My kids and their friends are Gen Alpha, and they are sweet, sweet kids living though appalling times.
They grew up with the most rigidly binary models of childhood that have existed in my lifetime (girl-glue, anyone?) and been viewed as their earning potential since before they could walk. They have been exploited and abandoned on the internet by their parents, have been exploited on the internet by the algorithm when they were too young to understand it. They are the first large generation of the children of Mommy bloggers, anti-vaxxers, trad wives, and quiverful types.
They’ve survived a pandemic, and had it cut through their schooling in a way that has been enormously traumatic. They have the smallest outdoor range of any generation to date. In their lifetime, climate change has become violently real, socioeconomic disparity has only increased, reactionary movements have increased, and rights that we’ve taken for granted have been rolled back. They are the generation of British trans kids taking their lives on the now-static youth GIC waiting lists. The American trans kids who are watching their very existence become illegal. They are the generation of creative kids whose arts and humanities funding has been cut to the bone. A generation who have grown up watching soft-lit, queer friendly cartoons, walking out in to a world of violent trans and homophobia.
They are depressed, anxious, afraid. Their aspirations are low, their hopes for the future fragile.
They are clever, and creative, and charming, and brave. And they are KIDS.
Be nice to them, they’re dealing with a lot.
