In 1965 the up and coming British rock band The Who reserved the 7th track on their debut album for a song called The Kids are Alright. This 1966 proto music video to accompany the song is a great place to start in understanding the era and getting a feel of the direction the music was headed.

While a few of the initial melody strands will remind you of the Beatles, the overall sound is a bang on representation of the 1960s musical phenomena known as the British Invasion. Yet the band’s sound remains unique and very much The Who.

We see the individual physical and performance characteristics that became the band’s trademarks: John Entwistle’s muscular fingering on the bass, Pete Townsend’s full windmill arm rotation as he lays down his guitar licks, Keith Moon’s posture, expressions, and unusual stick grip as he peers out from behind his drum kit, and of course Roger Daltrey’s ease and poise as a lead vocalist—as if he were born into the role.

Most enjoyable however, is how the group anticipates the ridiculousness of the music videos that would appear in the decades to follow—videos that are painfully self-important in their struggle to make the viewers think that the artists are actually singing when they are clearly not. Sure, there are some great music videos, but the bad ones really stick in our memories and here The Who take an early poke at them.

Those were indeed innocent times when four lads could set up their instruments in London’s Hyde Park and not even pretend that they were syncing their lips and movements to the sound track. It was obvious to all what was going on and Daltrey and his mates are having fun letting us, the viewers, in on the joke. Sadly, these playful attitudes did not live on. If they had, we would have been spared a lot of the growing pains of the videos that appeared on early MTV.

These days though, I like dwelling on what the band was singing about—that the kids are alright. Those of us over age 40 seem to have forgotten what it is like to be young. Instead, we have adopted a comfortably superiority that I find rather unbecoming in an adult.

I often hear people bemoan how today’s kids don’t know anything, can’t do anything, and worse, don’t want to learn to do anything. To these Oldtimers, the world has already gone to hell in a handbasket and is merely standing at its door waiting to be let in.

I admit that some things seem just downright wrong with the younger generations. Their sense of victimhood can be measured on an Olympic scale and their posture of constant outrage does get on the nerves. I do not understand their need for “safe spaces” to protect them against the free speech of others and their quest to “de-platform” speakers with whom they disagree. Some of their de-platforming efforts border on totalitarianism and should frighten us all. And don’t get me started on parents who won’t let their children play outside.

Yet I think that these incidents are still the exception and not the rule. I really do believe the kids are alright and I am optimistic about the world that they will create. There will certainly be rough spots, but there always are. After all, the world does not sit still.

First, as I look at the younger generation, I have to ask when we who are older reached the point of the wise and accurate judge? Was it when we reached 35 and were married and had kids? When we earned additional academic degrees? Did the Fates, at age 50, suddenly reveal the mysteries of life to us and grant us to be the keepers of the knowledge flame?

Time indeed teaches most lessons in life and we who know life’s trials understandingly want to pass along some of those “lessons learned” to the next generation so they can avoid serious mistakes. Yet we are not as smart as we think and we need to be careful if we get on our high horse. Let’s remember that a fall from that height can hurt!

The fact is that if we do not let young people make their own mistakes, within reason, we are doing them a grave disservice. Errors and missteps are necessary to mature and so we should not be over-protective. Naturally, one does not wish to see rampant teenage pregnancy, juvenile crime, and other such things, but I think you know what I mean.

The truth is that young people often know more about certain things than we do. We have the benefit of experience, but they have the advantage of recent schooling, fresher minds, and an eagerness and energy that we no longer have. We need to let them learn by being the lead dogs for awhile—it will save us some effort!

Sure, while some college-aged kids are making a scene by complaining about Halloween costumes, there are fleets of bright young men and women who are studying things we never could have even dreamed of when we were young. New specialties within medicine, the tech sector, worldwide logistics, and areas of the creative and design arts that are breathtaking to witness.

Do you lead your life exactly the same way you did before 9/11? No, not at all—in fact we now live in a completely different existence and the reason for that, for better and worse, is because young people are changing the world.  

The Baby Boomers were the first generation to get a label and, many will argue, had more attention showered upon them than all the previous crops of children combined. We might question all these new generational names such as X, Z, and Millennials, but we have to remember that we started it and we have enjoyed a pretty nice place in the sun without even asking for it.

When we criticize young people for their habits and fads, we are forgetting what drove our own parents crazy. In the post war years everything from the Hula-Hoop to rock music to television was predicted to be the end of the world. Yet during these times students still went to medical school, the military still produced warriors, athletes still competed, and scientists still taught us amazing things about the world and universe around us.

While we are understandably frustrated that our children have their heads buried in a computer or phone all the time, just think of all the good livings that are now being earned in the computer industry—jobs that we never saw coming. It is our task to set examples of balance—advice we should give ourselves when we sit and binge watch 30 hours of our favorite television show!