Missing Generation: Part II

I’ve been working on this piece for a few weeks now. It seems fitting for the moment…

Back in January, I wrote in “Missing Generation: Part I”, about the grandmothers of today and the lack of generational skills and wisdom that are typically passed on in a woman’s older years to her daughter and granddaughter.

I wrote, “And don’t get me started on the progressive, feminist advice they passed down to us when we were younger, and are now passing down to their granddaughters.”

I suppose this is as good a time as any to get me started again…

You see, just recently I had the honor of ministering to my 78 year old mother-in-law. When the topic of “female leaders” came up in dinner conversation once again, God opened up a moment for me to share the truth with her. Even sharing the gospel which led to her accepting Jesus’ salvation!

You see, she is a brilliant and beautiful woman, with a good heart. But, still, the typical baby boomer. She calls herself a moderate Republican. I dare say more of a progressive conservative. She is like many older women, straddling the middle on just about every single issue, thought, and idea. No sound thoughts of their own. The feminist propaganda they were fed for the first half of their lives as young women and even mothers, is still ingrained in them as grandmothers and some now great-grandmothers. Rare is the truly conservative older woman. And missing is an entire generation of Titus Women.

So, I’m going to just say it. Hold on to your britches…

I realize this is a controversial statement to make. But we’re all thinking it. Feeling it. And saying it. Of course, we don’t flat out say it to grandma and grandpa’s faces, because we don’t want to hurt their feelings, or cause a rift, or even seem ungrateful. But we’re saying it to them passively. We’re tip-toeing around this big fat elephant that sits between us. The younger generations are angry and bitter. And we’re all talking about it openly with one another. And too afraid to share the truth openly.

It’s time to start hashing it out…

Before I continue, I realize not all “Boomers” or grandmothers are lost. There are a few rare treasures out there. There are a handful of older women sewing, and cooking, and gardening, loving on their grand-babies daily, and ministering the truth out there somewhere. I imagine they were probably homeschooling and homesteading 40 years ago. They held the line, fought against the norm, and swam against the current when the culture was surging. Thank you, sisters!

No, this one is for the average grandmother of our day. The one that prioritizes vacays over visits with her grandchildren. The one that prefers financial support over actual presence in her family’s lives. She likes and re-posts photos of her grandchildren online because she’s rarely around to make actual memories in person. When she is in town, she gleefully shares her progressive wisdom with her granddaughters. The same feminist ideas she attempted to instill in her daughter, she is now regurgitating to her granddaughter. She doesn’t even realize it’s all sludge. She’s innocently misleading generations of women because she really believes in it all.

She is exactly the same woman she was as a mother. Still focused on her interests and goals and well-being. Materialistic, constantly consuming, and believes she will live forever, or realistically until she’s 102. She’s either still working well into her 70’s, or is reflecting on how hard it was to be a working mother. She doesn’t understand why her daughter doesn’t appreciate “all that I did for her.” When realistically, she was just as absent, whether physically or mentally as a mother, as she is today as a grandmother.

What needs to be talked about is what the selfishness of a generation rears…

Dead mothers.

Mothers who follow right into the steps of their mothers. Women who have been raised to be self-focused. Beauty-driven. Career-obsessed. Women who have been told they can “have it all”. Women who believe they can “stay true to themselves” while also raising up children. Women that think they can hang on to who they used to be, or dreamt of being, while playing the role of a good mother. Women who become mothers, yet have not shed the flesh of their old selves.

For, you see, when a woman becomes a mother, she must die. The little girl. The daughter. The young, single woman. She must leave her old self behind. The dreams and desires must be set aside. The traumas must be reconciled, forgiven, and buried. She must be reborn.

Becoming a mother is a holy rite. It is a spiritual transformation. And if a woman hangs on to her old, dead identity, she will not only suffer from dragging the weight of her own corpse, she will continue to pass it on to the next generation.

Chains that must be broken…