The Arrogance of Youth?

Lisa Savage - 9 Nov 18

The arrogance of youth. Or is it the naivety of youth? The certainty that what you think, about anything, is right. Is alright. Is the truth. Is that youth? Is it arrogance? Is it privilege? Or is it none of these things? Am I just cynical? Has more life experience taught me more knowledge? Or has it just taught me nothing is certain? Or that most things will have a reason connected to money, if you dig down deep enough? Is that really age? Or just my experience? I feel like I’ve known that for more years that the difference in our ages.

But who am I to judge? To criticise? I’d love to be in a position where I was so sure of myself. Of my opinion. Which makes me consider privilege again. I don’t ever remember being so arrogant as to have an opinion I was so sure about. But then I was never raised that way. I was raised in a family, in a society, that just wanted me to fit in and be pleasing.

When I was pregnant with Oscar, I was desperate for my baby to be a boy. And one of the reasons I wanted a son, as opposed to a daughter, if I’m really, brutally, truthful, is that I saw from my earliest days how differently boys were treated in life. My experience of my male relatives, told me they had more chances, in everything. Whether they took them or not. Their behaviour was OK. Whatever it was. And their opinions mattered. Whatever they were. I wanted a son because I didn’t want a daughter who could ever feel the way I have felt all my life. That I’m too big. In every way. That if I could just be smaller, take up less space, be more agreeable, that everything would be OK.

The thing is, if I had had a daughter, I like to think that I would have taught her that her voice, that her opinion, mattered. That I wouldn’t have let her accept minimising behaviours from others. But the truth is I still don’t know how much influence I really would have had in the larger world. The older I get the more impact I’d like to think I have. That I have the capacity to effect change in a global way and to lend my voice to issues I believe in. And yet the older I get the more jaded I have become. So maybe not. But it really doesn’t matter how old I am, that little girl inside me is still afraid to rock the boat. Because deep down, she’s still trying to fit in.

So maybe I should be less dismissive of the youth and their surety in their opinions. No matter how much I disagree with them. They are, after all, going to be the people who affect change in a way I never believed I could.

Lisa Savage

A 30 something SAHMama to Oscar and wife to Ben. Living in leafy Surrey muddling through life as a woman and a parent to an autistic child. Loves coffee, hates peas.

View profile for posts, events and more info