The New Ages: Why are you so obsessed with pledges? Stop making us pledge things.

I admire and adore the generations that came before me. They invented things like phones and pillow-top mattresses, which is where I discovered Chris Erskine’s missive in the Los Angeles Times about my generation this morning.

That doesn’t mean we actual millennials, ages 18 to 34, have to take this lying down (even if we did read it on an electronic screen in bed.) Below is a pledge that can be made publicly at a bar mitzvah or wedding, if you prefer, but it’s perfectly fine to internalize on your own. Many things are better not shared with the masses, including crusty memos about crossing into adulthood.

The “Other-Generation Pledge”:

I will show up on time. Not because people my age do it better than others but because it’s the courteous thing to do.

I will resist the urge to judge someone’s adulthood-readiness based on any of the following factors: perceived maturity, age, educational degree, 401K-, marital-, or employment-status.

I will shake myself from the silent majority and make my voice heard (feel free to use whatever platform available) on issues I care about.

If my first-born is a boy, I promise not to put him in front of a television and hope it will raise him for me.

If I am blessed with a girl, I will not discourage them from playing with the boys or assume she wants an Easy-Bake Oven.

If any of my children express confusion about whether they like boys or girls, I will tell them I love them instead of kicking them out of the house.

Nothing is beneath me. This applies to everyone.

I will not roll my eyes at someone for wanting a job that involves more than a 9-to-5 desk job.

I will not text and drive. Or eat tacos and drive. They’re equally dangerous.

I will not let someone in a TV “news” studio tell me how to feel or what to believe.

When I write my child’s tuition check, or see the checks they are writing themselves, I will also write my congressperson (cursive handwriting, typewriter or email will do.)

I will combat the annoying Selfie Stick by learning to use it myself, because we all know when older generations get ahold of something it’s no longer cool.

When institutions break my trust I will ask questions and demand reasonable and actionable change.

I will counsel a young person to save 15% of everything they earn because, at this point, my generation has ensured Social Security is icing on a mythical cake.

I will text something trivial and banal to my children, family, or friends just because. And if I don’t know how, I will ask someone to teach me.

I will hug my kids whether they’re still living in my basement or moving out for the first time, because deep down they’re grateful for the help from that first “apartment.”

I will share resourcefulness, creativity and authenticity with the millennials (unless they’ve already taken it when we weren’t looking?)

I will be honest with myself about the cans we have kicked to the next generation, including a warming planet, self-serving political structures, guns literally everywhere and economic conditions that make entering adulthood laughable when it’s not entirely daunting.

I am entitled to nothing. Like telling one generation they’re doing it wrong, when my own generation was told the same.