Learning my place in society (and loving where I have found myself)
I am fifty four. I am active, I take care of myself and I do what is interesting to me. I am using the time that has been returned to me, to learn new things and to get back to hobbies I’d put aside. It is really nice to get to this point after years of evolving into a person who cares not what others think, while respecting the fact that everyone is entitled to their opinion and their space on the planet.
I do not have conversations with or read posts made by people who can’t get over that things have changed since they were young. I do not waste breath or time with people who don’t realize that the problems the world faces today has SO much to do with the way things were done in the time of their heyday.
I remember my husband’s grandmother asking us how much we earned, when we started off with our first “real” jobs. When we answered her, she looked at us incredulous and asked, “Where are all the starting professional jobs? You know, the hundred thousand dollar starting salary jobs?” and all we could tell her was, “Your son’s generation took em all! They enjoyed the spoils then implemented cutbacks and downsizing, Grandma,”.
You see, what the older generation forgets, is while things may seem different, not much has changed. We still live in a world where things are convenient and abundant for a certain few. Colour, creed and race still determine who rises to the top and who settles like sediment beneath. We still live in a time of status symbols and where race and gender can determine whether you fail or succeed and the world still operates on having that “in” because of who you know. Society still has dangerous addictions and status associated with certain brands is still a thing, but at least we no longer see ads like these where being successful was only associated with being male.
People had two to three point five children, drove huge polluting automobiles fuelled by oil that often spilled in transit into the oceans and lakes. They put food in a can and filled it with preservatives to get mother out of the kitchen and off her feet so that she could be considered a modern woman. As a woman, I am really glad I was around to see that type of advertising change.
I know progress has to start somewhere. I know that advancement comes with it’s problems but every generation has to take responsibility for the fallout it caused and we must show support and encouragement and assist the generation trying to repair the damages. I am tired of hearing derrogatory comments from older people regarding young people and they way they live their lives, their taste in art and music, their likes and dislikes and the way they access information. I am tired of hearing them complain that X-treme sports are included in the Olympics. I am tired of them disregarding and disrespecting the things in the world today that they cannot use because they don’t understand how to navigate a virtual, digital world. I am tired of hearing about the “good old days” and how much “better” it was “back in my day” and I am tired of the criticism that young people don’t know the value of a hard days work. If they don’t know, it’s because my generation, the children of the grumpy old critics, didn’t teach them because we were so busy trying to not be like our parents, some of us forgot to pass on the valuable stuff that we were taught. If our young people cannot cope, if they feel overwhelmed, if they lack confidence it is most likely because we did not teach them how to develop these abilities. Do not dare call them entitled, if you had a hand in entitling them. Do not call them unmanerly, if you spoiled them and forgot to teach them kindness, humility and gratitude.
The world has never been perfect. The world has always been evolving to make life better. Before you generalize and judge our youth for always being on their phones, remember that the radio and television was your “cellphone or tablet”. Before you criticize their demeanour, remember the generations before took away the well paying jobs giving way to a time when it took two working parents to sustain the basic needs of a family, removing a parent from the home whose best gift to a child is presence and loving guidance. No generation is perfect and every generation has it’s share of complete mis-informed idiots. But take a look around. This is the generation that is calling out abuse of law enforcement and authority. This is the generation who accepts differences in gender, ability, race and culture. This is the generation who is making us mindful of our adjectives …mindful of the way we phrase things. This is the generation that says, “Hey wait a second, I need a break. Things are a bit much right now,”. This is the generation forcing politicians to at least sound mindful when they address of the eclectic society of the world in which we live.
Living beings, especially human beings are adaptable. If we choose to not be left behind, we won’t. I’m not saying to make your way onto every social medium and interract with it exactly as young people do; what I am saying is be openminded and accepting.
