Generation NeXt Parenting

Read Chapter One!

Generation NeXt Parenting has hit store shelves!

Read the first Chapter here.

So what's up with Gen Xers?

The Facts

• Gen Xers consist of 41 million Americans born between 1961 and 1981, plus the 3 million more in that age group who have immigrated here.

• Gen Xers are serious about life. We don’t take life as it comes, but give great consideration to critical decisions about our present and future. When it comes to parenting, we want to do it right. We take parenting seriously because we remember the latchkey existence with too much free time and too little parental involvement, and we want to give our kids more.

• Gen Xers are stressed out. We want to do it all…now. And when we do, we find ourselves overwhelmed—work, family, and the techno-stress that 24/7 communication such as cell phones, e-mail, and instant messaging has brought about. We’ve bought into following our dreams and finding our purpose. Yet we struggle to balance kids, ministry, work, and service. (We love to volunteer, to give, to help, to make a difference!)

• Gen Xers are self-reliant yet highly spiritual. We’re skeptical, yet eager to apply what we do believe to our everyday lives. We’re realistic, not idealistic. Our faith has to be truly lived-out or we don’t buy into it.

• According to a recent George Barna study, only 28 percent of Gen Xers (ages 20–37) attend church compared to 51 percent of Builders (58+). Yet a Newsweek article recently suggested that “81 percent of Gen X mothers and 78 percent of fathers say they plan eventually to send their young child to Sunday school or some other kind of religious training.”

• Because of the loneliness and alienation of splintered family attachments, “experts” have claimed that the strongest desire of Gen Xers is acceptance and belonging. Unfortunately, as parents, we don’t often find the companionship and acceptance we long for. Sometimes we feel alone, as if we’re the only ones dealing with these parenting struggles.

• Gen Xers believe in giving the best to our kids, we really do. Yet we question if we’re doing it right—or if we can do it at all. If we don’t follow in our parents’ parenting footsteps, is something wrong with us? Is it okay to do it our own way?

Does this sound like you? If you haven't yet . . . read the first Chapter here.

(c) Tricia Goyer, 2006. This material may only be used with the permission of author.

posted by Tricia Goyer @ 6:21 PM