Will the Gen Z efforts Pay off in the Long Run?
Not so long ago, my 5yo daughter woke me on a Saturday morning and sold me an idea. It sounded so selfless that I bought it line, hook and sinker without a second thought. It was so elaborate and the facts tallied so well. I even hugged her tightly in appreciation.
She told me now that she has grown bigger in height and weight, she was considering donating her bike to her brother instead of continuing to use it and mess it up. She told me that she knew I didn’t have money but she would patiently wait until I got something.
The idea was sold to me during the holidays. As a matter of financial literacy, I try my best to let her know that back to school months gobble up money leaving parents with little to spare for other things. So, she let the back to school season end.
Though I thought she would give me like two months, she came at the tail end of last month and reported to me that she had already found the bike of her choice and negotiated the price and even secured a discount. It was actually true she had gotten a discount of kshs. 1650.
On the 5th of this month, she came to me and told me that since the school fees had been cleared, it was time for me to honor her deal. On my side, the maths were not mathing and I was considering going for an ex-Britain bike. But with the Gen Alpha, you just don’t push things down their throats. They know a few things here and there.
I told her if she went for a new bike, I needed more time to top up the cash. It is at that point that she told me to place the deposit as I looked for the balance. Cornered already? I did not have a lot of space to give excuses.
So, that was in the morning. When I was done with grooming so as to leave the house, she requested to take me to her dealer so that I could commit the deposit. Now it struck my head that I had lost all the grounds for negotiation and all that remained was action.
I told her mom to try and convince her to wait a little bit so that I could buy time. Being the Gen Z she is, she told me that she didn’t want to interfere with our deal as she was not involved from the start. She was right. So I lost all the grounds for negotiation and all that remained was action.
What broke the camel’s back was a simple statement from my daughter. She said, “I love you dad and thank you for being a good dad who keeps his promises.” It is at this point that I sent her mom the money for the bike and servicing.
When we were growing up, we sent requests to our parents and mostly we were not given a chance to know if the answer was a yes or no. We only left with hopes that it will be done. That clearly defines why the generations before Gen Z are easy to blackmail because getting information even from parents was not a norm.
Gen Z has started holding everyone to account. Be it the parents or the authorities. The resistance from the KK government might take a few years but the Gen Alpha will get things that Gen Z will leave incomplete fixed. The Alphas know how to negotiate and follow it up. They are factual and courteous.
In the next decade, politicians will only seek positions to serve and not to serve their selfish interests or enrich themselves.
As I leak my wounds of not asking for full disclosures of the deal from my daughter, I have learned to ask for details whenever a deal is placed on my table no matter how harmless on my pocket it might look. Each time I joined the negotiation table unprepared, I ceded more ground unknowingly!
And yes, I have high hopes that as a country, with the new spirit in the younger generation, we are headed to a departure from the conmanship that started immediately after independence.
