Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor

Breaking the Cycle: What Can We Learn From The Silent Generation?

• Amy Watson: Trauma Survivor, Hope Carrier, Precious Daughter Of The Most High God • Season 7 • Episode 6

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Imagine a generation shaped by hardship and resilience, yet taught to hide their emotions behind a stoic facade. What happens when those silent struggles are passed down through the family tree? Join us on a thoughtful journey as we explore the legacy of the silent generation, born between 1928 and 1945, and the profound impact of their unaddressed traumas on subsequent generations. From the stark realities of the Great Depression to the seismic shifts of World War II, we paint a vivid picture of the societal forces that demanded stoicism and emotional suppression, setting the stage for a cycle of unresolved trauma. Our conversation emphasizes the silent generation's influence on baby boomers, highlighting the challenging balance between the values of discipline and the longing for emotional warmth.

As we unravel generational parenting patterns, we reflect on how these silent struggles often led to rebellion or conformity among baby boomers, occasionally manifesting in destructive behaviors like substance abuse. Our guest, Mama Gowan, brings invaluable insights into how millennials are courageously challenging these inherited norms to cultivate healthier emotional expressions. With anticipation, we prepare for Mama Gallen's upcoming session, where her firsthand accounts of wartime resilience will offer further clarity. We affirm our shared commitment to addressing and healing generational trauma, offering hope and encouragement to those willing to confront these challenges in search of peace and a renewed understanding of their intrinsic worth.

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Speaker 1:

We talk so much these days because I have so much to say. Stay and listen to me closely, even though you already know. Imagine a world in which you have to stand in line for food. Imagine wondering if, before you get your turn, they run out of food. Imagine being in school and hearing air raid drills because the country is potentially under attack. Imagine being in school and hearing that the country actually was attacked at Pearl Harbor.

Speaker 1:

Imagine sending your husband's, sons and brothers off to war and then being responsible to figure things out on the home front. Imagine being that soldier that went off to a world war. Imagine being a family member of somebody that died at Normandy. Imagine living under the constant fear that two soldiers were going to come knock on the door indicating that someone that you loved wasn't coming home. Imagine living in a time where communism was a real threat. Imagine turning on the news, because the TV was invented during your generation, and seeing the war images of Korea, vietnam and subsequent wars right in your living room. Imagine learning about the end of the war by sitting around a radio. Imagine not knowing what was going on with the war until you got a letter from a loved one that maybe took a month to get. Imagine just not knowing where your next meal comes from, and just about every member of society is the same. Imagine being afraid that you can't meet your basic needs, or imagine having experienced your parents not being able to meet your basic needs. Imagine a time where you grow into your own and there's another war across the world in Vietnam. Imagine going to that war too. Imagine coming back and being rejected after having seen so much. Imagine being encouraged that you are to be stoic and that it's a badge of courage to put your head down and use a go along, get along mentality. Imagine living in a world that was just coming into its own in terms of technology.

Speaker 1:

Imagine, though, being a part of the silent generation. Imagine your voice being quieted. Imagine being told that you are to be seen and not heard. Imagine if you did experience a psychological crisis. You were put out to pasture, pretty much at an insane asylum, usually on the outskirts of town, where you were either given a lobotomy, electrical shock treatment or any other number of things that did not serve to help. Imagine living in a world where you're not allowed to have emotions, not allowed to have fears. You are responsible to go along to get along. This is the silent generation.

Speaker 1:

Why am I talking to you about the silent generation? Well, we are talking about how generational trauma is passed from one generation to the other. The silent generation is perhaps the oldest generation alive, though there are some members of the greatest generation still alive, but those people would be well into their hundreds, maybe their late 90s, so we've chosen to begin with the silent generation, those people born between 1928 and 1945. As you listen, especially if you're a baby boomer, I hope that you will find some information in this episode about the people that raised you. That would help you a little bit with your upbringing and generally understand the people who raised you, because we know from science and we addressed this on the last episode is that trauma visits the generation, and the Bible tells us to the second and third generation. There is hope, though, in understanding the history of trauma in our own families and how it was handled, because these things the result of not addressing trauma is a repeating behavior, and it's that repeating behavior that I want to highlight in this series. I want us to understand how this group of people experienced trauma, how they handled it and what this generation could teach us about resilience, respect and hope.

