Tag: Kennedy

Growing Up in a Kind World

Is it possible that older generations (including Baby Boomers) are the last ones to be optimistic, to feel that the world was basically good and kind (if you were white)? Because that doesn’t seem to be the case with younger generations.

John F. Kennedy was the first president I remembered—someone who modeled idealism, who urged us to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Even after his assassination, I remember admiring, first,  Robert F. Kennedy, and then Martin Luther King, Jr. Those deaths broke my heart, but I didn’t give up thinking we could make the world a better place.

Where did this optimism come from? Maybe it started with Baby Boomers being born after World War II, a seeming victory of good over evil that would usher in a new era. We unknowingly lived through one of the greatest economic booms in U.S. history, and we had our pick of jobs. Housing was cheap and plentiful. And I believe we were one of the last generations mostly to have parents who didn’t divorce.  We had stable homes, and most of us had fathers (not mothers) who had stable jobs, so we lived our lives in the same neighborhoods, with the same friends, going to the same schools. We had community of sorts, which the world seems to be sorely lacking now.

But the world isn’t like that anymore. A recent article in the New York Times said the generation of Millennials grew up with the Harry Potter books and the idea of good conquering evil, but the next generation—Generation Z—is more cynical. Known as Zoomers, this cohort (born from 1997 to 2012) doesn’t see the world as especially good, but has encountered an unstable economy, an angry division between two political sides, and a climate that is changing before their eyes. In surveys, young people express little hope for the future. Who can blame them?

Zoomers grew up after the global financial crisis of 2008 and today face difficult job and housing markets, as well as a society where human contact has been surpassed by one in which people relate to each other on social media. This generation grew up with a president who displays anger and hatred. One of his henchmen said compassion was for losers. Are Zoomers modeling their lives on a president who cares more about making himself rich and powerful  than taking care of his constituents–all Americans?

Growing up, I don’t remember having a lot of fears except for the threat of nuclear war—a big one—but even then I trusted that world leaders would be able to come to a resolution. We grew up in a world that seemed sane and where we trusted our neighbors. Even if we weren’t sure they were the best people, we never thought of them as cruel. I know that some of my brothers faced bullies at school, but it wasn’t like being a child today and facing cruel taunts on social media, ones that can spread quickly and often cause emotional torment. Even if boys in my era pulled girls’ hair or made fun of their looks, it wasn’t like girls today being “sexualized” by males.  

How different is their world from ours—a world that older generations can hardly fathom. Is it possible that we elderly can model some kindness and goodness, or is it too late for that? I hope not.

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Seniors Take to the Streets

At the recent “No Kings” protest, I couldn’t help but notice that one-third to one-half the people who filled the city park had gray hair. Nearly 50 years after the rallies against the Vietnam war, those of us who had gathered on campuses to yell “hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today” were now holding signs that said “Royal Flush, Dump Trump” and “I want a president not a king.”  Some of the younger people had obscene signs like the ones we used to hold in our young hands: “One two three four, we don’t want your fucking war” and “Make love not war.” But in our advanced age, our signs are less angry. We’ve calmed down and don’t feel the anger as much as the sorrow that the world has gotten to where it is.

Our generation was honed on some idealism: inspired by John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; Jr., and then devastated by their assassinations. We fought for women’s and minorities’ rights. I think some of us still carry that idealism in our hearts, only to see it threatened in front of our eyes.

Can we model that decency and idealism for younger generations? For the “No Kings” protest, residents of the largest senior facility in town, some in wheelchairs and using walkers, stood by the highway with signs denouncing the actions of a president who has arrogantly cut government agencies and workers, and now threatens to cut aid to seniors, the poor and disabled.  No wonder there are so many older people out there—we want to protect Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

But it’s more than just looking out for our own interests. At one protest last week deploring the administration’s cruel and random seizing of immigrants, it was mostly older women that lined the street with signs. Do women have more empathy, feel more the pain of immigrants being torn from their families? This is not to say that men aren’t part of these protests, but their numbers are fewer.

We seniors know that the world wasn’t always like this, where a president gets away with disobeying the laws we’ve lived with since our country was born. Even in the darkest days of the Nixon administration, we trusted that eventually truth and honor would rule. And it did. But I don’t feel that way anymore, and I’m guessing that a lot of people would agree.

I think many older people feel a responsibility to younger generations, even if we don’t have children. After all, looking at the world now, we can see how lucky we were to grow up and live in a time of plenty, where houses, cars and food were cheap, and jobs were plentiful. Our water and air were mostly clean, wildlife thrived in still open lands, and we hadn’t yet heard of climate change. We grew up in a world where community existed, whether through church, neighbors or workplace, and in a time before social media took over people’s lives.  

I like to think that if democracy can be saved, it will be by old women (and some men) bravely holding signs and shouting, “This is what democracy looks like,” even if our voices are hoarse, our legs wobbly and our backs stooped. Our hearts are still strong.

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Going Backwards

Does it feel like our history is unspooling before our eyes? Like most in my generation, I grew up before a woman’s right to an abortion was ensured. Friends told me about getting back-street abortions, about the shame and fear they felt. I heard third-hand stories about women using clothes hangers to get rid of unwanted pregnancies. So when Roe V. Wade was decided in 1973, it seemed like the horror stories would end, that the world had finally come to its senses. Instead, the recent Supreme Court decision and the ensuing laws by some states to restrict women’s freedom to make their own decisions set women’s rights back to where we started.

The environmental news is equally depressing. In 1969, I remember the Cuyahoga River in Ohio catching on fire because it was so polluted. In those early days of the environmental movement, we were starting to hear stories about whales becoming extinct because of over-fishing. Eagles were dying because of the overuse of the pesticide DDT.  Those of us who identified ourselves with a new word, “environmentalist,” were overjoyed when President Richard Nixon, not a progressive in anyone’s book, started the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. We thought we were on an upward course to save the Earth, especially when the astronauts took a photo from the moon that showed a dazzling blue planet. After seeing this, how could anyone not want to protect what looked like paradise?

Yet, since then, we’ve suffered worsening environmental damage, especially from climate change, in many cases reversing any gains we made 40 or 50 years ago. Although there have been victories—the outlawing of DDT, certain species of whales returning and rivers less polluted—you only have to look at the dried-up lakes of the West during this unprecedented drought to get that sinking feeling that we are losing the race to save the planet.  

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