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As I get older, I’m realizing growing up doesn’t stop after physical or even mental maturation.

Being older doesn’t prohibit us from growing into ourselves, but aging often feels directly connected to stagnation and resistance to change. This is often why intergenerational differences in beliefs and customs feel so heavily ingrained.

Cohorts, once diffused across childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, eventually more cohesively enter the world of adulthood and assume the responsibilities that come with it. While younger generations enter this new stage, the older ones begin to phase out of their own stages and are forced to pass the reins of society off to the young.

Generation Z has been growing up for a while now. With the older half of our generation in their late 20s and the younger half entering their teens, we’re now finally becoming more wholly acquainted with the realities of adulthood or, at least, the absence of childhood.

As this shift occurs, Gen Z intrudes on the “real world” enough for our culture and attitudes to shape the workforce and social norms that the older generations now share with us.

While we grapple with the changing responsibilities that crop up during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, we bring both baggage and insights to the environments we now take space in.

This past summer, social media users of multiple generations coined the term “Gen Z stare.” According to the older generations, this is the blank, unconcerned and perhaps soulless stare Gen Z workers give in response to the most basic of human interactions in lieu of a verbal response.

This stare is given to older generations when they say something “ridiculous”, according to some Gen Z rebuttals. Regardless of its purpose, self-proclaimed professionals on TikTok argue the stare is a result of Gen Z’s stunted social development during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The trending topic prompts further conversation about Gen Z’s behavior in professional environments. One Gen Z intern’s email notifying their boss about needing to take a vacation went viral for its casual tone and use of the phrase: “not getting that vibe right now.”

For every critique baby boomers, Gen Xers or millennials brought up within the conversation, Gen Z users fired back feisty responses. The conversation felt like a macrocosm of the relationship between a parent and a child going through puberty. There was very little empathy, vulnerability or understanding on either end.

As I pored over the posts, I saw multiple videos in which millennial and Gen X users expressed how this intergenerational beef was normal, and every generation had to learn to accept this dynamic.

From what I gathered, it seemed the dynamic we’ve accepted is a rite of passage for older generations to make fun of the generation entering the adult world – in return, it’s the younger generation’s right to be angry or defiant. This all results in a deeper divide between the cohorts – but according to the theory, that’s okay.

This felt oversimplified to me. If we could accept the critiques of those older than us, maybe they’d trust us more and allow us the space to insert our more collective values into society. Practicing better manners in social interactions with older adults is a small price to pay to gain their trust to let us impose a healthier work-life balance, which our generation seems to value.

As this battle played out online and in my head, I was also working a summer job as a salesperson at a makeup store.

While working there, I began to respect makeup as an important cultural product – one I could share with the little girls who somehow obtained limitless lip gloss knowledge, or with elderly women who were looking for the closest match of a discontinued powder they’d finally run out of.

The job was intergenerational on every level, and it provoked a lot of introspection about my age group.

There was one instance in which a middle-aged woman came in to build her routine from the ground up. She approached me apprehensively and requested my assistance. I happily agreed. Embracing my enthusiastic work persona, I took her through each station, applying and testing various products on her and making small talk along the way.

She didn’t seem to take to my gleeful attitude at first, but she still listened to my suggestions and allowed me to do her makeup.

As I applied blush to her cheek, I thought about the “Gen Z stare” debate. I guessed my customer had imagined me differently upon seeing me than how I truly was and how I was trying to present myself. I felt frustrated, frowning to myself as I assigned her apprehension in asking me to help as a judgment about my age and, therefore, my character or knowledge.

I then found myself operating motivated by a desperate desire to prove the ageist mindset I’d assumed she’d held about me wrong.

After we selected a blush, I brought her to the lipsticks. To match a lipstick is a vulnerable process, I’ve realized. Lipstick is bold. It acts as a statement on how you’d like to be perceived.

My guest asked me to select a shade of lipstick for her – she parroted my youthful language but with kind eyes: “I’d like something that really suits my ‘vibe.’”

I laughed, and as I applied cranberry-shaded lipstick, I smiled. It was my favorite, and I think she could tell.

Within moments, we’d developed an unspoken respect for each other – she’d bent a little to me, and I’d bent a little to her. I felt my worries about being “good enough” as an adult fade with the reassuring sense of responsibility my guest’s vulnerability granted me. This dynamic was something the conversations I’d observed online lacked altogether.

We’d gotten close enough to disprove the online perception that there’s an irreconcilable distance between generations. Closeness to each other is both the antidote to generational “beef,” but it’s also what makes the process of growing up in any stage of life fun.

Maya Aguirre is a senior digital journalism and history major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at msaguirr@syr.edu.

Published on August 20, 2025 at 11:37 pm