The Roundtable

*Reference to abuse

I came from a generation I am not sure is completely understood. I feel deep mistrust in the system and world ahead of me. All I hear are these sayings that have lost the power to motivate and I feel are just effective attempts at dismissing my concerns. The elders tell me that they should be respected. And I have serious problems with that idea. Just last week on the news, I heard about a story of a young man who burned down a church. Turns out, that individual was assaulted by the pastor for years running close to a decade of his life. All he saw were his elders mistreating and abusing him. Though I am not so disenfranchised or my situation so dire that I feel that crime and violence is my only outlet. The sentiment of that story alone relates to me in ways I cannot express. How can you respect individuals who aren’t always worthy of that respect? I have no one to confide in. No one to look to in an attempt to alleviate my burdens. Who do I speak to, to allow me to share my innermost thoughts? My friends, all stranded, destitute young men in the same predicament or worse. My church only reaches out for contact when they need funds. My school, filled to the brim with lackluster educators who merely see us as sacks of meat that need to be moved from one grade level to the next. My mother, though I love her dearly, is burdened by the responsibilities of both nurturer and provider. Every time I look at her, she provides me with a smile which seems to be rehearsed. The love of her life abandoned us, and his family along with him. Forgive me if my troubles surrounding being a young man aren’t the topic of every conversation with her. And, forgive me if my hope in finding real genuine love has been splintered by my upbringing. My phone lights up with all the different colors of dating app icons promising to match me with a like minded individual, wrapped in the body of a girl my age. I have had no success. I have changed my profile picture rotation. Tried and tested multiple different enticing bios, but have come to no avail. The only thing that keeps me using these love tracking devices is the fear that once I get rid of them, my matched person will be on the other side not able to reach me. I came to this meeting in hopes of getting guidance, or maybe just the comfort of a listening ear. I hope it wasn’t a waste of time but thank you for listening to my story.

I came from a generation I am not sure is completely understood. My upbringing was very much similar yet different to yours. I too was a young man seeking guidance, a boy looking for truth. I had little avail in searching for that mentor that you so desperately seek. My father was hardened by his experiences in the army. He wasn’t the love first, discipline later type of father. He was the instruct first discipline later type of father. He didn’t teach me how to treat a woman like she wanted to be treated, instead I resorted to being the provider, in hopes that would be enough. But, as I look at you and see the passion in your eyes, the tone in your voice and the emotion painted on your face. I can’t help but feel proud of you for your father. I see you are able to articulate yourself to great ability without using expletives or slang terminology. You say you struggle with the idea of respecting your elders, but you have been very cordial with us. It is a site to see, but as I smile in contentment I internally weep with pity. Our generation never struggled with getting into relationships, we struggled with maintaining them. And the fact I continuously hear young men your age echoing the same sentiment of feeling lonely and in utter lack thereof of female companionship, it tears my heart apart. I see so much of you in my son, marred by the lack of companionship, he has turned to the social demagogues of the internet. Polarizing him from his future significant other. Men clad with expensive jewelry, preaching the unholy gospel that having multiple intimate partners is the only acceptable way for a man to live in our society. That he should devalue those who don’t aspire to be like him. And that he has his hand on the right pulse of society. I hear this nonsense and noise filling the inside of my sons and students' heads and I feel helpless. I know what they are hearing is wrong but I don’t know the right path any longer. My marriage was a failure in my eyes, so how can I honestly tell those I love and am tasked to nurture anything reminiscent of my path is correct when I don’t have the results? As an educator myself, I must continuously learn, no matter my age. That’s why I am here. To learn from you and to learn from my elders. 

I came from a generation I am not sure is completely understood. The two of you will have to forgive me. I am not as smart or learned as you are. I can tell the both of you know things that I may not even be able to understand, so bare with me. I hear so much pain at this table today. I hear about a boy feeling lonely and forgotten. I hear about a man struggling to find his way to educate and motivate young people about life, while his life isn’t all put together. I myself don't understand the problem entirely. When I was young and coming up, love was pure. You didn’t need to struggle so hard to find real good hearted people. They were all around you. I guess what was different now and then was there weren't so many people to look at. You had to find the beauty that was around you. The relationships you entered were so simple that these complicated challenges never really showed up. My wife and I have been married for 53 years as of last weekend. Marriage isn’t like a rocket ship that just goes up and up and up. It's more like a plane, you fly down the runway, then takeoff. But you may feel turbulence along the way, a storm might roll in. But, it's up to the pilots of that plane to figure out exactly how they're gonna get through this storm and make the journey smooth again for everybody on board. And that I think you and you are capable of doing. I honestly don't believe in that evolution stuff. I think the three of us are not biologically different where these values can’t be passed down and used. These things I learned not by someone physically telling me. But by me just watching people go about their day and watching how the elders of my time did it. I see you crying a little bit across the table. I want to tell you I didn’t respect my elders because they just were my elders. I respected them because they were worthy of respect. The elders in my day were respected by the communities they lived and stayed in because they helped those communities. They were the teachers to educate the youth, they did hire the young men who wanted a job. They gave their wisdom out for free cause that's what they were supposed to do. As I look at you I can tell you have been robbed of that opportunity by my generation. And on behalf of all of us I am sorry for that. I would hope that as long as I am here whenever you need advice you can call me, and I will be that older person who can help you. And that also goes for you. Your marriage may not have worked but don’t lose hope you are ahead of many others your age, older and even younger who can address and speak to your flaws and want to do better. I am glad I came today. It opened my eyes to what I need to do. It’s time I go out and be the elder I had for you two. I hope we can do this again sometime

“I came from a generation I am not sure is completely understood,” said the young man. “I came from a generation I am not sure is completely understood,” said the middle aged man. “I came from a generation I am not sure is completely understood,” said the elderly man. Each spoke, each listened, and each came away with a piece of knowledge and camaraderie they didn’t have prior to this discussion. Just think what would happen if everyone no matter the circumstance or type of person had a roundtable to go to…