Baby boomers and millennials all need to grow up
Should it not, in a modern country, be possible to help anyone in need, however old?
The House of Lords has this week recommended that some pensioner “perks” should be scrapped, with the money spent on young people instead. The suggestions by the Committee on Intergenerational Fairness may seem strange given that the average age of the Lords is apparently 66, but don’t forget that this lot are probably not in desperate need of a bus pass or the winter fuel allowance – both of which they feel should only be given five years after state pension age, with any savings passed on to allow local authorities to meet the housing needs of the young.
Will nobody think of the huge swathes of us who are neither young nor old, on course to live a life entirely free of “perks”, working until we drop dead to pay off the vast mortgages on our tiny homes? All anyone ever goes on about is the bloody baby boomers and the millennials. As my long dead grandmother might have said: what are the rest of us? Chopped meat? Are we simply collateral in this intergenerational war, innocent bystanders taken out by the crossfire created by the young and old, as they shout insults back and forth? Look out, here comes a volley of people screeching “WE HAD IT MUCH WORSE IN OUR DAY!” Uh-oh, the kids are firing back with an eco-friendly round of lamentations about the wholesale destruction of the planet by their gas-guzzling grandparents!
Run! Duck and cover so you
don’t get taken out by the stampeding armies belonging to House Farage and House Thunberg as they both vie to take the Iron Throne and rule over us!
There has, of course, always been a war between generations, but ever since Brexit it seems to have stepped up a gear. In recent weeks fighting has intensified thanks, in part, to one Greta Thunberg, coming over here and stealing our children, not to mention our politicians, who surely should be focusing on the small matter of Britain leaving the EU instead of fawning over a 16-year-old girl with pigtails. Life imitates art, of course, and this is all being played out culturally, too: in John Lanchester’s novel, The Wall, the blameless young are resentfully packed off to defend a country that has been drowned by their careless parents. Even Jeremy Paxman, 68, has waded in, describing his generation as “the luckiest that ever lived” in his new column for Saga magazine.
As an inbetweener (is that what we should be known as?), I have to say that this war seems a little counterproductive to me, not to mention exceptionally tedious. And isn’t it ironic that a Committee on Intergenerational Fairness should suggest robbing from one to give to another? Why must it be an either/or situation? Should it not, in a modern, developed country, be perfectly possible to help anyone in need, whatever their age? Or is that terribly wide-eyed and naive of me?
I recently devoured The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) by psychotherapist Philippa Perry. It is a parenting book, of sorts, but really it can be read by anyone with an interest in living a more harmonious, less resentful life.
One of the things that Perry emphasises is the importance of intergenerational socialising
– for healthy development, babies need to “play” with people of all ages, from older children through to greatgrandparents. But this intergenerational socialising is something that can benefit us all. Life is much more interesting and fulfilling when one is forced to widen their horizons beyond their contemporaries. The young have much to learn from the old, and I am sorry to say that it works the other way round, too. Lacking humility and being a know-it-all is not a good look on anyone over the age of… well, three.
Perry’s book also stresses how crucial it is to let your children feel heard – but this is something all of us need, no matter how many candles there are on our next birthday cake. Brexit has caused a toxic divide between the generations – a divide that seems to have put all of us back in the school playground, bickering like seven-year-olds. Not, of course, that there is anything wrong with sevenyear-olds. They can continue pulling each other’s pigtails. The rest of us, though, need to grow up.