You know you are getting old when:

[tonyb]

...when you realize that the reason so much of the world no longer seems to make sense is not that there's something wrong with the world, but that the world is no longer about *you.* I was talking the other day to an associate in her mid-forties who was expressing puzzlement at the doings of "zoomers," and grumbling how she "doesn't get these kids today." Well, of course you don't. Their culture isn't intended for you. Their marketing isn't intended for you. The world today isn't intended for you.

There comes a time, usually around the time you hit your late forties or early fifties, when you notice that people of your own age cohort are no longer the focus of popular culture, mass marketing, or mainstream politics, and you have only two options -- you can resent this, and spend the rest of your life sinking into a morass of impotent cloud-shouting about "KIDS TODAY" or you can simply acknowledge that the same thing has happened to and will happen to every generation in its own turn. The world is going to move on, whether you want it to or not, and the same thing will happen, in time, to all the Kids Today. Realizing and accepting that, I find, can save a lot of frustration. They're not living in your world, after all. You're living in theirs.

Let us not disregard the role consumer culture and appeals to it play in this, nor how our culture is more than a tad on the youth-centric side. That’s not a law of nature, though; it’s the world we made.

People form habits and biases early in life, generally. So of course the influencers — commercial, political, social — target the young. They did it when I was a kid. They do it now.

I no more live in “their world” than they live in mine. It’s everyone’s world, and we can’t very well absolve ourselves of responsibility for our place in it, for as long as we draw breath and our brains haven’t ossified.

I don’t spend my days and nights as I did way back when, and as so many young people do today. I don’t see them as being so different than I was, and am. I’m just older now and have neither the stamina for nor the interest in carousing. And I long ago stopped paying much attention to the popular entertainments of the day. (If it’s worth my time and attention, I’ll hear of it soon enough.) I hope for their sake that they’re getting some satisfaction out of it.

I do believe, however, that there are critical ages by which certain skills and ways of thinking had better be learned lest the opportunity be gone forever. I strongly suspect that most grumbling about “kids these days” are really expressions of resentment over the grumblers’ own lost opportunities. Rather than honestly assess their own circumstances and weigh what they might do about it, they direct their frustrations at the young people they unconsciously envy.

Some people never grow up.

 

[EngProf]

...when you realize that the reason so much of the world no longer seems to make sense is not that there's something wrong with the world, but that the world is no longer about *you.* I was talking the other day to an associate in her mid-forties who was expressing puzzlement at the doings of "zoomers," and grumbling how she "doesn't get these kids today." Well, of course you don't. Their culture isn't intended for you. Their marketing isn't intended for you. The world today isn't intended for you.

There comes a time, usually around the time you hit your late forties or early fifties, when you notice that people of your own age cohort are no longer the focus of popular culture, mass marketing, or mainstream politics, and you have only two options -- you can resent this, and spend the rest of your life sinking into a morass of impotent cloud-shouting about "KIDS TODAY" or you can simply acknowledge that the same thing has happened to and will happen to every generation in its own turn. The world is going to move on, whether you want it to or not, and the same thing will happen, in time, to all the Kids Today. Realizing and accepting that, I find, can save a lot of frustration. They're not living in your world, after all. You're living in theirs.

Very well put, but I'd add a few comments:
You know it's time to stop watching "Saturday Night Live" when you have literally never heard of the "Special Guest Host" or the latest "Hot Musical Group".
This is also true of network commercials - you can tell that the people in them are "Somebody Special" or they wouldn't be there, but they are completely unknown to you.
I know I am really getting old since: a) I don't care who any of these people are, and b) I don't care that I don't know who they are.

 

[EngProf]

You have just explained a conundrum Lizzie. Baby Boomers dominated the 1960's, not only was it their turn to be a young adult, there was rather a lot of them. They are often accused of being the most impatient, self-centred generation ever. Now, in old age, Boomers still behave like it's all about them, well maybe that's a bit harsh, but have you ever noticed how, in the middle of the morning or evening peak hours, they like to go out in their cars, just because they can?

Can you explain that last part, about Baby Boomers going out in their cars during rush-hours "just because they can"?
As a proud card-carrying Baby Boomer, one of the great benefits of being older is that you can almost completely avoid getting out in rush-hour traffic.
Maybe it works that way where you are, but why it would be that way escapes me. (I'm not trying to be argumentative - I'm just perplexed by the idea...)

 

[EngProf]

Not so sure....as Boomers we still control much of the world's wealth so they might still be living in our world. But what ever....I ignore them and they ignore me....we get along great.

