"New Older Generation
vs. Young
Generation "
By
: Benedicte SOILLY
Conference
of AFICS at the UN on October 30, 2002
I want to thank
Helen
Geffen Roht for her nice invitation and
Susanne Paul who is the President of Global Action on Aging for her warm
support.
I will try to
help you know a little more about the place of old people in France but
also toward the French young generation and to explain to you why I think
this title of a famous French book: “ Old Age and Young Society: the
missed meeting” is so true by Herve Marcillat.
As a beginning let me give you two examples. A friend of mine took
her French
High School Diploma last June. One old man in his late 70’s was sitting
two seats behind her. My friend noticed he succeeded when the results
have been posted on the High School’s walls: his birthday was not
exactly the same as the other students…
One other story: Lionel Jospin, the former socialist leader who ran for
the Presidency last April made an surprising off-record comment about his
opponent. He described indeed Jacques Chirac, 70 years old, as quote a ”
worn-out and old-looking” man, it made me smile but not the old citizens
who had the right to vote … just as me!! The elder man, Mr Jacques
Chirac won the election!!
These examples
prove how the older generation has changed, I mean, in my eyes or in the
eyes of the Young Generation.
Young people like me don’t know the meaning of “age”. Maybe because
we think we have eternity in front of us: “ We have time to become
old” is an old (!) song. Among the members of the generation born in
1800, only a third overtook 60 years old and 6 % only reached the age of
80. Among the members of the generation born in 1900, 55 % were still
alive at 60 years old and 26 % at 80. In other words, to be 60 in the 19th
Century meant to reach the old age, those who reached it were called
“survivors”. It was already less common a century later and a large
majority of the baby-boomers generation will reach their 60’s.
The Young Generation just begins to realize the disconnection between old
age and pension. When we called somebody an “old person “, it can be
seen as pejorative. It is more polite to call this person a pensioner
especially when you are young and when you don’t want to be seen as
rude. The pensioners are anxious not to be tied to old people, what
implied a negative judgment of the old age and even of the age itself.
Maybe we have to make remind certain young people that the physical
ageing begins from 20 years old…
In young people’s mind, it is not any more to live and to die that are
henceforth associated but to age and to die.
The concern of not looking old prematurely, to be
‘with it” tends to become a rather widely shared preoccupation. When
young people think about elected offices, they think older people deny
them the chance to move ahead in, to let them get their own chance. In
rural areas, old people expect youth to conform to the discipline and
experience of elders. An old saying says "you will be regretful if
you do not do as your elders tell you." The older generation feels
that what they learn from life is correct and the young must accept this.
Younger people have to be obedient, thinking that they themselves were
really wrong, because "wise" ancient people had said so. The
French Young generation is now trying to get out of this one-way dialog.
On the other hand, commercial advertisement constitutes another domain of
preference of the ‘jeunisme’: to present to the screen children,
teenagers and young adults. This is supposed to attract the biggest number
of consumer. As if all were between 10 and 50 years old in a society that
ages! This is called ‘agism’: segregation exercised toward a person
because of its age.
We younger people do not think that the workplace is our personal
playground. Nor do we feel that anyone over 30 should disappear. I am just
20 and enjoy working with older people and feel that I can learn a lot
from them. However, it is nice when you are able to work with those who
share your interests and goals. I have nothing in common with them outside
of work. I hope you won’t call it ageism.
What is the
generation gap? On one side: the twenty-somethings and younger. On the
other: the sixty-somethings and older. I often listened to variations on
these two conflicting point of views in France:
-Seniors are
the ones who care about the broader community and are the backbone of
volunteer programs and service organizations. Young people are selfish and
don’t want to make commitments.
-Young people
are the true activists today. Older people may do nice, helpful things as
volunteers, but mainly the young are doing cutting-edge work for social
change.
It is dismaying
to see time and talent wasted on such silly debate. Today, the generation
gap has not disappeared, but it is shrinking in many families. The old
authoritarian approach to discipline – a starchy "Because I said
so, that's why" – is giving way to a new egalitarianism and a
"Come, let us reason together" attitude.
According to me, this is connected with changes in lifestyle and even with
technical progress. Living standard has rapidly risen in latest years.
Life became nicer, better but running faster as well. Therefore it seems
shorter and that’s the reason why we became more egoistic. We want to
live and don’t want to look after others. Another thing is that
formerly, old people were an important information, knowledge and
experience resource. Everybody listened to the interesting stories that
grandparents told to their grandchildren. Old people used to be
intelligence of the nation. They gave advices, helped, and assisted. We
can say that old people were much more able and more conductive and
helpful to the society. Today’s little child rather turns on the
television than listens to grandmother. Today, old people aren’t
significant information resource any more. They are in fact outcasts. We
move them to old people’s houses. But I don’t reproach this solution.
Old people like standstill and solitude. Maybe they don’t need the
society so much. Many of them told me that, however I can’t understand
that. Now I can’t imagine my life without many people that I meet every
day. Another thing is that certain level of egoism is right.
Spending time
with seniors makes the young people realize not all old people are
grouchy. They find out they can have fun with them. On the other hand, old
people learn the stereotype of 21st Century young people as
Nintendo addicted, skateboard crazed, and drugs addicted is all wrong.
This kind of stereotype against urban young people in France is still
increasing in rural areas old people’s mind.
But to learn that the most majority of young people are all right, we
both have to communicate. Many friends of mine believed that there should
be more interaction between older people and school students. Many young
people had no contact with older people, either because their grandparents
had died, or lived in other regions or no longer played an active part of
the families lives.
The family is the pivot around of which articulate the actions of natural
solidarity. Grand parents contribute to the forming of their grand
children’s personality. Moreover, this place is recognized by the French
law, which grants to the grant parents specific rights (particularly in
terms of visits when the parents have divorced).
Beyond this human dimension, the economic accompanying toward the young
adults is strongly developed. Older people are very generous to younger
generations in their own families. These financial intergenerational
streams were estimated by the INSEE, French Public Institute for
Statistical Studies, to 20 billion dollars for the year 1999.
The grand parents have as well a more traditional role of “bearers of
memory”: an individual, domestic or collective memory. I always have
wished to ask my grant father about the World War II when he was a
prisoner in Germany not only because I am a history-holic person. I never
dared: he was too unapproachable. He died 3 years ago: I wish I could turn
the clock back five years and ask him about his story. So when my grand
mother told me she is writing their memories of their life together, I
feel delighted and relieved: this treasure won’t be lost.
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