Speaker 1:

Because, see, this generation had a parents that was coined the greatest generation and we can see some of the greatest generations, fingerprints on those still here with us for the silent generation. Because, you see, the greatest generation was called the greatest generation for a reason, and so they in fact passed on some of their traits, good and bad, to the silent generation. Because, you see, the greatest generation was raised when, a time when opportunities were scarce, and so they grew up fiercely, selfly, reliant, and they taught their kids to be the same reliant, and they taught their kids to be the same. They valued community and country above personal gain, which is why we call them the greatest generation. This is a generation that knew what it was like to truly be self-sacrificing, to delay gratification and put the greater good ahead of individual comfort. It was this stoic thought process that got passed on to the silent generation. Both were conditioned to put aside personal difficulties to focus on responsibilities. The idea that dwelling on problems didn't solve them was prevalent in this time. They had a just getting on with it mentality that they passed on to the silent generation.

Speaker 1:

With this go along to get along mentality, the silent generation was silenced. Their voice was silenced. Even though their parents were authoritative and caring, they still had a focus on security and stability, teaching their children to work hard so that they never would have to deal with what they had experienced during the Great Depression. There's a value of education and hard work above all else, and so the silent generation of was taught to work hard so that they never had to experience what they experienced for some of them very early in their lives with the Great Depression. But what's it like to have your voice taken away? Because that's what happened with this generation. Their fears and anxieties were not addressed. This is the generation that coined the term keep calm and carry on. This generation placed high value on privacy and self-reliance. They embodied the stiff upper lip mentality and pressed on despite the events around them and we're not even talking about trauma in their home.

Speaker 1:

During this time, you see, the issue with psychology was coming of age as well, and so when someone couldn't hide their trauma or they were having fears and anxieties and depressions, and maybe even suicides, they were sent off to pasture, literally sent off to asylums, often on the outskirts of town, where they were not treated well. They were treated with lobotomies and electrical shock therapy. And so you can see why this generation, the silent generation, decided to just be quiet. When they did not feel well psychologically, they did put their head down and do exactly what the greatest generation taught them to do is get an education and get a job. Be quiet, go along to get along, raise your kids, think, leave it to Beaver. This is that generation. Because this generation did not stop to address the effects of the global events. They would pay the price later and it would be passed on to their children. The baby boomer generation Because this generation invented this pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality. The baby boomers have that mentality. Generation X has that mentality to some degree. It's not until the millennials that we see this change and we will track that as we continue to talk through the generations.

Speaker 1:

But for the this generation, talking about the personal pain and hardship was viewed as an indulgent affair and it was highly discouraged. And, as I mentioned, people would have had fears of being institutionalized had they expressed at all how some of these things were affecting them. And we're talking. Big time things right, we're talking. They had to stand in line for food. We are talking. They would have obviously been alive for Pearl Harbor, they would have sent their people off to war, like we talked about. They would have experienced a significant economic boom after the war. They would have gone on to marry and been afraid and experienced fears in the age of MacArthurism and the second Red Scare. And, of course, their parents had experienced the first Red Scare, this fear that communism and this beginning of the Cold War.

Speaker 1:

This generation saw all of that and all they did was internalize it because they understood that vulnerability was seen as a weakness and society at large didn't encourage this at all. They didn't encourage anything but hard work and dedication. They were taught to prize productivity and Mama Gallen, who actually is I know I've been promising it for a while is coming on in a couple weeks, and this is something that she said to me. We just did, we just did, we just did. They were taught that productivity was the prize. They were doers and it worked well for them. As they entered the workforce and began having children, they found value in both of these things.

Speaker 1:

These were people that did not rock the boat. They went to work, they worked hard, they came home to their families. All the while, their voices were silenced. They carried their trauma quietly. They swallowed it, literally swallowed it, and kept going on, and that would have massive effects on both the next generation and their health.

