Gen Z takes to the bingo hall, parents in 2024 feel like they can’t win, and Sabrina Carpenter’s new album is more salty than sweet. But first:
Slang of the Week: “the chat”
Any group of people assembled and present for a real-time conversation or interaction. The term perhaps originated from text group chats, or streamers who constantly talk to their “chat,” but has now morphed to include any real-life gatherings as well. This means that the people sitting in the classroom to your left and right could be “the chat,” the people who showed up at youth group this Wednesday could be “the chat,” etc.
Three Big Conversations
1. Dauber’s Delight
What it is: An ideal “night out” for Gen Z might look more like an event you’d expect to see at a community for senior citizens, with game-night activities like bingo, chess, and mahjong gaining popularity.
Why it’s happening: While one might assume that Gen Zers think of Bingo as “the sister from Bluey,” the game has been quietly catching on with younger people as a cozy, low-stakes pastime. Much like the crossword puzzle craze, board games and bingo provide an element of nostalgia that feels equal parts engaging and comforting. These games don’t need a boost from a substance like alcohol to make them entertaining, and it’s fine to show up for the evening’s activities without a partner. Also popular are bingo apps where players can compete every day, sometimes (depending on state or local laws) for a cash prize.
Continue the conversation: What’s your favorite board game or sit-down activity to do with your friends?
2. Parental Advisory
What it is: The US Surgeon General has issued a public health advisory for parents, saying they carry a level of stress that puts all family members at risk.
What it’s based on: Several recently published studies reveal the troubling realities parents face. One in four US parents say they are financially stressed, wondering within the last year whether they’ll have enough to cover basic expenses. Nearly 70% say parenting now is harder than it was twenty years ago, citing new technologies and social media use as primary causes. Parents report higher levels of loneliness than adults without children, and cultural expectations have shifted toward a time-intensive style of parenting that many parents may feel they cannot possibly meet. The Surgeon General suggests some solutions, but also acknowledges that a culture of support and recognition for parents could benefit everyone.
Continue the conversation: When you’re going through a hard time, does it help to hear that others are too? Why or why not?
3. Sweet n’ Spicy
What it is: After a summer of dominating the streaming charts with her singles “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” Sabrina Carpenter has released her full album, Short n’ Sweet.
Why it’s not all that sweet: It turns out that “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” were decent indicators of what Short n’ Sweet would end up being. Sonically, the album features a fuzzy, soft, “girly-pop” style with a little country mixed in, but lyrically the album is more of Carpenter’s now-signature style of raunchy double-entendres mixed with funny and often mean writing. Put simply: the album is full of sexually charged and explicit lyrics, but it’s also often full of criticisms of men, sometimes of women, and a fair amount of self-deprecation. Some of the songs even feel adversarial, as Carpenter rips into her romantic partners, disparaging their intelligence or temperament.
Let’s go deeper on this one…
And a Little Salty
While it sounds fun, light-hearted, and poppy, if you stand back and examine Short n’ Sweet, it’s an album concerned with the complex dynamics between men and women, especially in romantic relationships. One of the album’s recurring themes is how Sabrina clearly doesn’t think the men she surrounds herself with are, let’s say, the brightest. In her song “Sharpest Tool” she sings “I know you’re not / The sharpest tool in the shed” and in her song “Slim Pickins” she laments that the boy she just hooked up with “…doesn’t even know / The difference between ‘there,’ ‘their’ and ‘they are.’”
While these songs are meant to be funny, her digs at the men she chooses also feel mean, and it’s hard not to look at Carpenter herself and ask, why are you dating guys like this? Her answer? That she “needs” the emotional and physical aspects of relationships. She needs, as she sings with an admittedly clever rhyme in “Slim Pickins,” “Just to get my fixings.”
To her credit, Sabrina Carpenter also takes women to task for their approach to relationships, like how they can tell themselves lies to convince themselves that a relationship is going well in the song “Lie to Girls.” She also seems to be pretty aware of her own shortcomings and self-deceptive tendencies.
Still, with Carpenter’s current cultural ubiquity and popularity with the rising generation, her voice carries a lot of weight. And as these young people navigate hormones and relationships, it’s important as parents and trusted adults to guide them in understanding not only their own worth, but their partner’s too.
In Ephesians 5, Paul details a divinely-inspired perspective on marriage, one of mutual respect and sacrifice. Part of the implication of these verses is that we will never find a perfect spouse, but we can love, respect, and give grace to the one we have right now. While our teens might not be married quite yet, the way we value and honor the opposite sex communicates much about how people should be treated in romantic relationships. As Christians, we’re called to a higher standard of love than the self-serving variant Sabrina Carpenter sings about.
For a full “translation” of everything in this issue, check out our Monday Roundtable podcast on Spotify or Apple. In the meantime, here are three questions to spark conversation with your teens:
- Have you listened to the new Sabrina Carpenter album? What’s your favorite song on the album?
- How important do you think intelligence is in a potential partner?
- What do you think it looks like to love someone in a Christian way?
Parenting together,
The Axis Team
PS: This week we interviewed Sam Jolman on The Sex Talk You Never Got. Check it out here!