It feels right that there are differences\u00a0between generations.\u00a0 I like the gap.\u00a0 It’s enjoyable being\u00a0with younger people\u00a0and then it’s\u00a0sometimes a relief\u00a0 being with people\u00a0 who begin sentences with “I remember when.”<\/p>\n
When I was in my teens, we didn’t call the progression from child to adult anything at all.\u00a0 We weren’t “teenagers” or “adolescents.”\u00a0 We were sometimes “youth” (how’s that for an impersonal label?) but mostly we were somebody’s kid.\u00a0 Since our generation didn’t have its own name, we didn’t call\u00a0the spaces between generations\u00a0anything special either.\u00a0 We had\u00a0no “gap” as such.\u00a0 That term began to be tossed around more during the blooming season of flower children when we cautioned the world not to trust anyone over 30.<\/p>\n
By then it was\u00a0too\u00a0late\u00a0to distrust my elders.\u00a0 I was already looking forward to being older.\u00a0 I admired women in their 30’s – thought they had all the answers.\u00a0 I couldn’t wait to look like them, dress like them, and somehow achieve their mysterious sophistication.\u00a0 It\u00a0seemed to me then that they owned something I needed.<\/p>\n
Now adolescence is prolonged so that sometimes a new generation doesn’t get started at all.\u00a0 We’re chipping away at what I always considered\u00a0a natural distance between kids and parents.\u00a0 Terms like “re-juvenile” and “boomerang babies” describe some in their 30’s and\u00a040’s who either never quite launched from the nest, or because of various factors end up living back with their parents for a time.<\/p>\n
The sticky part is that while\u00a0these grown children were away, some of their parents were taking good care of themselves, eating right, exercising, developing new interests, trying on different things and closing\u00a0the gap even more, making it\u00a0tough to tell who’s who in a household.<\/p>\n
I embrace the concept of generations helping each other, and during these tough times, we see\u00a0some families deciding to\u00a0stay together,\u00a0returning to\u00a0an\u00a0earlier model of more than one generation living in the same house.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I’d hate to see the differences between generations obliterated\u00a0completely.\u00a0\u00a0 Nature acknowledges distinct seasons, and it feels natural that we should\u00a0too.\u00a0 It is a comfort, especially during trying times, to check in with the generations that came before us\u00a0and realize that this too shall pass.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n