Speaker 1:

You see, this generation is sandwiched between two distinct generations the greatest generation, which I've talked about a little bit, because I wanted you to understand some of the things that got passed on from them, and then, of course, their children, who is the baby boomers. And so this generation, not as distinct, they just decided to, as I mentioned over and over, to go along, to get along. They were quiet, productive members of society, but their voices were silenced as it pertains to the things that they had seen and experienced. This is a generation that is sometimes forgotten, and, as I've mentioned, though, that all of these things made this generation exceptionally resilient, a trait that served them well and one that they passed on to their children, the baby boomer generation, when it come, when it comes to parenting. This generation somewhat because this is important in the context of this podcast, because we're talking about traits that get passed down from generation to generation, and so the stiff upper, this go along to get along, this finding identity and work and education, defines this, this generation and these many of these people.

Speaker 1:

Mama gallon is 91 or they're nineties now and I watch her often still play these things out, especially being a doer, as a means of dealing with the things that bother them. They don't talk about these things. And if you're ever as a means of dealing with the things that bother them, they don't talk about these things. And if you ever ever have the honor of talking to one of them about the things that were difficult in their lives, like I'm going to have, I hope that you turn off all your phones and all your distractions, because there's so much that we can learn from this generation, and we're going to learn that from Mama Gal. When she comes on in a couple weeks.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to ask her about parenting because I think when it comes to parenting, this generation somewhat mimicked the generation of their parents, which is the greatest generation. There was a strong emphasis on respect and discipline in the home. They taught their children the value of hard work Again. So you saw that the greatest generation taught their children in the silent generation the value of hard work and that got pushed onto the baby boomers, which again really helped society, really helped society move forward, this commitment to hard work. But many of this generation's parents overcompensated for their own experiences and wanted a better life for their children. So there was this big push for education and job values among the baby boomer generation, and maybe this is why we saw the rebelliousness of the.

Speaker 1:

The baby boomer generation was because their parents were so impacted by the way they were raised. They wanted better for their kids. They never wanted their kids to stand in a line and wonder about their food, and so this became when the American dream became about how much can I work, how hard can I work, how high can I go in school? And so the silent generation was definitely taught that by the greatest generation, because their parents wanted better for them. Complicating that, while not all a bad thing, their parents were not warm or openly affectionate, and we find that many of people in the silent generation aren't either. They loved each other and it was understood that actions meant love, and so when we talk about how these, how the silent generation, parented to the next generation because that is the context of this podcast we see that these things were passed down to the baby boomer generation.

Speaker 1:

Ironically, their own strict upbringing and repeating of that with their own children is tied to that rebellious nature that we talk about in the baby boomer generation, teaching us what we already know about psychological trauma is that it will at some point be addressed, and I think we see that in the baby boomer generation and we see that in the advent of significant substance abuse and what we saw with soldiers coming home from Vietnam. We see that trauma has saying we will not be ignored. You have tried to do it since the beginning of time and it is going to catch up with us, and we see that beginning to happen in the baby boomer generation. But we will hear Mama Gowan talk about their proclivity to bottle up their emotions and ignore trauma. So not only did we see them parent this, the silent generation and their own children, but research has indicating to us that members of this generation went on to experience significant health issues related to their psychological issues.

Speaker 1:

As we know, the body keeps the score and we're seeing that in all generations, but especially this particular generation. As we think about this series on generational trauma, we can track down behaviors like this go-along, get-along mentality. We can evaluate it and we can understand the damage that it does and we can fix it, because even in the generation that we're in now, which is Generation Alpha. There are fingerprints of this mentality in all of us that came after the silent generations. We are seeing the millennials turn this mentality a little bit on its ear, in so much as the pendulum has swung all the way to the other direction and the millennials are very, very apt to talk about all of these things. They are very reluctant to make their life about work and education, and so we see this big swing and it would be fun to walk through this in the series, but for now, we know that we're still seeing the effects of this the greatest generation down to the silent generation we're talking about today, and this complete disregard of hard things which got passed on to the baby boomers who, for the part, dealt with that, with substance abuse, and got passed on to Generation X, my generation, which values hard work and the grind, is a badge of honor. And so you see how people born in 1928 to 1945 are still affecting those of us alive in 2024. We will continue to explore the timeline of all of this as this series continues.

