behind a car. Um, too late… we’re like RIGHT THERE. So they pop up and kind of half jog past us, trying not to make eye contact…

All four of them in thongs, bras, high heals. (It was like 50 degrees out!) Nothing else. They were totally embarrassed. They didn’t know where to put their hands as they tried to cover themselves.

We get in the car and I start laughing. Paul (8) looks at me and goes… “That was awkward.”

Two thoughts…

1. I might pull all the money out of the kids college fund right now and just give it to them. Forget college. They are not going.

2. What the heck happened in our culture when women willingly show up to a party in their underwear? I mean nothing says “please take turns having sex with me when I get drunk” quite like showing up in your underwear, right?

Our society celebrates the lone wolf. We have a unique ability to pin the success or failure of a group effort on an individual.

• Drew Brees led his team to a win.
• All Stephen Spielberg films are brilliant.
• Thomas Edison invented thousands of things.
• Barak Obama is the most powerful leader in the world.
• Bill Hybels leads Willow Creek Community Church.
• Katy Perry is an amazing performer.

In all of those cases we celebrate an individual who has become the figurehead of a much larger effort.

Deep in each of those statements is a cultural lie. As we idolize those individuals and aspire to become them we look past the reality that none of them is a lone wolf, but we see that in order to get to those positions of “respect” we need to act alone.

Video games and smart phones

The posture of the individual

We’ve grown up celebrating the first person perspective. When Duke Nukem came on the market in the mid-1990s it revolutionized the video game experience because you, the player, became Rambo. Instead of looking at a strategy game from a 3rd person perspective they put you in the 3D world of first person.

Thousands of hours of acting as the lone wolf behind first-person shooters sends a powerful psychological lie to your brain, retraining it to believe that you can best control your destiny alone.

If there’s anything disturbing about today’s smart phone craze, it’s the new posture we take in public settings. While it was once considered anti-social behavior to seek isolation in a crowd, we are now a crowd of isolated humans staring at our phones. The flickering pixels in our pockets are more alluring than the real world around us.

These devices aren’t just statements of convenience or entertainment, they reflect a great cultural reference to the first-person perspective.

A call from individualism to communion

We don't celebrate individualism, we celebrate communion

As a Christian I know that individualism is the enemy of communion.

Communion is a powerful technology that changes everything.

While our culture celebrates and romantacizes the lone wolf, Jesus calls us into something greater. It’s reflected back to the Garden of Eden. God looked at his creation and one by one said, “It’s good.” But when he looked at the man, who was alone, he said “It’s not good for man to be alone.” So he made woman. We are so hardwired to think about the sex part of that statement or even the idea that God made a helper (completer) for Adam that we miss the first part… it’s not good for man to be alone.

Satan wants you alone. He wants to convince you that you are better off acting as a lone wolf. He whispers in your ear– “You don’t need them. You want to change the world, do it your way.”

Satan’s technology is getting you alone where you are vulnerable. God’s technology is communion, where you are never alone.

Jesus’ life calls you and I into communion. We don’t merely take communion as a representation of our 1-1 relationship with God. We take communion as a representation of our 1 billion – 1 relationship with God. We actually don’t take communion… we ingest it as a rejection of Satan’s technology of the lone wolf and exchange it for God’s technology of communion.

When we stand, in communion, with a billion other believers we are an unbelievable force for change. We have the power to make a busted world right.

That’s why we share communion in community. You simply can’t do communion alone, it’s impossible.

Jesus isn’t calling you or I to merely take communion in remembrance of what He did. He is calling you and I to live communion together.

Whether you are a high school teacher, a high school pastor, or the parent of a high schooler we all have the same problem. How do we understand and reach the teenagers in front of us with messages that matter? 

I’ve found that this lead in question is often the problem.

1. We are a generation of adults who likes to talk and pretend to be experts on things we don’t understand, we over-assume.
2. What matters to you isn’t necessarily something that matters to the students in your life.

That said, there is plenty of research available which will help you better understand what’s important and how to reach those in high school right now. Why is there so much research done on this age group? Because bagillions of dollars in spending are influenced by them! (What? You thought researchers just liked them? Maybe so?)

