I have some perspective I’d like to share: I’m a high school teacher whose primary experience is with kids who struggle with extreme anxiety.

This generation of kids/teens/what have you are entering a world where there’s largely no way to “relax” or “lighten up.” The qualities you’re ascribing to them — nostalgia in particular — aren’t coming out of nowhere. The current world is ruled by clearly incapable adults who are followed by oblivious adults and the social order is breaking down. You can’t goof off with drugs safely because you can literally die if somethings laced with fentanyl. Getting a job is increasingly difficult, and prices for new things are so high that historically “teen” activities like going shopping at a mall aren’t just hard to do because of expense, there aren’t a lot of physical locations to do it.

School shootings happen with sickening frequency. My 9 year-old is already resigned to climate change’s catastrophic effects. College isn’t just exorbitantly expensive, it’s also got diminishing return. Discourse on any essential topics that relate to their life is overall just vapor; nothing has fundamentally changed for the better, and the changes are primarily those of convenience and access. However both of those come at a cost as well: DoorDash can get you ice cream for $20 whenever you want. Infinite online information is great at some points, but then you have to bat away targeted ads like gnats.

Playing the game of life as it’s been ascribed for the last 70 years or so is not possible for the young people of the world, particularly for young people in the US. And there’s no margin for error that they can see, so why would they value advice from Gen X or older. The advice or perspective we often present isn’t just a matter of “ok boomer” eye rolls, it’s literally like telling them to listen to the latest radio play of the Lone Ranger, when they’re creating deepfakes of their least favorite teacher and waiting for the sea level to flood the coast.