Why Gen X Parents Struggle With Disrespect
- Jen Weir
- May 25
- 6 min read
Updated: May 26
The other day I was shopping with my daughter for Summer wear. Not always my favorite because my God, she takes forever to choose. That’s a personality difference, not a slam on either her meticulousness in choosing or my “impatience”. We waited in line to pay, only to hear the girl at the register shout, “I’ll take you now”, in a rather abrupt manner. Mmmkay… I’m used to “Next customer, please” or that weird AI voice, “Counter 1 is now available for the next customer”. Something about her tone set my teeth on edge.
She throws my clothes about, asking me questions in short tones, and frankly, I am doing my level best to not come across the counter with the spirit of slap at her.
But also, I kept trying to mentally process, why is this girl bothering me so bad? Like, seriously, what exactly is my problem? I mean, maybe it was the constant eye roll energy oozing from her pores, her snappy way, or just her vibe. Needless to say, we were not destined to be besties, and I was going to need a conversation with the Lord about this.
When the latter happened, here’s me to Jesus: “Frankly, I am SO dagum tired of being the one who turns the other cheek, who doesn’t react when someone is doing the most, and by the way, I am all but done with this set of kids telling me how I should treat them!!”
Him: “Are you finished?” Yes…
The conversation was more than one-sided. He didn’t say much, just let me vent.
It wasn’t until a mental musing a few days later that I realized the problem. I have a serious problem with disrespect and entitled people. And I really have a problem with being the bigger person in a customer service setting. Now, before all my fellow Gen Xers stand up and cheer and say, “Damn right!”, hold your Coronas for a sec.
There’s a deeper issue here that I plan on addressing, one that, prayerfully, will give voice to 65 million of my closest friends as well as reduce the suicide statistics of my generation.
How could all that revelation come from just one little shopping trip? Well, it didn’t. It’s been a subject I’ve been studying for a few years now.
You see, there’s a conversation happening quietly in living rooms, text threads, kitchens, and therapy offices all over America right now:
Gen X is exhausted. And Gen X parents? We are more than exhausted. Most of the Gen X moms are in full adrenal shutdown, and many have just quietly given up.
Not simply because parenting is hard. Not simply because culture is changing. But because many of them are trying to raise emotionally healthy children while carrying emotional wounds they themselves were never allowed to acknowledge. The little lady helping me at the store? Gen Z, with likely amazing parents who didn’t want her growing up with a crap ton of emotional baggage, so they, like me, allowed her to be vocal in her needs and feelings. Something 65 million of us didn’t have a clue what that looked like when we were her age.
That collision or carrying emotional wounds while raising and experiencing healthy children shows up nowhere faster than in the experience of what we deem to be “disrespect.”
For many Gen X parents, disrespect does not feel like a mild annoyance.
It feels physically activating.
It feels threatening, destabilizing, deeply personal.
Most Gen X adults were not raised in emotionally attuned homes. Lucky us, we were raised with expectations.
Respect adults.
Watch your mouth.
Control yourself.
Handle your emotions privately.
Don’t inconvenience people.
Don’t question authority.
Don’t embarrass the family.
Figure it out yourself.
Many grew up in homes marked by: high divorce rates, latchkey independence, emotional stoicism, minimal supervision, and an unspoken understanding that children adapted to adults, certainly not the other way around.
Gen X became incredibly capable.
We learned how to: read the room, keep peace, stay useful, hide emotion, anticipate conflict, and carry responsibility far earlier than they should have.
Yet capability and emotional safety are not the same thing. An entire generation that became highly functional often became emotionally unsupported at the same time.
And now those children are parents. 💁🏼♀️
The Nervous System Side Nobody Talks About
See, most Gen X parents associate respect with safety. When someone respects you, you feel super safe.
In unstable households, respect often prevented: explosions, punishment, chaos, humiliation, withdrawal, and/or emotional volatility.
So when a Gen Z child/young adult speaks with bluntness, emotional intensity, or casualness toward authority, the Gen X nervous system may interpret it as danger, not simply a bad attitude.
