I thought I would remember what it was like to be a seventh-grader, and as I’ve interacted with our mentees over the past several weeks, I’ve recalled some of those memories.  But it’s different for kids today.  It’s harder.

It’s not easy to understand all the factors that make it harder for today’s young people, whether they are 10, 13, or 16, but it seems obvious to me that the information age is a big factor.  DVDs, i-Pods, the Internet—instant and seemingly cost-free access to the bewildering and dangerous world outside has to have had an effect that we baby-boomers and others of mentor age don’t yet understand.  It’s perhaps a bit ironic that this access can be gained without even leaving your cozy bedroom in your safe home.  You don’t have to engage the outside world face to face, and yet  all the world is at your fingertips.  The value of going out the front door somehow seems all the greater.

Yes, we adults have the same access to this big, big world, but what this contact may do to more impressionable minds (as opposed to more stubborn, stuck-in-their-ways adult minds?) is, I think, still beyond our experience and understanding.  I look for signs of these differences in the generations, without any clear reference to use in making judgments.  And by “judgments,” I don’t mean pronouncements on the “good” or “bad” in behavior—the mentees’ or anybody else’s—but rather in the essentially human ability to assess what’s going on around us, form conclusions, and take the actions we need to take in dealing with the outside world day in and day out.

Good luck, kids.  We’re with you, even if it seems like we’re having a hard time understanding.  In so many ways, it’s a new world to us too.

George Stubbs is currently a mentor in the Melrose CARES Mentoring Program sponsored by MAAV.