Well, Shut My Mouth!

Last night, my granddaughter asked me to do a quick grammar check on a paper she had written for one of her pre-college classes.  We've done this together a number of times...online...from Indiana to Washington, and back again.  I usually have to ask what the assignment is so I can determine if what she writes fulfills it.  This time, she was quite confident that what she had written said what it was supposed to say, so all she needed was a quick red pen from English Teacher Grandma.

But before she actually sent me her document, she hedged a bit.  She was responding to some comedian's routine about the difference in generations.  She wanted to make sure I understood that her essay wasn't some sort of passive-aggressive hit at me.  She said it addressed "adultism" by the comedian.

Huh??  I'm 72-years-old but have never heard the word "adultism".  I thought it was just another buzz word that my granddaughter's generation invented.  And then I looked it up.  Apparently the term was coined in 1903, and refers to adults' control over children.  OOOOOoookay.  So now I am really, really confused.

When I was a kid, the age of majority was 21.  Prior to that, parents were directly responsible for the behavior of their children.  That implies control, right?  Isn't that what parents are for?  To train/influence/control their kids who are not mature enough to make smart decisions?   Then along about the Vietnam Conflict, states changed the age of majority to 18 because soldiers complained that they were old enough to die for our country but not old enough to vote.  And although I understand that thinking, I also know that 18 isn't anywhere close to being mature enough to make life decisions without Mommy and Daddy to help.  Is my reaction adultism??

My generation had a word for the differences between generations:  Generation Gap.  Not sure if it was invented in my time or only came to be known then.  I am, however, acutely aware of when I first noticed the difference between my parents' values and my own, and equally aware of when I had crossed the line from a child in need of parenting and a parent in need of childhood.  I've written about it all so many times. 

Today's world is nothing like the world in which I was raised.  My parents were folks of the Greatest Generation--taking the Depression and World War II, and Korea, in stride.  I was born a Baby Boomer, after the fire loss of the family homestead, and slightly later, the horrible home-accident death of a child.  They worked their buns off to provide for the family so that we would have things better than they did.  Although it seems that Boomers are being blamed for destruction of the planet and everything else that is wrong in the world, We weren't poor, but we certainly weren't rich or spoiled, either. 

I admit that I am no longer hip to the younger generation.  I love them all, and I try.  God knows, I try!  Over time, I have learned that my experiences mean nothing to others, so I'm working on reading the room and keeping my aging opinions to myself.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't. 

Life isn't about being right!!