When I was
young we used to ask that question as an informal greeting. We didn’t give the
answer tendered by our friend much thought.
Now, as we have grown older we ask that question with
consternation. America is beginning to look nothing like the America of the recent past.
America is in the throes of a demographic transformation. Huge generation gaps have opened up in our political and social values, our economic well-being, our family structure, our racial and ethnic identity, our gender norms, our religious life, and our technology use. Our present is marked by the most striking social, racial, and economic shifts the country has seen in a century.
Today’s Millennials—many do not like to be called that—are well-educated in terms of technical expertise but find when they step off the campus they are unemployed or quickly become underemployed (so they think because of an increasing entitlement mentality) and are finding they are becoming the first generation in American history to have a lower standard of living than their parents. Meantime, our researchers say that currently over 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring every single day, most of them not as well prepared financially as they’d hoped. These generational changes are contributive in polarizing our politics, putting stresses on our social safety net, and presenting our elected and religious leaders with a daunting challenge: How to keep faith with the old without bankrupting the young and starving the future.
Every aspect of our demography is being fundamentally transformed. Our population is rapidly becoming non-white, and our median age will soon edge above 40—both unprecedented milestones in our nation and in other ‘developed’ nations. It is not so with the ‘developing’ nations. With heavy immigration flowing from the less ‘advantaged’ nations into the U.S. we are poised to remain relatively young but increasingly poor. It is said that if we can get our spending priorities and generational equities in order many experts say we can keep our economy second to none. Successfully addressing these issues will certainly help. But the issue is not all economic.
America is in the throes of a demographic transformation. Huge generation gaps have opened up in our political and social values, our economic well-being, our family structure, our racial and ethnic identity, our gender norms, our religious life, and our technology use. Our present is marked by the most striking social, racial, and economic shifts the country has seen in a century.
Today’s Millennials—many do not like to be called that—are well-educated in terms of technical expertise but find when they step off the campus they are unemployed or quickly become underemployed (so they think because of an increasing entitlement mentality) and are finding they are becoming the first generation in American history to have a lower standard of living than their parents. Meantime, our researchers say that currently over 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring every single day, most of them not as well prepared financially as they’d hoped. These generational changes are contributive in polarizing our politics, putting stresses on our social safety net, and presenting our elected and religious leaders with a daunting challenge: How to keep faith with the old without bankrupting the young and starving the future.
Every aspect of our demography is being fundamentally transformed. Our population is rapidly becoming non-white, and our median age will soon edge above 40—both unprecedented milestones in our nation and in other ‘developed’ nations. It is not so with the ‘developing’ nations. With heavy immigration flowing from the less ‘advantaged’ nations into the U.S. we are poised to remain relatively young but increasingly poor. It is said that if we can get our spending priorities and generational equities in order many experts say we can keep our economy second to none. Successfully addressing these issues will certainly help. But the issue is not all economic.
It takes
more than that. We need to get our moral,
religious and social values back on track to mend the breech. We have to replace the foundational pillars
that have been yanked out if we hope to get out of free-fall.
When I went
to school in the 1950’s and ‘60’s we talked about a ‘Social Contract,’ an
age-old compact—parents (must) take care of children and children (should) take
care of parents. Every society and each
family is a covenant between the generations—I care for you when you’re young;
you care for me when I’m old. Support
flows toward need. There needs to be
generational fairness—it is not all ‘take’ and no ‘give’—and not all one way. We have a shared destiny.
All
generations see the world through a lens shaped by the ups and downs of life. Some
gain wisdom from the experiences—of their own and those who preceded them. The young hopefully will appreciate that experience—the
experience of their elders—has value.
Our (my)
generation’s last big mission might be to help right the ship of state for
today’s young. What will our children’s
inheritance really be? A Greek proverb
says that societies become great when old men plant trees whose shade they know
they will never sit in. Cultural expectations enforced by custom,
convention, peer pressure or conscience are cracking. We need to fill the cracks with the cement of
moral virtue—individual, family, civic, generational—that has been chipped
away.
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