The Changing Face of Patriotism: What Midlife Women Know That Younger Generations Don’t (And Vice Versa)
A reflection on how love of country evolves across generations
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about patriotism as we approached this 4th of July holiday here in the US, not the bumper sticker kind or the social media declaration type, but the deeper, more complicated relationship we have with our country. Specifically, I’m fascinated by the stark differences I see between how midlife women (let’s call us the Gen X and older Millennial crowd) express patriotism versus how younger generations approach it.
It hit me during a recent gathering when my 45-year-old friend quietly teared up during the national anthem, while my 23-year-old niece spent the posting Instagram stories about Indigenous peoples’ rights and military spending. Both women love America. Both want it to be better. But their patriotism looks completely different.
The Midlife Woman’s Patriotism: Complicated Love
For women my age, patriotism often feels like loving a difficult family member. We’ve lived long enough to see the country’s flaws up close—the Iraq War, the 2008 financial crisis, decades of political dysfunction, but we’ve also experienced enough to understand how fragile democracy can be. Our patriotism is earned, weathered, and deeply personal.
We remember when crossing party lines wasn’t career suicide. We lived through 9/11 as adults, feeling the vulnerability and unity that followed. Many of us have buried grandparents who served in World War II, carrying their stories and their faith in American ideals even as we question how well we’ve lived up to them.
Our patriotism tends to be quieter, more institutional. We vote religiously, even in off-year elections. We tear up at military homecomings. We believe in the system while simultaneously working to reform it from within. We’ve learned that progress is slow and that perfect is the enemy of good.
The Younger Generation’s Patriotism: Revolutionary Love
Younger Americans, Gen Z and younger Millennials, express patriotism differently, and frankly, it took me a while to recognize it as patriotism at all. Their love of country often looks like rebellion against it.
They see climate change as an existential threat and view older generations’ inaction as a betrayal. They’ve grown up with school shooting drills and inherited a gig economy that promises little security. They’ve watched democracy itself become a partisan battleground. For them, blind allegiance feels like complicity.
Their patriotism is loud, urgent, and uncompromising. It shows up in protests, in voting drives, in mutual aid networks. They believe America can be better, but they’re not willing to wait for gradual change. Their timeline is shorter, their patience thinner, and their methods more disruptive.
When they kneel during the anthem or burn flags or post angry TikToks about American foreign policy, they’re not rejecting the country—they’re demanding it live up to its promises. Now.
Where We’re Missing Each Other
The tragedy is how often these two forms of patriotism talk past each other. Midlife women see younger activists as naive, ungrateful for the progress that’s already been made. “We fought for these rights,” we say. “Why don’t they appreciate how far we’ve come?”
Meanwhile, younger generations see our measured approach as complacency. “The house is on fire,” they respond. “Why are you worried about filing the proper permits before calling the fire department?”
Both perspectives have merit. Both come from love.
What We Can Learn From Each Other
We need both kinds of patriotism. Midlife women bring institutional knowledge, patience, and an understanding of how change actually happens in a democracy. We know which battles to pick and how to build coalitions that last.
Younger generations bring urgency, moral clarity, and a refusal to accept “that’s just how things are” as an answer. They see possibilities we’ve forgotten and refuse to be limited by our sense of what’s “realistic.”
The midlife woman’s patriotism says: “I love this country enough to work within its systems, however flawed.” The younger generation’s patriotism says: “I love this country enough to tear down its systems when they don’t serve justice.”
Maybe the real patriotism is holding both truths simultaneously. Maybe it’s understanding that democracy requires both the patient institutional reformer and the urgent revolutionary, both the person who honors tradition and the person who challenges it.
Moving Forward Together
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that love, whether for a person, a family, or a country, isn’t simple. It requires contradiction, embracing complexity, and sometimes sitting with discomfort. My patriotism today includes room for my niece’s anger and my neighbor’s tears, for protest and pledges of allegiance, for pride and shame existing in the same heart.
The question isn’t whether we love America. The question is whether we love it enough to let that love evolve, to let it be challenged, to let it grow beyond what we thought it could be.
The most patriotic thing any of us can do is to keep loving this country enough to demand better from it, and from ourselves.
What does patriotism look like in your generation? How has your relationship with your country changed over time? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with someone from a different generation. We need more conversations that bridge these divides, not fewer.
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~Judy Davis is a motivational speaker, published author and Veteran Caregiver who shares candid stories, transformative mindset shifts, and practical strategies to help midlife women navigate the unexpected twists of life.