This is especially true for women who spent decades keeping peace, over-functioning, anticipating and meeting everyone’s needs, as well as carrying emotional labor silently.
A disrespectful tone can unconsciously trigger something much older:
“I would NEVER have been allowed to talk like that.”
“No one tolerated that from me.”
“I carried everything without complaining.”
Which means the reaction is rarely just about the present moment. The parent is not only responding as an adult. They are also reacting as the ignored child, the over-responsible teenager, the emotionally unsupported young adult, and now the exhausted middle-aged person who still carries everyone.
The current interaction touches decades of swallowed emotion. Strep throat over and over, anyone?
Why Gen Z Feels So Different
Now, to be fair, Gen Z did grow up in a dramatically different psychological environment.
They were shaped by: constant internet exposuresocial media comparisoneconomic instabilityidentity pressuremental health languageless emotional suppressionmore awareness of traumafar less institutional trust (this is the wisest, by far, that these kids feel)
Many were encouraged to express themselves, name their emotions, challenge unhealthy systems, and advocate for their needs.
In some ways, this is absolutely progress. It’s something my husband and I very much worked towards while raising our own kids. Yet I have had this bite me in my rear because emotional expression without emotional maturity can become chaos.
Emotional honesty is not the same thing as wisdom.
There is a difference between having a voice and weaponizing emotion.
There is a difference between healthy boundaries and treating accountability like oppression.
Some Gen X parents are not imagining the increase in entitlement, emotional volatility, or dismissiveness they sometimes encounter.
But many Gen Z children are also reacting to a culture that told them their feelings are central, your identity must be defended constantly, and discomfort itself is harmful.
That creates friction between generations with radically different emotional conditioning.
The Hidden Grief Beneath the Conflict
Here’s the deeper layer few people talk about honestly:
Many Gen X parents genuinely tried to give their children what they never had.
More presence.
More validation.
More emotional safety.
More conversation.
More voice.
More support.
And sometimes they look around and wonder:
“How did I sacrifice this much and still end up feeling emotionally attacked in my own home?”
That thought sucks all the way around. And it carries enormous guilt.
Because while they love their children deeply, they are also so very tired.
Tired of feeling emotionally responsible for everyone.Tired of being the stable one.Tired of carrying invisible labor while being told they are emotionally unavailable, controlling, or insensitive.
And underneath that exhaustion is often grief.
Grief for the child they once were.
The child who never got softness.
Never got accommodation.
Never got emotional explanation.
Never got to fall apart publicly.
So when they watch their children express emotions freely, another internal conflict can emerge, envy. Not malicious envy. Just plain, human envy. “You’re allowed to feel things I had to survive silently.” That realization can be deeply disorienting to say the least.
What Needs to Happen Next
This conversation cannot become: “Gen Z is terrible” or “Gen X is emotionally repressed.”
Both are too simplistic, and both miss the point.
Gen X developed remarkable strengths like:
adaptability
humor under pressure
Self-reliance
Resilience
and the ability to function through uncertainty.
Gen Z developed amazing strengths too:
emotional awareness
willingness to challenge dysfunction
greater openness around mental health
lower tolerance for performative authority.
But every generation also developed distortions. The goal is not choosing one generation over another. The goal is emotional maturity, with a massive lean toward helping Gen X heal.
Parents do not need to tolerate cruelty, contempt, manipulation, or chronic disrespect in the name of emotional freedom.
And younger generations do not need to return to emotional suppression in order to become healthy adults.
The healthiest families will learn how to hold both truth and respect. Voice and self-control. Emotion and responsibility.
Emotional healing is not about becoming emotionless; it’s about becoming emotionally regulated enough that your pain no longer controls how you treat other people.
My goal is not to help Gen X how to parent emotionally expressive children. Shoot, most of us are nearly finished raising our army of kids, and some never had children.
No, this is about bringing awareness to why we all get ruffled, (to say the least) when disrespect is thrown our way and how to deal and heal from it all. We have incredible lives to live, ones that are free of emotional exhaustion and burdensome responsibilities that are not ours to carry anymore. They never were, to be honest.
This series is about healing a generation who never learned that caring for themselves was not only reasonable but totally necessary.
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