We Can Be Part Of Solutions

You think us a lazy, disrespectful generation. You think us all deviants headed nowhere real fast, that we care for no one but ourselves. You publish our acts of immorality and gloss over our successes.

You exploit all you will leave us, making shambles of the legacy passed down to you. And you will no doubt soon criticize our inability to deal with our broken inheritance - to govern a world gone mad.

You allude to simpler times when school yard massacres were unimaginable. You forget that we too remember a time when these massacres were unheard of, that we understand irresponsible mass coverage only contributes to the copy catting you deplore, and that our ill peers used the avenue to act out their revenge, and gain your attention.

You do everything you swore you’d never do: You’ve become your parents. You blame the whole of our generation for isolated incidents, and frightening trends whose creation you too are accountable for. You provide mediocre stability and still are baffled by our disenchanting attempts to find it elsewhere, among those we shouldn’t.

You call us stupid, but fail to see that we are a reflection of you - that we are your children.

My generation: Some are slackers. A few have stuffed their babies in dumpsters. Others murder, ravage communities, rape without feeling.

Most of us work hard. We care about ourselves, families, and friends - like most of you - and work to better ourselves and our world.

We go to school in the midst of violence and temptation, and struggle to organize our criticized priorities, while you pay athletes millions, and our teachers the leftovers.

Many of us push ourselves through college to meet a standard your generation created; we do so with the occasional student loan from which our own government makes a profit.

Things will only change when you expect us to be good people, and see that most of us truly are. When you teach us about our bodies and sex, when you consistently inquire about our days with genuine interest, when you find yourselves a part of our classrooms, when you expect more than financial success and decide our lives are more than a news story.

We need you to listen first, speak second and involve us in problemsolving and decision-making.

We wait for you, our parents and leaders, to work with us in the creation of solutions.

We look for signs that you are any different.