Opinion

We Baby Boomers didn't realise it but we had the best of times

Distance lends perspective, a sense of proportion and greater clarity of understanding 
Distance lends perspective, a sense of proportion and greater clarity of understanding  Distance lends perspective, a sense of proportion and greater clarity of understanding 

“AS people age they become happier, more satisfied with life and less stressed. They feel better about themselves and their lives the older they grow.”

Thus the somewhat glib (not to say sweeping) conclusion of a clinical study conducted by the University of California. Forgive me for a degree of scepticism, but surely the results depend on the calibre and circumstances of the subjects on the study? Who did they consult?

All life is coming to an accommodation with the cards fate has dealt us. For some, it’s a relatively painless upward trajectory of opportunity, success, fulfilment, financial stability and dependable relationships. For others, a struggle against poverty, ill-health, thwarted ambition, unwise choices, failed relationships and sheer bad luck. Somewhere in between are the rest of us, living unremarkable lives punctuated by modest joys and bearable sorrows, developing coping strategies and a modicum of common sense to contend with the unexpected and the inevitable as we mature.

There are few positive aspects to ageing they say, but the handful there are, are valuable. Having gained the sunlit uplands of serene seniority, (the presumed plateau we occupy according to the California study,) we can look back and realise that the things we agonised about didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Distance lends perspective, a sense of proportion and greater clarity of understanding. Add experience to the mix and it amounts to wisdom of a sort.

We’ve come late to the realisation that we ‘baby boomers’ had the best of it. Not that you could’ve persuaded us at the time.

While a great tsunami of liberalism was rolling in from America, we were being brought up on the same strict principles our parents were reared by. Duty, obligation and the work ethic were drummed into us. Our wishes were neither consulted nor listened to. We ‘adolesced‘ in decent obscurity, our innocence fiercely protected and had no autonomy whatsoever. Family, Church and every adult was on our case conspiring to stop us having fun. Not an ideal preparation for the seismic shift in manners and morals that was the Swinging Sixties, but our ingrained ethic of honesty, decency and instilled guilt stood us in good stead.

On the other hand, we were spared the ills our young are exposed to now. We grew and matured at a natural pace in a world that was less frenetic, fragmented and confusing, mercifully free of the ‘issues’ afflicting so many young people today in an increasingly unstable society.

Only now, at a safe and ever-receding distance do we perceive our parents in a different light – how some of them secretly sacrificed much on our behalf and got neither acknowledgement nor thanks for it from their insouciant young; how other parents attempted to live vicariously through their youngsters pushing their square peg of a son or daughter into the round hole they themselves once hoped to occupy; still others who carelessly and unforgivably failed to recognise or nourish their children’s potential. There is no epithet so universally applicable as ‘a parent’s place is in the wrong’. The generation gap – that yawning uncommunicative space that opens up once a child attains puberty – is as wide as ever. Reassuringly, they do come back eventually – if only to draw on the Bank of Mum and Dad.

Looking back is a painful exercise, like probing an aching tooth to test how sore it is. I spent my youth in a state of nervous apprehension and querulous resentment, measuring myself against others, wracked with self-doubt and inadequacy, masked by what my mother called “a bold face and a vinegar tongue that considered the world well lost for a smart remark.” It never occurred to me that my peers were full of quaking inadequacy too. I’ve mellowed since of course, (but not that much) under the influence of the late Loving Spouse, the kindest, most unjudgmental of men.

And what have I learned from it all? That resentment sours the spirit and regret warps the soul. In the immortal words of Elsa from ‘Frozen’, “Let it go…” All things pass. Hopefully nobody remembers the escapades you blush for.

Oh – one last thing. Everything your mother said was true.