“They do everything to excess, love, hate, and everything else. And they think they know everything, and confidently affirm it, and this is the cause of their excess in everything”
“For the young the future is long, the past short: They are not ill-natured but simple-natured, because they have never yet witnessed much depravity; confiding, because they have as yet not been often deceived; full of hope, for they are naturally as hot-blooded as those who are drunken with wine, and besides they have not yet experienced many failures.“[1]
Aristotle, born 384 BCE
Does any of the above sound familiar? The borders between generations have always provided fertile soil for misunderstanding, exasperation, and distrust. We can see this in classic Czech films like Pelíšky, where the natural resistance between parent and child is intensified by the political landscape of 1968 Czechoslovakia. Likewise, England in the 1960s was a time of generational warfare, between the post-war puritanism of the elder generation and the new lust for adventure and change of the long-haired hippies and peaceniks. In 2025, when those young rebels now represent the oldest generation living, are the borders between generations narrowing or are they wider than ever?
Who are the different generations?
The borders between generations seem to be largely forged by the twin influences of developing technology and warfare, and, tragically, there is no shortage of either of these in 2025.
- In the UK, the term “Baby Boomers” (1946-1964), came from the increased birth rate in the UK after the war. This is made a bit complex in the Czech context, where “Boomer” tends to refer to somebody born in the 1960s or 1970s, possibly due to the fact that the Czech baby boomers were the “Husákovy děty” of this period.
- I myself am a Millennial, defined as someone born between 1981 and 1996. The name means that the older members of this generation came of age around the Millennium.
- The generation below Millennials is Generation Z (1997-2012) who are also known as “Zoomers” or “Digital Natives” because they were born into a world already online
- My kids and their pals are Generation Alpha (2012-2024) or “IPad natives”
- Any children who happen to be born as this article goes to press are members of Generation Beta, born after 2025 and set to become “AI Natives”
Terrifying new worlds?
It is no wonder that the generations named above find more to disagree on than agree. UK Boomers grew up in a Britain slowly emerging from post-war rationing, where the advent of colour TV was the height of modern technology. Their grandkids only know a globalised world which is at least fifty percent online, and where existing without a smartphone is increasingly difficult.
As a result, many parents are now in the position where they are unable to fulfil their natural role of protecting their children against the dangers of the world – because they simply don’t understand these dangers or are choosing to ignore them. According to the Children’s Commissioner for England, most English kids witness sexist and demeaning pornography by the age of 13 — and some see it as young as six. [2] This is not just age-inappropriate raunchy content but is often “violent, extreme and degrading”[3]. The Children’s Commissioner worries that young children are increasingly seeing sadistic and criminal acts as normal, and that both boys and girls are growing into a warped and misogynist understanding of their own sexuality.
In a similar vein, the popular Netflix three-part serial “Adolescence” terrified parents of seemingly “normal” teenagers with the portrayal of a young boy slipping into dangerous views on masculinity and violence online, all whilst under the “safety” of his parent’s roof. This is a terrifying reminder that Gen Alpha children may have been born into the smartphone landscape, but they are still totally defenceless against its many and growing dangers – and having parents who are happily stuck in the past does nothing to protect them.
Or maybe we of the older generations are just being a bit hysterical? Maybe we are overreacting to social media, in the same way 1950s parents saw rock and roll as an evil defiler of their children. Maybe we should have more faith in Digital Natives and trust that they understand and can naturally navigate the difference between the manufactured world of the internet and the real-world in a way we can’t. When asked, many Gen Z-ers say that the online space is so removed from reality that they’re interacting ironically a lot of the time, and others just see social media as a handy tool to make money. Likewise, many teenage boys already respond to misogynists like Andrew Tate with eye-rolls and yawns, or mock his caveman attitude to women. Are our young boys really learning to become violent misogynists, or do we just hear about the outliers in the news and fall for the usual media moral panics?
How to transcend borders
The borders between generations today remain fluid and contested, just like the blood-soaked borders of modern nations. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, (born in Prague, 1875) mentored many members of the “Lost Generation”, (born 1883-1900) whose identities were shaped by the chaos and disillusionment of World War One, and who would maybe understand the sense of alienation and erosion of all common values that we are feeling now. Rilke’s advice on transcending intergenerational borders remains, however, rock solid:
“Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parent and children; it uses up much of the children’s strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn’t comprehend. Don’t ask for any advice from them and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it”.[4]
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Letter 4, written July 16, 1903
[1] The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, Princeton University Press, 1984, Vol. 2, p. 2181.
[2] https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/youth-voices-children-and-pornography/
[3] https://www.itv.com/news/2025-08-19/
[4] https://rilkepoetry.com/letters-to-a-young-poet/letter-four/
Natalie Czaban 
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