IF YOU ARE NOT PULLING THEM UP, YOU ARE PUSHING THEM AWAY — AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT

A quiet observation about the generation we are failing in plain sight. --- I have been watching. And what I see breaks my heart a little every day. We have an entire generation — Gen Z, the young ones, the bold ones, the ones labelled "too sensitive" or "too much" — showing up to a world that keeps telling them to figure it out on their own. And then we turn around, shocked, when they struggle. Something is deeply wrong with that picture. --- They are not broken. They are carrying things we handed them. Here is my honest observation from walking through today's society — these young people are not just navigating their own lives. They are quietly cleaning up messes they did not make. The financial pressure their parents normalised. The emotional unavailability their older siblings modelled. The "man up, toughen up, don't cry" culture that was handed down like a family heirloom nobody asked for. The broken relationships they watched growing up — and now struggle to build healthy ones of their own. They inherited the wounds. And we expect them to heal without a bandage. "You cannot hand someone a burden and then criticise how they carry it." --- *Many extend a hand — but only for the photo.* I see it in workplaces. A young employee joins, full of fire and fresh ideas. The first week, everyone is warm and welcoming. By the third month, they are invisible. No mentorship. No guidance. Just deadlines and disappointment. I see it in churches and community spaces. Leaders who speak passionately about empowering youth — from the stage. But offstage? The young people are still sitting in the back rows, unheard, uninvited to the table. I see it in families. Elders who demand respect but offer no safe space. Who expect maturity from young people but never model vulnerability themselves. We have mastered the performance of support without the substance of it. "Pretending to guide someone while leaving them lost is not mentorship. It is a photo opportunity." --- Here is what they actually need — and it is simpler than you think. They need you to show up consistently — not just when it is convenient. They need someone to look them in the eye and say "I see your potential even when you cannot see it yourself." They need mentors who are honest about their own failures — because a perfect mentor is an unreachable one. They need spaces where questions are welcomed and mistakes are treated as classrooms, not courtrooms. They need you to listen — not to respond, but to actually understand. And perhaps most importantly — they need to know that needing help is not a character flaw. That asking for direction does not make them weak. That the road ahead, though uncertain, has been walked before — and someone survived it and came back to show them the way. --- The cost of abandoning them is higher than you think. A generation left without guidance does not simply struggle quietly. It reacts loudly. It finds belonging in the wrong places. It builds walls where bridges should be. It repeats — sometimes even amplifies — the very cycles we failed to break for them. But a generation that is seen, supported, and shown the way? It does not just survive. It transforms everything it touches. "Invest in a young person today. Because the world they build tomorrow — you will live in it too." --- So I ask you — mentor, parent, leader, colleague, older friend — who are you pulling up right now? Not performing for. Not posting about. Actually, genuinely, quietly pulling up. Because they are watching. They always are. And if we do not show up for them — we will spend the rest of our lives wondering why they never showed up for us. "The greatest thing an elder can leave behind is not wealth. It is a young person who was guided well enough to go further than they ever did."

Author: Peterson wairegi

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