On Tea, Stubborn Lions, and Finding Your Place When Every Generation Thinks It Knows Better (In the Middle of It All, Part 1)
You are too young. You’ve got time. You are not ready.
Imagine you are the Queen of England and a grizzled politician is chastising you on the etiquette of serving tea. Not only are you English, but Queen. I think there is no person on earth that is less appropriate to reprimand for offering tea than Elizabeth II. And yet this was the very quibble that Winston Churchill chose to dive into during his first meetings with the Sovereign. If there was any moment that showed that the Last Lion didn’t believe the young Queen knew what she was doing it was this one. I would have been quite peeved if someone criticized my hospitality or my preference for tea, even if it is one of the heroes of the free world.
This man was one of the key figures of the 20th century that led the free world through the Second World War. Quite frankly he was a hardass that kept Great Britain together and kept evil forces at bay. For this reason he has often been called the Last Lion. The Prime Minister, though balanced with the Head of State, or Monarch, is essentially the head of the British government. However, when peace time came and other national emergencies took place and age started to undermine his strength, Churchill steadily enacted his role as a steamroller. Unfortunately, not always in the direction his country needed. In the early 1950s when King George VI who was perfectly suited for his role died, Queen Elizabeth II steadily took her place as his successor. She didn’t fill her father’s shoes, but she wasn’t meant to. She paved her own way, though unsteadily at first. She was very much inclined to listen to her advisers, Churchill included, but she did choose her battles carefully. And he was a bully. He could not see that the world had suddenly changed. Elizabeth and her contemporaries were ready, willing and waiting, but Churchill could not let go of his perspective long enough to hear hers. He could not admit that his priorities were no longer in the center of things. And yet, there were leaders awaiting their time. The young Queen did indeed find her way. Though she had to fight against a generation who would not actively allow her to lead, she is now regarded as one of the most stable and dutiful and beloved monarchs in modern history.
Though I was born sixty years after the Queen, I can relate. Wedged between the generation that fights with all it has to hold onto their position, white knuckling it with all their might, and the generation that feels it has the right to criticize everything it doesn’t find entertaining or useful, even when they haven’t lived long enough to truly realize utility, I find that I’m tempted to become a mud slinger just to take the next step in life. The tension between the way of life of the Boomer generation and Millennials is palpable. Even just last week I was derogatorily told that my generation was “so entitled.” I think my mouth dropped open. Yes we feel entitled, that our parents prepared us for a world that never existed for us, the carpet being ripped out from under us with 9/11 and the 2008 housing market crisis though we didn’t even know it until the next crisis of 2020. In that one year we went from being not experienced enough to our big chance had already come and gone. Entitled, I do think so, but not in the same way the connotations of that word carry. Is it entitlement to hope to be able to buy a home without two incomes, or to have healthy children without medical intervention, or to have the luxury of not being burned out by the age of thirty? If so, then yes, we are entitled. And shouldn’t we be entitled to the American dream just like what was being sold to us these past 80 years? I dare say we should be entitled to a little respect but we are gut punched by the elder and the younger generations even when just minding our own business. And I would include Gen X in this assessment, for though they are called the latch key generation, I tend to think they should be called the silent generation round 2: refuse to take responsibility boogaloo. I realize they are in a similar jam as the season of culture wars has lasted decades, but they have largely skipped over taking up leadership in their communities. Somehow they have disappeared and the Millennials are pushing back against the Boomers and clamoring for leadership, even just over our own families. These are a few of the tensions. But what I want to focus on is this: when will we learn that both the younger and the older generations have great, great value?
Like Churchill and the young Queen, we will find our way to move through our lives and through history serving our communities. For though Queen Elizabeth revered Churchill and took so much of his advice, by the end of his tenure, the Lion sat down for tea with the Queen.
Regardless of generation, paradigm, temperament or giftedness, there is a path forward. I think many of us feel that, just like Queen Elizabeth, we won’t keep our feet on the path without a fight. I want to say that I admire Winston Churchill greatly. And yet, a person should never take for granted that God has placed each of us for a purpose, even when it doesn’t look like what has come before. Churchill was not a pioneer in relentlessly prowling his territory at the expense of his pride–generations were doing it well before him.
There is more to this story and I will explore it in this series of essays entitled, In the Middle of It All.
References and Inspirations:
Howe, Neil. The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End.Avid Reader Press, 2023.
Manchester, William, and Paul Reid. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume III: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965.Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy.Broadway Books, 1997.
The Crown.Created by Peter Morgan, performances by Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and Imelda Staunton, Netflix, 2016–present