I waited at the reception for my turn to see the manager. The usual hustle of a busy government office: people came and went bringing this document and that. The secretary had an impeccable demeanour, keeping her cool as she answered the same question from everyone who came by: whether her boss was in. Her computer had broken down and needed someone to look at it. She picked the office phone, called and within a short time a young man walked into the room. He went over to her desk and after touching a few things he looked at her and said that they needed to take the computer to the workshop.
She looked at him in exasperation, her face distraught from all the pending work that would pile up while they took it away. She asked whether something could be done but he confirmed it would take a while and they needed to open it up (it was an old machine like many others in that office). She sent him to the transport office to get a gate pass to enable them to clear the computer and check it out of the building. He asked if the clearance could not be done online: like all generation Z’s they were not used to this archaic way of doing things. She informed him that it had to be done on paper and off he went to get the papers. He came back a few moments later carrying three forms and two carbon papers. He kept one form and gave her the rest but she gave them back to him, asking him to fill them all. He looked surprised. Why then were they all plucked from the book? Where were the duplicate and triplicate copies? She smiled and looked at him fondly, her eyes like those of a mother bemused at the bewilderment of her young child. She smiled and asked him to use the carbon paper provided. He looked at her, then at the papers in his hand then back at her. He seemed lost: truly confused at this circus they seemed to be playing. With a naughty twinkle in her eye, she rose from her seat and walked over to him. Taking the papers in her hand, she arranged the three forms with the carbon papers in between, stapled them together and handed them back to him to fill. This is the generation Z: they don’t do carbon papers.
Across town, Melissa and her daughter Kui arrived at her elder sister’s place. It was a beautiful country home made of bricks and with plants growing all over their balcony. It had been the place many a party had been held by Melissa and her cousins in their hey days. Her elder sister Keru welcomed them with loving hugs and a grin from ear to ear. She loved the idea of her niece staying over for a few days and could not wait to have a helping hand in running the house. The two ladies had a chatty evening full of laughter as they recounted old memories. Early the following morning, Melissa bid them goodbye and set off. She was to travel for work for a few days and would pick her daughter when she got back. As soon as breakfast was done, Keru gave her niece a bucket with some water and a rug and asked her to mop the house. Her niece stared back at her in shock: what do you mean mop the house? Where was her vacuum cleaner? She took the duster and threw it on the floor and began to drag it with her feet. It was Keru’s turn to be in shock! How? She told her to bend on all fours and do it, but her niece began crying. What if she scratched her knees or hurt her back?
Keru then decided to assign her another duty instead and called her niece to the kitchen. She showed her a pile of dirty steel pans and some scouring pad (called steelwool) and asked her to clean them instead. Her niece stared at the steelwool, touched it and looked at her aunt. That thing was sharp and metallic: who cleaned pots with a ball of fine metal wool? She asked if there were gloves and Keru was now furious. What kind of girl was this one? She then told her to leave everything and light the charcoal burner for her (they call it Jiko) but pronunciation varied from Jikou to jiko depending on which generation you came from. She gave her some paraffin, some wood ash, some charcoal and a match then went back to the house. She came to check on Kui 15 minutes later and she was still standing there. Kui looked at her aunt and asked where to put the ash and the paraffin. She also mentioned that she had exhausted all the matches trying to light the charcoal but it would not light. At this point Keru burst out laughing and Kiu joined her. They laughed till their sides hurt. Who knew there existed girls that did not know how to do basic things like mop a floor?
Welcome to the new breed in town: the gen Zs. They love themselves to bits (I admire how well they do this and we surely have a lot to learn from them) and will automate anything and everything. Their rule in life: if someone or something can do it, don’t sweat it. They live in a world with vacuum cleaners, nutria cookers, air fryers, non-stick pots, washing machines and dishwashers. The bathroom is voice controlled and so is the lighting and AC in the house. The gate is opened on command from the luxury of the couch and groceries are delivered at the doorstep. Cabs come calling at home on speed dial. The only thing they do is use the bathroom (well, we are trying to figure out how to automate that one) and chew their food. They have tests to predict their fertile day and when to conceive a boy or a girl. Surely, with all that time on my hand, I would travel around the world in less than 80 days. They speak their mind without fear or favor, have an opinion on about everything and literally live online. They shop online, have online school, online dates and online businesses.
Therein lies a crisis because their parents live in the real world where we ‘do’ things. How do we expect a parent to act when they have to always call their child to figure out the technology in their lives yet are supposed to show their child how to ‘manage’ technology? We learnt how to conduct ourselves in front of strangers: who will teach the gen Zs how to conduct themselves online yet we the parents hardly go there? We faced off with our bullies on the way home to show them how to respect our boundaries. They face a million online bullies all at once: how do you deal with those? We learnt how to secure doors and windows for safety: who will teach them how to manage the privacy settings of every social medial platform we know nothing about? How do they learn self-expression when little emoji can say all they care to say? Worse still, the parents can hardly understand half the texts sent to them because they are either emoticons or in short form. How can they speak from their heart when all one needs is an app with the right quotes? The Gen Z motto is ‘online first’. Their parents’ motto…..do they even have one?
Not yet dear parents: we now have the generation Alpha. These are the real storm in a tea cup. Even the gen Zs fear them. Born after 2010, these ones are born on their feet and wits. They go to school to learn to live a full life not to work. They establish businesses at the age of 10 and will have careers by age 12. Sorry; for them a career is a pursuit of passion not income. They do not believe in owning homes as they can live anywhere. To them, age is nothing but a number and gender is more than male and female; their clothes even come unisex. Roles are defined by who can do them better not by gender or societal expectations. They hide things on your phone and manage your online accounts (you see only what they want you to see so who’s really in charge here?) They speak fluent emoji, know their rights, have money to spend and can learn anything and everything from google school so please: stop lying to them that babies are bought!
Please forgive your parents dear gen Alphas: they are still trying to catch up with gen Zs and now things have changed: again! Painfully we have a generation that is parenting themselves and to some extent parenting their own parents. Parents who are either too stuck in their old ways to care or too scared to step out into the new waters the tides of time have cast us onto. One thing still stands: virtues will not change. Truth will always be truth, love will always be love and will cause our hearts to skip a beat. These things we can still teach them. We can still show them how to be mindful, caring and to give. How to feel and be felt. How to be human beings. How to step onto the grass and feel the wind, to stare and be amazed at the starry skies and to sit quietly as they listen to the waves. There is still so much to teach them and learn from them. We are parents teaching a generation after us how to be human while learning from them how to be a robot. Interesting times these are: yet rather than be mad at them, let them teach you. Trust me, it is an amazing experience.
