... About Young Adult Friends relationship to Quakerism

I wrote the following in response to this Quaker blog discussion on Young Adult Friends and "age segregation":

One YAF said of FGC Gathering that if her community is everyone at the gathering (instead of, say, a subset of the 18-35 group), her community ends up being nowhere - I guess you just can't connect to 1500 people all at once.

My suspicion is that the same sort of power dynamic that resulted in the really positive comments I have heard about some women's gatherings or women's business meetings (that is, women's ideas and voices wouldn't be overpowered by men's), is occurring now between young adults and older adults in Quakerism.

We as young adults in Quakerism are grossly outnumbered. Older adults don't know how to (and can't be expected to) create the kinds of events and spaces that will draw young adults into this community in equal proportions to older age groups. Our few voices are being drowned out, to some extent. This is despite the fact that, on the whole, our older adults want nothing more than to create a kind of Quakerism that will nurture us YAFs as part of the community.

Let's not let our desire to be a part of the wider Quaker world defeat our efforts to create space where young adults can have a strong Quaker experience in the ways that work best for our generation.