A Reflection on Modern Youth Trends
Throughout the decades, every generation has gone through its own movement, its own trend that defined its time. In the 70s we had counterculture, hippies, and the search for peace. In the 80s came rock, bold fashion, colorful hair. Then came the tribes, the emos, heavy metal, hip hop, and so many others. These were phases, styles, ways of expressing personality. None of them denied reality or who a person truly was. They were expressions, not alternate identities.
But something changed in recent years, especially after the pandemic. A completely different kind of “trend” appeared. It stopped being about music, style, or behavior. It became about escaping inner pain by creating an identity totally disconnected from reality. People began believing they could be anything except what they were born as — animals, undefined identities, an endless list of genders — all as a way to hide emotional wounds, loneliness, and personal struggles.
The saddest part is that many enter these movements convinced that this escape will bring relief. But it doesn’t. In fact, it creates bigger wounds. People altering their bodies irreversibly, believing that would solve their problems, only to discover nothing inside was healed. Families breaking apart, relationships collapsing, people becoming isolated and lost. Many end up dealing with deep depression, hopelessness, and even suicidal thoughts when they realize that changing the outside does not fix the emptiness inside.
I truly hope I will live to see the day when this trend finally ends. Because, just like every trend before it, this one will also pass. And future generations will look back and ask themselves how we ever reached this point. How did we believe that someone could be an animal? How did we accept the idea that a person is born completely wrong and that the answer was to reshape their entire body? How did we let so many young people believe they had no gender at all? It feels like living inside a disturbing episode of Black Mirror.
One day, I hope society will look back and understand that so much of what we see today is not identity, but untreated emotional pain. And instead of helping people face their real struggles with honesty, support, and love, we encouraged them to run from themselves.
In the end, every human being is searching for belonging, purpose, and peace. None of that is found by rejecting one’s own identity. Real healing comes from truth, from courage, from facing our pain, and from the strength we find in God, family, and reality itself.
May that day come soon.
It seems because cameras are everywhere, the internet is forever, and we tried to make kids too safe that we took away some of their freedom to find themselves. Children need to be dangerous sometimes, to test themselves, to be alone, to be able to make mistakes and do dumb things without it being videoed and captured forever. Because of this we chased them into bathrooms where they began to "cut" themselves, dream of being the opposite sex or an animal or anything other than what they truly are, and then we have enablers at every corner, people we trusted encouraging terrible behavior. We assumed "do no harm" and "consent" actually meant what they say they meant. Today, so much is backwards, what used to be wrong is right and as a whole, as a group, the very people we entrusted our children to, actually despise children. So for our children and family, destruction, to the enablers, awards, money and grants. This tsunami of trans destruction has destroyed everything in it's wake, the clean up will be messy and the clean up of all the trash and waste left behind will fall on parents and others who truly love children and want the absolute best for them and are willing to speak that in truth and love. We need to mentally prepare ourselves for this restoration, if not for our children at least for others. We need to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. The road back from cross sex hormones and surgeries is largely unchartered and from lots of examples out there can be quite violent, not always, but can be, so we all need to tread carefully and wisely.
Yes! This - “….untreated emotional pain…” is so true! I know this is at the root of why my young adult son decided transition is the answer. Loneliness, struggling to fit in, rejection from the girl he said he wanted to marry, the isolation of Covid, the very heavy academic load in university, and a happy but imperfect childhood with well intentioned but imperfect parents, have left him with wounds that need to be tended and healed. But he can’t/won’t see that. Not yet.
Your last paragraph - so good! And praying with you that that day would come soon!