If you are a parent of a Gen Z, you must have felt the same shock, fear, and wonder in the last weeks when the mostly forlorn, gadget-invested child-adult in your house suddenly turned vocal and revolutionary.

Usually, they sleep in and only wake up because you shouted and threatened that you would not pay for the Wi-Fi in the next three months. They think we are dinosaurs walking around in our ignorant bliss.

Guess what? They are right. Finding mine already awake at dawn, dressed in boots, hut, bandana, and water in hand caught me by surprise.

“Are you off for a walk?”

She knew I would say no, which I did when she responded with, “I am going to town.”

What!

“CBD? There are demos today.”

She took a deep breath.

“Yeah, I know. That is why I am going there.”

Culture of Mubaba

My pleading, threatening, reasoning fell on deaf ears. I spent the day stressing and when she showed up in the evening, hoarse-voiced, I realised how proud I was of her, though she would have to read this to know this.

She won’t.

Gen Z has taught us many lessons and made us realise that we failed them, but we raised them right in other ways. They were clear that they only fear marriage.

Why? I posed this question to a group of them.

“It is a punitive, exploitative relationship. A life sentence.” This is the generation that has found the culture of Mpango, Mubaba, and Mumama entrenched in our moral decadence. Immorality and adultery have become normalised.

They do not want to be part of that charade. If the relationship is not honest, or open, no societal pressure will pin them down into a marriage.

Gen Z looks at us with disdain and is disgusted by our double standards and the facades we put up to the world. They question religiosity but are deeply sold into spirituality.

Fear of marriage

They read, learn, and engage with so much content in their virtual world of gadgets that on the occasional moment when they talk, we mostly ask, “Wow! How did you know that?”

“That’s how the universe works.” They say in response.

Gen Z’s gamophobia — a fear of commitment or fear of marriage – is rooted in their experiences. They have watched and experienced our bad-mannered treatment of each other, as spouses. They are not peacekeepers, these Gen Z. They will not take abuse in silence.

They will not walk on eggshells, like we do, for the sake of peace. They ruffle the feathers, heck, they pluck them off. Gen Z are peacemakers who want issues laid out on the table and not swept under the carpet. Difficult conversations fire them up.

One told me how their parents are quick to apologise, to evade discussing a painful or serious issue.

“But apologising is a healthy thing to do,” I said, perplexed. “Not unless one is sorry. When they say, I am sorry, I did this and that, and I know it hurt you.”

They have taught us that sincerity when apologising means you own up, take accountability and acknowledge the damage we cause by our behaviour.

Tribal and gender biases

When their fear of marriage is addressed, they will make better spouses than any other past generation. They know stuff about mental wellness that would shock psychiatrists.

They are not averse to therapy and healing, like many of their parents who walk around wounding others with untreated traumas. Gen Z is not fraught with the tribal and gender biases and prejudices that so deeply hamper us.

They will cause a revolution. They will not tolerate cultural norms that harm one gender over the other. The dowry die-hards? Your time is limited unless you can give a compelling case for exchanging a Gen Z girl with a cow.

They will - as we have witnessed - make it extremely difficult and shameful to squander public resources. Gen Z is not in the least impressed by exhibitionists, more so if one has not invented a world-changing innovation to explain a sudden source of wealth.

They do not want handouts. They make no sycophants. They want to work and earn their keep. We raised them right, by not driving fear into them, as happened with us.

They did not meet corporal punishments that raised us to be people easily intimated and cowed. They are intolerant of the status quo. Gen Z will teach us some more, and we need to listen to them. We will be better partners, better citizens, better leaders.