I have a confession… I’m raising millennials…and until recently, I didn’t realize just how fabulous that was.
When I reflected back on my childhood, my teen years… and compared it to the experience, I believe, my girls are living right now, I could almost feel this deep rooted sting. A sting so intense, it actually triggered some anger, a dash of disappointment — and even a smidge of judgement against my approach to parenting. I worried the millennial labeling was true —that I’d somehow screwed things up and risked my own labelling of helicoptering my kids to be canadates for misifits. So I decided to dive deeper into the sting, peeling the layers till I discovered the seed — and there it was, as clear as day… my envy.
I was in bitter-sweet awe of my children. I was a witness to a childhood lifestyle that I didn’t, and wouldn’t ever experience. My children aren’t living in uncertainty or fear. They aren’t threatened, manipulated or shamed to conform. They’re not 13, working a 30 hour week to escape their chaotic circumstances. They aren’t searching for coins between cushion cracks or wondering when the next shoe will fall. They aren’t silent till they’re spoken too. They aren’t merely surviving or disassociated from their unfortunate reality…and more importantly, they aren’t me.
When we chose to show up differently for our children, as mother’s and as women, the family system evolves. Each generation sacrifices something for the next. All with the subconcious ambition to substain health in the family and its entirety.
We have walked the walk so our millennials can have the opportunity to be who and what they choose to be. Emotional health, mental stability and freedom is a welcomed outcome in this new world. We are part of the change, an evolution that’s necessary for our world to survive.
My hope is that our millennials will know who they are when we meet them. They will have a voice and a purpose that is not driven by fear — but by passion.
by Pam Blanchard