The fact that we Baby-Boomers do control so much wealth prompts the local TV market to operate on two parallel paths. (kid-stuff and B-B classics)
There are several local independent stations with programming devoted to Baby-Boomer-era sitcoms, movies, Westerns, dramas, etc.
These include classics such as "Have Gun Will Travel", "Gunsmoke", "Dobie Gillis", "Car 54, Where Are You?", "Twilight Zone", etc., etc.
Their classic movies are truly excellent 1930's through 1960's examples. Last night the movie was "O. Henry's Full House".
In addition to several other excellent sub-segments, it was great Golden Era casting to see Fred Allen and Oscar Levant as the "villains" in "The Ransom of Red Chief".
(The commercials are Baby-Boomer oriented, and annoying as all commercials are, but they are the price you have to pay for free TV.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the hardest thing for any generation is the forced realization that no matter what it thinks it has achieved, no matter what it thinks it posesses or controls, the bald fact of the matter is that it's going to die, and most of the individuals comprising it will, within a century or so, be so completely forgotten that it'll be almost as though they never existed at all. Walk thru any old graveyard and spare a thought for the weedy, overgrown graves of generations who once considered themselves the crown of civilization.

With the exception of my mother, every single adult who played a significant role in my childhood is dead now. An entire generation -- and none of the people who now live in that neighborhood have any idea that any of those people ever existed at all. A sobering perspective when we start thinking too highly of our own place in the world.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
Another benefit of accepting one’s own lack of lasting significance is knowing that it’s true of almost everybody else.

Some people seem to be living for the largest monument in the graveyard. At least the dogs find it worth pondering.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^^
Another benefit of accepting one’s own lack of lasting significance is knowing that it’s true of almost everybody else.

Some people seem to be living for the largest monument in the graveyard. At least the dogs find it worth pondering.

Yes, I have long been wary of those that sought the statue erected in their honour. I am most content with those that are like me and content to pass from this life leaving a very small footprint and I will be quite content to pass anonymously. As long as I am kind and of service in this moment then what if anything is said of me on my passing in pretty much none of my business. Although I do worry about burdening those I leave behind with the chore of disposing of all my 'stuff'.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
None of my swag is of great monetary value, but it is of *some* monetary value, and I don’t wish to think that it will go for a dime on the dollar after I have no say in the matter.

An acquaintance had but one sibling, a sister, to consider when it came time to liquidate their parents’ estate. The folks had a lot of stuff, some of it of considerable value. Acquaintance wanted to just be done with it, to move it out for whatever it might fetch with minimal hassle and within a short timeframe. Sister felt otherwise. It became quite the bone of contention.

There’s a lesson in this, I suppose, which we are free not to heed.

 

[Zombie_61]

^^^^^^
Another benefit of accepting one’s own lack of lasting significance is knowing that it’s true of almost everybody else.

Some people seem to be living for the largest monument in the graveyard. At least the dogs find it worth pondering.

I would be happiest by leaving the smallest "footprint" possible. That being said, I've also told any and everyone who might be responsible for the disposal of my Earthly remains to use the least expensive method for getting rid of my dead carcass 'cause I really don't give a rat's hairy backside what happens to it once it stops working.

 

[Tiki Tom]

^^^^^^
Another benefit of accepting one’s own lack of lasting significance is knowing that it’s true of almost everybody else.

Some people seem to be living for the largest monument in the graveyard. At least the dogs find it worth pondering.

In high school a teacher pointed out that there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on earth. (God bless teachers.) I grew up in a beach town, and that bit of news boggled my mind. I would sit on the beach with one grain of sand on my fingertip and ponder that that was our sun... and that earth is just a speck of dust circling that sun... and I am less than an atom on that speck of dust. Then I'd look out over that vast beach and all those other "suns". I think that high school teacher finally managed to get the concept of humility into my head. In that context, yes, our little lives are inconsequential in the extreme. Shrugs. But let's make the most of it.

I still occassionally Google "more grains of sand or more stars in the sky" just to double check. It is still an amazing thing to contemplate.

 

[Harp]

A college freshman biology lecture once concluded with a professorial observance of human mortality,
two veterans; myself and a buddy now deceased, and twenty teenagers. The professor spelled it out in
graphic terms, telling all the kids the probable age-death range, how many would statistically still be alive by
a certain year...shook the class up, though a more taciturn moment could not be found.
I had made out a will at eighteen for the Army, pronounced dead at nineteen, and by a medical miracle survived,
so the issue of mortality was nothing new. The kids however were quite taken aback by the sound of the bell
dimly rung through the lecture's conclusion.