Here’s what’s on the menu for understanding those who just graduated high school:

• Soup of the day - The Beloit Mindset List for the Class of 2015. We start things off by recognizing the world they have grown up with. They’ve never had a home phone, they’ve never dialed up the internet, they’ve never known a world without terrorist plots or going to the gate to pick up a friend at the airport. This list provides context.
• Chef’s salad – The cost of college is on the forefront of their minds. Most high school students live with the adult assumption that they need to attend college. They are marketing savvy enough to ponder, “Do I need to go to college or do adults depend on me going to college?” They are asking good questions to count the cost like, “Is college right for me? Why do I want to go to college and spend all of that money if I don’t know what I want to do? Am I going to make enough money in the long run to afford the debt it will take to graduate?” This is why the gap year is so intriguing to them. (This is a massive opportunity for entrepreneurs)
• Featured entree` – 5 Ways to Friend the Class of 2015. Research start-up Mr. Youth has published a powerful marketing whitepaper which dove deep into the forces that move them. The five ingredients of this dish include: Help them express their personal brand, Integrate organically into their world, Get in good with their friends, Become an on-demand brand, Get to know them before assuming what they want.
• Dessert – Millennial Donors 2011 Executive Summary. Today’s students are motivated to change things. According to the second year study called Millennial Donors, 93% of those surveyed gave money to charity. 79% actively volunteered their time. But 90% of those surveyed said they would stop donating (time & money) if they didn’t trust the leadership.

What does this have to do with my role in students lives? 

• To reach students we have to understand what makes them tick instead of trying to get them to understand our point-of-view.
• The world they have grown up in is vastly different from the one you grew up in. They already have a million adults in their lives that lecture to them, your best opportunity for reaching them is through listening.
• Instead of asking students to get on your team you’ll need to help them see how your team and their team can collaborate. The concept of personal brand isn’t narcissism, it’s an opportunity.
• Understand that a recommendation is their most powerful motivator. They simply won’t go somewhere or do something that’s not recommended to them.
• They are hard-wired to give back, volunteer, and contribute their fair share. But the key component is trust. If you aren’t transparent and honest they will just move on.

I love this video. But not as much as when Kermit did it back in the day. “Look ma, no brains!“

The American dream was affirmed yesterday– at least for some California residents. For tens of thousands of children, brought here illegally as children by their parents, Jerry Brown’s signing of  the California Dream Act, was a symbol of hope that their state cares about them.

Qualifying students, regardless of their immigration status, can now apply for state financial aid. This was part B of a two-part law, part A passed earlier this year which allowed students to apply for private loans & financial aid regardless of status.

This is great, but it isn’t enough

While I’m thrilled with this new state law it isn’t the Dream Act we need at the federal level.

• Qualifying students still cannot apply for federal financial aid because they lack legal immigration status.
• Republicans continue to block measures which would provide a pathway to citizenship or even permanent resident status for children brought here by their parents.
• Since the majority of financial aid for college comes from the federal level, this is more support but not a level playing field.

Why this matters to youth workers and the church

• It’s a matter of justice: It’s an injustice that a person raised in this country, who goes to school right next to your children, does not have the same opportunities to succeed that your child does. For many of these students, they had no say in whether or not their parents brought them here. But they have gone through our educational system, learned the language, competed with native-speaking peers, and this is their country in every way… except the one that truly matters, full legal status/rights.
• It’s a matter of fairness: You want to pay $.99 for a pound of tomatoes or $1.29 for ground beef? Do you really think that $7 t-shirt you are making for your retreat was made by workers making minimum wage? Of course not. We both know it. Your standard of living is subsidized off of the back’s of cheap labor. To block those workers children access to post-secondary education & a pathway to legal status is embracing a system of oppression.
• It’s a matter of numbers: Whether your church recognizes it or not we are still a melting pot country. The Latino population (whom the Dream Act primarily benefits) is exploding! Some predictions show that nearly 30% of the US population will be of Latino origon by  2050. On top of that, the census bureau is predicting a massive shift towards youth in the coming years. Currently, there are 59 children per 100 people in the US. By 2025 this will be 72. So our country is getting younger and more Latino… quickly.
• It’s a matter of strategy: Let’s talk turkey. Let’s say you could care less about the first 3 things I listed. (Justice, fairness, and numbers) Let’s say you’re so hung up on the fact that their parents brought these children here illegally that you don’t want to give them anything like legal status, equal protection under our laws, or equal access to the same education your children have. (e.g. Arizona & Alabama lawmakers) With the population quickly shifting to give numerical power to legal people of Latino origin… do you really want to have your church as one of the agencies who held them back? Do you think that’s a good long term strategy for your church?

For my youth worker friends: Let’s be reminded that our role in our community isn’t just to work at our churches. We are in our communities to advocate for all teenagers in Jesus’ name. God isn’t interested in the immigration status of students in your ministry. He’s interested in their status with Himself.

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:40

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.

More than just a technology or computer company. Steve Jobs taught a generation that by thinking differently, amazing things can happen.

Whose got next?