Speaker 1:

The most important takeaway is that this generation was taught not to use their voice. This is tragic. It is tragic when it comes to helping them understand their value, because they were taught to be seen and not heard. Because of this basic lack of self-work, regardless of their performance. These people pass their insecurities on to their children and their children's children, and we talk about how this generation, these things, affect generation after generation after generation until somebody stops it. And so that's what I want for us as we talk about generational trauma and trauma and you and how trauma is played out, and each generation differently. This is what I want us to learn.

Speaker 1:

Today's takeaway from the silent generation, as we talk to mom next week, is they were highly encouraged to never talk about those things that bothered them and that did one of two things. One way is people were sent away into asylums and treated terribly. Secondly, those people suffered in silence, never had a voice and sometimes even to this day, don't know their self-value and their self-worth. So I want all of us to take a step back, whether you are of the silent generation, whether you are of the baby boomer generation. Especially if you're the baby boomer generation, you might be cocking your head and going, huh. That makes a lot of sense, by the way. My parents raised me because they had seen so much. They wanted better for me, and so they were hard on me. They often didn't tell me they loved me, but they were hard on me. I hope that baby boomers can understand the context of how they were raised, because they were raised by a group of people whose badge of courage was being stoic and never having a psychological weakness that resulted from trauma.

Speaker 1:

These things get passed down from generation to generation and, as I mentioned, the millennials are beginning to figure it out, but what can we do as we talk to Mama Gowan in two weeks, to stop it in us now? I don't care how old you are. It is not honoring to the Lord, to your creator, to have a stiff upper lip and to pretend that these things don't exist. It is not honoring to not use your voice you are valuable, as is your voice if you're listening and the United States and ultimately for the world, as they saw so much happen in their lifetime. That included not knowing where their next meal came from, and all the way to the invention of the TV, where they began seeing these things play out in their home. And then we were off to the races for consumerism and other technology, and so this generation found themselves, as they were retired with doubt and identity, without a way to cope, without understanding of the way they were the way they were, and so I don't want that for generations after.

Speaker 1:

And so the purpose of this series, the purpose of this podcast, is to help us understand how trauma has affected generations down through the ages, how it has been passed on to many of us, and the importance of remembering that trauma must be paid attention to, because, if not, it will pay attention to you, as we see played out in this generation. Can we change the world? Can we change the way history is written about us, about your generation? Can we have a PS at the bottom of a description about us saying this generation learned how to live with trauma. This generation understood that trauma is, unfortunately a part of life.

Speaker 1:

This generation decided to address trauma. This generation decided to take the stigma out of needing psychological help. Can that be us? And, more importantly, can we see that God wants us to break these generational curses? If you will, he wants us to use our voice, even if it's just to Him, because we matter. We are created in His image, we are image bearers and our pain matters. Our traumas matter, and we must address them or we're going to pay the price later.

Speaker 1:

We will be back here in two weeks and Mama Gallen will talk about some of these things. She'll talk about sitting around the radio and listening to news of the war. She'll talk about how they were taught to bottle up their emotions. She'll talk about all the things we talked about here today, and I can't wait for her to give us a firsthand experience of what it was like to be alive during those times when they did not know where their next meal was coming from or if a bomb was going to drop in their neighborhood. This is generational trauma. We're going to continue to take swipes at it. We're going to make everyone aware of the importance of addressing those things that are outside of your capacity to deal. Thank you for being here with me today. May you understand that you are seen, known, heard, loved and valued. I will see you back here in two weeks. You already know Everything. I'm scared of Everything. I hope you hold my tomorrow and all tomorrow holds. You already know. You already know.

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