Generation Z Is Too Obsessed With Self Care, Plants And Brunch For Its Own Good
“My friends thought I was weird when they saw me drinking my smoothie.”
In 2008, my daughter, Emelia, moved up to secondary school. One of the freedoms she enjoyed at ‘big school’ was that of being able to bring in her own snacks. Her snack of choice was a green smoothie: I’d been making them for years, and they were a regular part of our diet regimen. Her classmates thought she was odd, but by Year 13, everyone was drinking them.
Emelia has joined me in fasting, liver cleanses (please don’t call social services retrospectively) and my adventures into raw food eating. We dabbled in ‘Yogalates™’ when she was eight and worked out with Shaun T when she was sixteen. She was my human petri dish: good health – physical/mental/emotional – has been something I’ve striven to achieve since I was a teenager working out to Jane Fonda’s aerobics tapes by day and journaling by night. Becoming a parent meant I had a partner in crime in my pursuit of all-round wellness.
I admit I’m thrilled that she’s adopted a healthy lifestyle – meditating, journaling and running. And apparently, she’s not alone when it comes to these and other forms of self-care. She’s one of thousands of Generation Zers, people born between 1996 and 2012, who take their health seriously. As the first wholly tech-savvy generation, they have been described as:
pragmatic, open-minded, individualistic but also socially responsible.
Studies also show that they are more than that. In the article Generation Z: Self-Care Is More Than a Hashtag, MarkTechSeries provides statistics that suggest youngsters coming of age more than a decade after the start of the new century:
Consume less alcohol,
Eat more healthily, and
Buy more skin care products than other age groups.
So far, so accurate.
“Please don’t kill my plant while I’m away.”
These were my daughter’s parting words to me before she embarked on her year in Italy last Autumn. The plant in question was of the rubber variety and as such, required minimal maintenance, thank God. I think I watered it three times in the twelve months she was abroad, and in a moment of inspiration, I even gave the leaves a shine with my vitamin D oil. The plant was purchased in Leeds, where Emelia is a student, and on several occasions, she had shared stories of other plant-owning university friends and housemates whose green fingers aroused in me distinct feelings of envy.
So far, so stereotypical.
“I’m meeting my friends for brunch.”
This is what my daughter has said to me on a number of occasions in the last three years. My response has been to reminisce on the days when, as a student, ‘brunch’ consisted of toast, chocolate chip cookies and as much instant coffee as you could stand. Venue? Halls of residence. I studied at the University of Surrey and back in the day, we thought we were doing well because we had a Spar on campus. When a friend and I returned to Guildford in 2015 to reflect on life as proper grown ups, we discovered that our humble corner shop had been replaced with a mini Marks and Spencer, replete with a chilled white wine section. Scrumpy Jack out, Chardonnay in.
I do find it interesting that trips to the restaurant are the norm for my daughter and her friends (they also order pizzas and do sleepovers), and I’m trying to remember how often I went out to eat with friends. Not often, if my memory serves me right. Such visits were seen as the preserve of the middle-class and were strictly for special occasions.
Oh my God. My daughter is obsessed with self-care, plants and brunch
Well actually, she’s not. I’m in the fortunate position of having contact with some of her Gen Z friends and former schoolmates, so I see what many of them are up to. Yes, I do come across Instagram pictures of twenty-somethings sitting around a table eating what looks like delicious food. But there’s another side. One young woman has an Instagram account dedicated inspiring body confidence in her followers. Another started a page to educate followers on how to be anti-racist. And the son of a close friend recently moved to Newcastle to open a branch of his dad’s tyre business. I can’t imagine there’ll be a whole lot of self-care going on as he works day and night to get things off the ground.
Generation Z is on a mission
I’ve spent nearly twenty years teaching Gen Zers, watching them grow from children into young adults. I have witnessed the pressures they’ve been under to achieve top grades in school, seen them struggle with expectations placed upon them by social media and marvelled at how self-aware they are. And their courage is fierce. In 2018, Greta Thunberg started a global movement aimed at standing up for the planet. Her actions inspired teenagers to protest against the cavalier way in which adults are stripping the earth of its increasingly scarce resources, putting the survival of endangered species and humanity above their education. More locally, in 2011, Gen Zers at a London school protested against the sacking of a well-respected teacher, who’d dared to challenge the actions of the school’s toxic headteacher. These teenagers did what the adults around them had been too afraid to do and jeopardised their educational chances in the process. Their heroic action led to the resignation of the headteacher.
I’m the first to admit that having a Gen Z daughter makes me biased, but I have a lot of love for this demographic. And let’s remember, Gen Zers as brunch-eating yoga devotees is only one side of the story. Listening to Radio 4’s Surviving Unemployment, I felt for Reece, a young man of twenty-three, who shared with listeners his experience of looking for work in lockdown Britain that would fit around caring for his mum. I don’t imagine he has the time or the funds to enjoy brunch.
And let’s face it, time will tell how our young people are impacted by the fallout of Covid-19. When we finally emerge, self-care, good food and the healing power of plants may be less of an indulgence and more of a necessity.
Written by Laurie O’Garro
When the country’s not in semi-lockdown, Laurie works for the Metropolitan Police and pursues a craft called ‘string art’. Her daughter is currently in her final year of university, studying online in London. Laurie also writes poetry and flash fiction.
www.instagram.com/thecatchuptalks