According to Katie Mather, a writer for FAMILY COMES FIRST on EliteDaily.com., millennials need to reconnect With Their Grandparents’ Generation. She gives some great reasons (the ones we already know), but she puts it in ‘millennial speak’…so to speak and therefore may be more effective.
Take a peek at what she has to say and how she says it and it may give you some good ideas.
Well, now is the time to be interested. If you’re lucky enough to have grandparents still around, these relatives have access to a wealth of information about your own history, offer a glimpse into the past and show you how an older generation handled the social problems of their time.
It’s time to reconnect.
Learn about your ancestry.
Connecting with your grandparents gives you a chance to pursue knowledge about your family history — not just the standard information, like your great grandmother’s name and the country your family hailed from. You can go deeper. What kind of person was your great aunt? What was daily life like in your family’s country? Did they immigrate?
Your ancestry plays a big role in how you got to where you are today. After all, the concept of social mobility has basically been abandoned in the United States, which means your grandparents’ social class growing up is very likely to be yours as well.
Information about day-to-day finances can help put into perspective the daily struggles your grandparents experienced growing up, including a possible glimpse into the Great Depression, if they’re old enough.
In fact, your grandparents offer a treasure trove of information about a volatile and critical period in history.
Learn about world history.
Chances are, your grandparents are part of the generation that came into their teens at the height of World War II, who, while growing up, saw Hitler, Mussolini and the Cold War all rise and fall. This was the generation that lived through Senator McCarthy and the Red Scare, leading them to keep their heads down and their mouths shut.
By 1951, Time magazine had dubbed this generation the “Silent Generation.”
Your grandparents can tell you about growing up in the heyday of American history, about the country’s rise to global superpower and the post-World War economic boom. This was the generation that first had reason to believe in American exceptionalism.