I love the film Dead Poets Society and that scene when Robin Williams shows
his students hung photos of alumni now deceased and he intones that they
seize the day of their youth. Youth is fleeting, as is life, and is all the more precious if you came near its edge.
But if allowed further time, life has a flavor all the more wonderous.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
My typical response to young people who make a point of their being young is “Don’t get used to it.”

 

[Tiki Tom]

“Youth is wasted on the young” is one I often use. Not sure who first said it.

 

[Turnip]

„Better a belly from drinking than a hunchback from working“ is what i say when approached about my growth changing from Y to X and Z with the years.

 

[GHT]

Can you explain that last part, about Baby Boomers going out in their cars during rush-hours "just because they can"?
As a proud card-carrying Baby Boomer, one of the great benefits of being older is that you can almost completely avoid getting out in rush-hour traffic.
Maybe it works that way where you are, but why it would be that way escapes me. (I'm not trying to be argumentative - I'm just perplexed by the idea...)

Don't forget, I did say that I might have been a tad harsh. There is a minority of mostly men, bored in retirement perhaps, who could do whatever errands they are planning between the hours of 9:30am and 3:30pm. Instead, they like going to places like the recycle centre at 8:00am, or perhaps they need fuel in their car, another reason to join commuters in the peak period. Sometimes I wonder if they miss the cut and thrust of work. This baby boomer certainly does, retired at 64, endured it for eighteen months and have once more, rejoined the rat-race.

 

[tonyb]

An old community college history teacher of my acquaintance, long since deceased, opined that we push young people into the workforce too early and retire old people waaay too early.

The nature of work has changed, for most of us, since we determined that 65 was an appropriate retirement age. For those working in occupations requiring a strong back and physical stamina, 65 might be getting too old. But for desk jockeys?

 

[belfastboy]

Let us not disregard the role consumer culture and appeals to it play in this, nor how our culture is more than a tad on the youth-centric side. That’s not a law of nature, though; it’s the world we made.

People form habits and biases early in life, generally. So of course the influencers — commercial, political, social — target the young. They did it when I was a kid. They do it now.

I no more live in “their world” than they live in mine. It’s everyone’s world, and we can’t very well absolve ourselves of responsibility for our place in it, for as long as we draw breath and our brains haven’t ossified.

I don’t spend my days and nights as I did way back when, and as so many young people do today. I don’t see them as being so different than I was, and am. I’m just older now and have neither the stamina for nor the interest in carousing. And I long ago stopped paying much attention to the popular entertainments of the day. (If it’s worth my time and attention, I’ll hear of it soon enough.) I hope for their sake that they’re getting some satisfaction out of it.

I do believe, however, that there are critical ages by which certain skills and ways of thinking had better be learned lest the opportunity be gone forever. I strongly suspect that most grumbling about “kids these days” are really expressions of resentment over the grumblers’ own lost opportunities. Rather than honestly assess their own circumstances and weigh what they might do about it, they direct their frustrations at the young people they unconsciously envy.

Some people never grow up.

I coached youth baseball for many years, over two generations with a hiatus in the middle. In my experience I can say that the boys (mid teens) were pretty much unchanged over the years. Admittedly I had a big hammer as this was a travelling rep team and you had to earn your way onto the team and earn a starting role. But for both generations of the boys they responded to discipline applied evenly and fairly. They were given a handbook at their selection to the team with a clearly outlined set of rules and behaviours. I never had to kick a boy off the team, not once for failure to follow. Every so often I had to snap the line a bit on a few of them. The one big difference was the involvement of the parents...the shift was massive. My first decade of coaching I had boys on the team that I met the parents maybe once or twice over the course of two seasons...the boys walked to practice and back home. My second go round parents would chauffer the boys to the practices and stick around to watch. It seemed the parent's lives revolved around the boys athletic life. It took a bit of getting used to as well as learning to manage the parent's expectations when they whined about little johnnie's playing time as obviously I was blind to the talent. But that was but a minor annoyance. The boys were great kids in the 70's and then great kids again in the 2000's. The ones I stayed in touch with grew into successful high functioning adults.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I pity kids whose parents live vicariously through them.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^
I pity kids whose parents live vicariously through them.

I got to know the parents as well as the kids as the parents spent so much time hanging around. I wanted to ask..."Dont you have a life?" but my wife cautioned me against asking. But the instances of 'stage door' parents really was minimal. We often scouted the parents as well as the talent of the kid and I have to admit to not picking some talented players as I really did not want to have to endure the poor kid's parents. Not fair to punish the kid but it was my experience too and I just could not abide some parents.

 

[LizzieMaine]

^^^^^
I pity kids whose parents live vicariously through them.

And those kids will often grow up loathing their parents. Funny how that works out. Children are human beings -- not trophies, pets, or fashion accessories.