Teen Mental Health: The Importance of Intergenerational Support

In my history class last semester, we were asked to do an oral storytelling project. The assignment was to craft a question to use in an interview with someone older than you. We then presented their interviews in class. Part of each presentation was a five minute clip of the recorded interview that was played out for the class. Together, we listened to people’s histories.

One boy interviewed his grandfather, who was a doctor in Eastern Bloc Poland. The boy translated the audio into English for us as it was played. One girl shared a recording she had done with her grandmother who had grown up in Haiti who talked about her daily life as a kid. Another boy interviewed his grandmother, who along with her mother and sister had been a share-cropper in the South when she was young.

I interviewed my grandfather, who grew up in Sunnyside, Queens. I talked to him about his father, a black-listed actor during the McCarthy era. He told me how he would open the door to two big men in burberry coats who would ask him ‘is your father home?’. When my grandfather said no, they would say, ‘how about Richard Saunders?’, which had been his father’s stage name. He was instructed to always say no, but sometimes it would be his father who opened the door, and then they would interrogate him about people he knew.

My grandfather recently wrote an article about universities and academic freedom. It’s made me think a lot about how meaningful it is to hear from older generations, especially when it comes to activism and current events that have many historical parallels.

Most people know that student activism isn’t a new thing, and the intense violence expressed towards young activists isn’t either. Yet it can seem like it is, and can be so isolating. To be able to hear from people in older generations about their own activism and experiences means so much more than I think they realize.

Being young often feels like you and your peers have been left to your own devices in a screwed up world. It feels like all of these social and political problems we see are up to us as a generation to fix. And sometimes that’s true. Sometimes there are problems that have been pushed aside for the future generations to solve, and that can feel really painful. But, that doesn’t mean that all struggles are new ones.

So much of the activism we see today is hinged upon past movements, because there is such a deep global history of activism and protest. It is incredibly important that we, young and not so young, have a chance to hear that history from the people who were there.

By learning that history, it allows young people to feel supported and seen. And gives us the knowledge that many, many other people before us understand. Because, when we look at the past, we can see that so much of what is happening in the present has happened before.

I feel like I keep writing about how important solidarity is. Solidarity between local communities, networks of solidarity and networks of care. And I’ve talked about the lack of support many young people feel from adults when it comes to many political issues. But I don’t think I’ve talked about how moving it is once we feel unity and understanding.

I cannot describe how overjoyed I am to see people my grandparents age at protests I go to. It makes me feel safe, knowing that there are people who have been out there, organizing and fighting and demanding a better future, for decades. Because, as much as people like to pit the young and old against each other, seeing these older activists proves not only that intergenerational support is necessary, but that it already exists.

But, it’s not just learning about historical protest that is important. It is also hearing the everyday experiences that we may no longer have, but in many ways are still connected to. Hearing from living people gives us, or at least me, a way to contextualize historical events into something personal.

Someone I know has a grandmother who was a sharecropper. Someone else has a grandfather who remembers Partition, who had to move because of Partition. My friend tells me about her Egyptian grandfather who fought in the Second Arab-Israeli war. My grandma was taken as a little girl to the March on Washington. My grandpa’s childhood was shaped by Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare.

These events are so close to us, and the people that experienced these events are real. To hear major historical occurrences from people who were actually present connects so many events to what’s happening right now, and to us as young people.

There’s a lot for young people to teach the older generations. But, and especially during times of uncertainty and fear and social unrest, there is so much for the older generations to teach us.

My grandfather is constantly trying to point out the fact that campus protests have been happening for years. His first year teaching at Columbia University was in 1968, the year over 700 students were arrested for protesting the Vietnam War. He says that since then there have been occupations of buildings on campus and different protests every year. Student occupations didn’t start in 2024, which he wished people in the media talked about more.

It’s not just my grandparents though. My mom was a part of ACT UP in the ‘90s, when she was in high school, and she’s taught me a lot about how to stay safe at protests. Don’t resist arrest, you can go limp, but if you resist arrest that’s a whole other charge. Or how you would hold your hands if you were being arrested, since cops usually use zip ties at protests, in order not to have them get hurt. Maybe not conventional things for a mother to teach, but certainly important, because it’s not information I would have thought to seek out otherwise, and it’s something that can really only be taught by someone who has had these experiences.

So, what is really at the heart of all of this is a thank you. Thank you to all those old ladies I see out on the streets, holding signs and banners and fighting for equality. As a young person, it means worlds to know that we have not been left alone.

***Lydia Bach is a 15 year old student and writer living in New York City. When she’s not writing, you can find her singing or lying in bed worrying about the state of the world***