Don’t be fooled with the Hype Today’s Youth Have a Purpose in Life

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There are so many reasons we find ways of criticizing youth today: they are self-involved, they take too many selfies, they feel entitled, they have short attention spans, they are lazy – they lack a purpose in life. In the days of smartphones for kids as young as 8 years old, tablets and computers a requirement in high school, our kids tended to be tuned out more than tuned in. The problem with these type of blanket statements is that we have a tendency to lump all of these kids together.

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There is no question that they spend an awful lot of time looking at their phones, snap-chatting their friends and listening to Spotify with abandon but there is also a whole group that is very busy doing other things. They are really productive, making-great-leaders-of-the-future-and-outstanding-human-beings-sort-of-things.

This weekend we were invited to a fundraising dinner and jazz cabaret. It was an evening of good food, great jazz and some creative silent auction fundraising for a school music trip to Montreal. As I am a big, big fan of jazz and an even bigger fan of Montreal, I was happy to support the cause. I attended with my husband and daughter as this was one of her old classmates from elementary and junior high. Small community events like this is a nice way to catch up with parents as well as chat with a few teachers and staff that we knew from school.

Here’s the thing. This Senior Jazz Band was wonderful. They had mastered jazz standards like Birdland and Bossanova . There were solos and also three and four piece numbers. These kids made a concerted effort to seek out donations for the silent auction and they helped organized a very entertaining evening for the parents and their friends, all with the trip to Montreal in mind. This particular public high school has some of the highest academic standards in the city. It is not easy to get into this school if you are out of the catchment and once admitted, it expects a lot from its students. Many of these kids have other extra-curricular activities that keep them busy outside of the classroom.

I know other students that play competitive volleyball and basketball as well as school volleyball and basketball. This makes for very busy kids with a lot of juggling and plenty of late nights or early mornings completing assignments, studying for tests and writing term papers. Many of these activities also require fundraising components or volunteer hours that are requirements for their teams.  Many of these teenagers also have part-time jobs that they go to after practice or before a game. These kids tend to be driven towards a purpose in life.

These kids are dedicated to their sports or their music or both and they know that making these extracurricular activities a priority is what will help them succeed in life. It is teaching them to prioritize and make sacrifices.  It might sound a bit melodramatic but it is not. These 16 – 18-year-olds are making life choices that may not include staying out late, partying with friends and drinking underage.

Those age-old issued still exist for most teenagers but there are plenty (and I mean plenty) of kids that are on the straight and narrow and work hard – really hard! I see them in my daughter’s circle of friends. They are national level divers, soccer players, and provincial level volleyball players. These young athletes are hoping to get scholarships to colleges and universities in Canada and the US. These are not just athletic scholarships either many will be granted academic scholarships.

I wanted to write this post because I had recently read about how so many millennials were having a tough time coping with the work world. Entering it believing that they should just walk into their dream job of tweeting and updating posts on Facebook and maintaining $1,250 a month apartments on a $1,600 a month salary. #Insanity.

As parents, we need to keep helping our youth find balance in their lives and help them understand that there is a cost to all those activities. It is not a given that they will go to Montreal without some work to raise funds to make it happen.

Our second daughter has signed up for a trip to the Dominical Republic next year with her senior class. It is an initiative to help teach elementary school children English and to help within the parameters of a Catholic School education. The process was not easy, they had to fill out a lengthy application, request character references and write an essay on why they feel they would be an asset to the mission trip. We agreed to let her apply on condition that she fundraise the money in order to attend. She was willing to make that sort of commitment to make it happen. She and 40 other students have made that commitment.  I was encouraged to see that so many in her class were interested in going and participating on a Mission Trip.  It seems more worthwhile with a greater social impact than visiting 8 countries in 14 days, don’t you think?  There will be time enough for that when they are done university… or I certainly hope so.  She will plan for it, that I am sure.

So I have greater faith in our youth because that is the type of young adult that we want to see in the future. A group of hard-working, fun-loving dedicated kids that want to attain a gold, learn something in the process and help where they can. I have a more positive attitude about this group of kids because we have helped foster an environment where they have the capacity to grow and prosper because they have worked for it!

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