Are the Youth of Today a Lost Generation?

No, the youth of today are not a lost generation as a whole. You can’t make a gross generalization like that. Yes, there are, sadly many of our youth who are apparently have never been given any values or navigational skills with which to chart their life’s course. There certainly seems to have been an alarming increase in youth that are, at best, wandering aimlessly – or, at worst, lost in an evil, entangling wilderness of fear, depression, rage, depravity and corruption from which they may never find deliverance.

Others may be lost for a time but find their way early or later in adulthood. So, while they may for a time contribute to the high statistics of a generation that some regard as lost, they may help improve the statistics as they mature.

Then there are a significant number who are far from lost. I am frequently impressed and heartened by the evidence I see that there are still many young people who are firmly on the right track in life. I think of a couple of young girls I have seen on Australian TV current affairs shows. In both cases, the mother died young, leaving a few kids behind without any father or other family members to take over rearing the children. So the eldest girl – then aged no more than 18 – has taken this enormous responsibility on her own shoulders. She was absolutely resolved to see the family stay together – and was doing an amazing job of fulfilling her self-appointed task. What fine young people these are – and if there are others like them out there (as there surely are), then you certainly can’t say their whole generation is lost.

Then there are the many young people you hear about who are caring for their parents who are sick and disabled. They make enormous sacrifices from an early age to carry out all sorts of practical tasks that many of their peers would never have a clue about. Our society owes a lot to these fine young citizens. They are already the salt of the earth.

There are youth who are involved in all kinds of wonderful voluntary roles in their communities too. Just a few nights ago we heard on TV about an attempted rescue by two young life-guards on Christmas Day. When it became apparent that the victim had drowned, they still persevered to recover his body. One of these admirable young men was only 19 years old and it was obvious that he was deeply affected by their inability to save that life.

There are also many youth who are choosing vocations in the caring professions. I have been impressed so many times when I have heard about children of people I know who are training to work with the disabled. It certainly restores one’s faith in our youth to know that so many of them have the desire to take on such careers, which are far from glamorous and don’t pay as well as many others.

I have also known and heard of a number of young people who have taken a year or two out of their own course in life to go and work with missions to the poorest, most desperate people in the world. “Generation Y” have a reputation for being selfish, shallow and hedonistic – but obviously there are plenty of exceptions.

Then there are young folk who, on the spur of the moment, will impulsively perform an act of courage and heroism to save someone’s life – or just to help somebody out that they see in need. They may not be as common as they once were – but they are nonetheless still to be found.

In amongst these examples, there are countless others who are just decent kids, living according to traditional values and growing into decent, law-abiding and caring citizens. I see some of them in our church youth group. They have high ideals and are genuinely doing their best to live lives that shine in a world where so much darkness abounds.

It really is unfair to tar a whole generation with the one brush. Sure it’s all too easy to despair when we hear news reports – and see graphic images showing violent gangs of young thugs that run riot and bash people up innocent bystanders, leaving them for dead. Vicious sexual assaults by young men who show no atom of humanity or remorse – and killing rampages involving mentally-disturbed teenagers with guns – horrify us to the core.

We may well wonder what’s becoming of our youth when we hear of the self-destructive behaviour so many of them engage in constantly – filling themselves with alcohol and drugs that have the potential to kill off thousands of their brain cells, if not prematurely end their lives altogether in one of the most degrading ways there is.

We cringe at such horrific practices as kids cutting themselves – and cannot begin to comprehend the complex mental issues of those who starve themselves to death’s door or else regularly binge and then purge themselves. We reflect on what all this can say about the terrible disturbance of young people’s minds today – and why they are driven to do such shocking things to themselves. We are continually hearing about how depressed so many young people are today – and how alarming the youth suicide statistics are.

We certainly have significant cause for concern – and our society needs to be addressing these issues very seriously. Many of our young people are tragically lost and we do need to be asking why? What is our society getting so wrong in so many cases? How can we arrest this alarming trend and give our young people direction, purpose and satisfaction in their lives?

I certainly know where I believe the key to the answer lies – and that is in true Christian living according to the values of generations past. The fact that so many people have been abandoning the Christian fundamentals handed down through the generations is largely to blame for the lost state of so many youth today. More and more individuals – of all generations are losing their way and becoming morally and spiritually bankrupt as a result. It stands to reason that the youngest, most needy and vulnerable are the most deeply impacted.

But thankfully it’s not all bad news. There are still a lot who are on the right track. Those who come behind them will indeed find them faithful. We are terribly conscious of the overwhelmingly negative element because the media exposes us to it so much. In some ways that’s a good thing. We need to be aware – aware enough for people to become pro-active about getting our society as a whole back on track – one person at a time.

However, we need to also be aware of, applaud and encourage those young people who are setting the good examples. They are out there in society, often quietly and humbly doing their part to make the world a better place. We must not fail to recognize them or insult them by lumping them in with the glaringly unsavoury or even downright ugly element. These gems of youth give us reason to have hope for the future of our world.