I love my grandmother. She is hardworking, sweet, resourceful, and easily one of the strongest women I know. Some of the sweetest memories of growing up come from making amateur “movies” with her, battling each other in a pillow fight, or tossing buckets of water at her for a summer water battle. And yet, as strong as our relationship is, there are many times that I struggle to understand her and her perspectives on life. If I’m honest, many times her opinions just seem stubborn and foolish to me. But I’m sure she thinks that of me as well.
But what does this tiny, silver-haired Puerto Rican woman in her late 70s have to do with sexual assault in the church, what I usually write about? Well, thankfully nothing, except to illustrate how bullheaded one generation may seem to another when the culture and generation they grew up in is not understood.
To be clear, this is NOT a defense for covering up sexual abuse in the church. But it may be helpful to understand why the older generations are known for sweeping these things under the rug.
I spoke with Tim Baumgarten, a corporate trainer with plenty of experience with intergenerational communication, who spoke to my Interactive Journalism class about why certain generations react the way they do to sexual assault.
This is evident especially in light of the generation many of our grandparents were born into, The Silent Generation, which spans the birth years of 1925 to 1945, roughly. According to Baumgarten: “The Silent Generation [was raised with the understanding] that the greater good always outweighed the individual need. Always. We look at it differently now. This individual person needs justice now, and so we can’t protect this institution over the top of this individual persons’ justice being served.”
Kaleb Eisele, producer of the Humans of Adventism project and Baumgarten’s stepson, elaborated on this.
“Something you talk about a lot [with regards to the distinction between generations] is institutional loyalty and how different generations relate to institutions,” he said. “So if you’re growing up in a generation that is strongly convicted of institutional loyalty, then you say this bad thing happened but I don’t want it to reflect bad on this institution that I love, you’re much more likely to say, ‘Yes, well that happened but let’s not tear down this great thing.’
“I know in [younger generations] what I’ve seen is kind of a flip of that, where…we need to be loyal to people,” Eisele continued. “We need to hold institutions accountable, and you really don’t have this all or nothing mentality. This is a specific issue that has to be addressed and will only be addressed if we talk about it. But there’s’ not really this worry that, like, “Oh, people are going to think terrible of this institution. That’s not in the forefront of somebody’s mind. It’s ‘This person was hurt, and they need justice. ‘”
Perhaps, as we learn to understand the differences in our generations, we will also learn how to better educate each other instead of vilifying. Because while yes, many of the cover- ups done by those who march to the drum of institutional loyalty have been horrific, it’s important to note where it’s coming from and how we can stop it from happening again. Let’s move redemptively in all aspects of this intense subject of sexual abuse.