I mean, I'm a mentor and advisor. I hear things. I learn things. Some of it I truly do not want to know.

Pre-Internet youth culture was different. But some of the current environment began with us 70s cohorts. The 1960s babies in my lifeworld were all married by age 25.

My aunties and uncles and cousins and all their friends got married young. I figured it was automatic.

Imagine my surprise in the 2000s when men were like, hold up. Marriage? LOL! Girlfriends captured my coming of age moment well. Being single at 30 was not it back then.

Our elders thought, and still think, something was wrong with us.

There were a few converging factors for us that led to lower marriage rates. We were a small birth cohort, anyway. Then there was the PIC, murders, HIV/AIDS fearmongering, demonization of poor Black motherhood...

We didn't do a very good job mentoring our younger generations on our culture's courtship rituals. I regret that.

Black Americans actually have a history of courtship, but a lot of it kinda died on the vine when we were coming of age. You can excavate some of it from our music.

There are still some young people who court! When I see it, I think it's absolutely adorable. And I don't mind people thinking that I'm a million years old when I say that.