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I have a unique perspective on the Up and Coming Generation, as I teach Piano, Guitar, and Voice to Children. The average age is 10, but I teach as young as 6 and as old as 15. Now, given that these are kids whose parents can afford music lessons, it may be a skewed sample, but I teach children of all races, nationalities, and religions.

Here are some observations.

1. In 13 years of teaching, I have only had two students who had one parent who was a nominal muslim. In BOTH cases, the parent had escaped Iran when the Ayatollah took over. They considered themselves PERSIAN, not Iranian OR muslim, and their kids attended church and had a Christmas Tree. From this, I concluded that muslims either don’t want their children to have music lessons, or that they refuse to allow a Kaffir(me) into their homes.

2. 100% of my guitar students want to learn the genre known as “Classic Rock” (The music of the 60’s and 70’s). They LOVE the Beatles, the Stones, led Zeppelin, the Eagles, the Doors, Carol King, Dylan, etc. This not only shows their discernment that the music of the “Baby Boomers” was good stuff. It also indicates that the new generation is dissatisfied with the cr*p that the media is spewing at them, which is unmelodious, soul-less, mechanized, and just plain ugly. The few contemporary songs that are requested are in the “old style”, such as songs by Adele, Taylor Swift, and Bruno Mars.

3. Today’s kids are (in spite of the media and education’s attempts to make them otherwise!) fiercely PATRIOTIC. Every year they compete for the honor of opening the Recital with the National Anthem. The ones who don’t get to open the show have a second chance...to close the show with “God Bless America”. They stand and put their hands over their hearts when either of these songs are performed. I sure hope they STAY like this!

4. Generation X was indeed narcissistic, as DG states. Perhaps my experience with the NEXT Generation (Generation Y?) indicates a pendulum swing in the opposite direction. My kids are always doing yard sales, candy drives, etc to benefit somebody. There was even an occasion when several of my little girl students had their long hair cut off to make wigs for children with cancer!

This is by no means a scientific study, but it is a true observation based on my own personal experience.

There IS hope.

I’m Gen X and at one time I cherished a delusion that we would fix the mess that the Baby Boomers left. No more.

Many of my peers never grew up. And even many of those that married and had kids aren’t grounded in anything greater than their bellies and wallets. Families are blowing apart left and right. The first generation who were aborted en masse are still aborting en masse.

You may be right about Gen Y. But it was once true of us too. We were patriotic too—we grew up in the Reagan era. But whatever selflessness we had was corroded by the time we became adults. Patriotism can’t stand up to societal decay of this magnitude. The Boomers sang “All you need is love” as kids and now are engineering a police state.

Not trying to diss any generation, but the Evil One knows how to turn a generation’s strengths and weakness against them.

If those kids you teach are to have a hope, we have to work to radically change the culture.