Shakespearean English isn’t spoken on the daily anymore. We don’t whip out our stone tablets to chisel a letter to someone; we dont have to pound away on clunky typewriter keys and thankfully, in a pinch, when we need information, confirmation or money instantly, it is possible to receive it instantly. Isn’t that kind of nice? So what if news papers are becoming a thing of the past and fewer and fewer people have a landline and maybe we only know one person with a rotary phone. So what if I don’t need to have a paper dictionary anymore? Yes, jobs have been lost to downsizing and AI, but new jobs are and will be created and we will evolve. I mean, isn’t it fantastic that we don’t have to print, or save information on a floppy disk, writable disc or thumb-drive we can misplace because we can upload our stuff to the cloud? Isn’t it nice that there is so much less stuff to physically collect and figure out where to store? Dealing with waste is an on-going problem on our planet, which by the way is a problem that was created generations ago.
Please understand I do not believe everything in the past is archaic and worthless. We must have a past to have a present and attain a future. We have to learn what to keep and what to archive and if we choose to be left behind, we must not complain about the way things are or criticize the people who function just fine in the state of the world. I am fifty four and my children are grown. I have time now to think about what I want and what kind of senior I would like to become if given the opportunity. I want to continue to support young people in their determination to speak out against inequality, racism, sexism and bullying. I want to continue to applaud their innovations when it comes to sustainablilty and environmentally conscious ways living. I want to help them repair the planet and maybe, when they get tired, feel anxious or overwhelmed , when they feel depressed, maybe I can be there to talk to them, lift them up, and teach them ways to cope without a prescription, because they are human and they inherrited a lot of troublesome baggage from the generation before me. And my generation? Well, I think we spent a lot of time getting angry at it all, but didn’t do enough to clean up the mess. I know I could have done more.
Now, I have an opportunity now to do better by the younger generation. I don’t want be someone who constantly criticizes everything they do. I also know I don’t fit into or understand every aspect of their world, and that’s perfectly fine. We can’t be a part of everything that changes in society, all the the time but we don’t have to cut it down because we are not capable of adapting.
As I always have, I look forward to technology yet to come. I may not be able to immerse myself in all of it, but I am looking forward to being a part of whatever I can. I want to be able to live comfortably in my senior years and have technology be the reason I live without the physical and mental hassle of the silly stuff of daily living. I want to be the senior my children don’t have to be concerned about. I am fortunate enough to have been able to put things in place for when I am unable to care for myself so that I will never be their burden. It is not my children’s duty to take care of their mother while simultaneoulsy caring for their children, their jobs and the problems they will face in their lives. I want my children to want to visit me and not make time to see me out of guilt or loyalty. I am watching my parents’ generation and I am learning what NOT to do. I want my senior future to be all it can be. I want to live life with the same openmindedness I posess now. I want to see what these young people are going to do next because I am in awe of them, I believe in them and I love them. I am fifty four and I hope to be blessed with as many healthy, happy years on the planet as I have had in adulthood. I am not perfect. Things were not better back in my day and most of all, by learning and accepting my place in society, I am still able to be excited about the future. I know my place and accept that I do what I want to do, whenever I want to do it. I accept that my way of doing things may work for me but not for my twenty-something-year-old sons. I accept that my role is one of quiet observation, thought and decision making. I accept that it is possible to have a quiet role and still be impactful by throwing my support behind those charged with finding the solutions and make the changes that will save our species and planet. I accept that I do not have all the answers and I accept that things “back in my day” have become and will continue to be, my memories to share, but not begrudgingly compare to the things that “kids these days” do.
I am fifty four and I am choosing to NOT be a fussy, frustrated, frumpy, furrowed, conspiracy theorist, fosil. If longevity means becoming some paranoid, old-way-is-the-only-way, crazy,conspiracy theorist, then I’d rather die sooner, thanks very much. I remember my friends mother telling her grandmother once “Oh, gosh, granny, stop griping about everything people younger than you do! Be nice, let people like you!” Those last six words? ….Ones to live by!
