Chip off the old block
Recently my husband came home telling me about a gated community he had just visited. This middle-class refuge caters to the active mature adult, people over 50 who were now ready to enjoy themselves after a lifetime of toil at the office. It belongs with other places with names like Quail Creek or Deer Ridge Ranch, where neither quail or deer can be seen . These are places where you can play golf and bridge, workout, swim, dance, attend the club house happy hour and sip a nice chardonnay, or join a ceramics class. The billboards promise a life of undisturbed dreams and no children are allowed to live there in order to maintain the heaven-on-earth like environment. My husband’s impression was that it seemed self-absorbed and rather sterile. Here you have people in the prime of their life with money and health enclosing themselves in a secular monastery. Oh, I forgot, they do have bible studies and yoga for the spiritually inclined. I guess it’s this or a nursing home.
Then I was having tea with a friend and she told me about a new survey of young people which showed that they are more narcissistic than ever. Then I heard it on the radio this morning – so I looked it up. Here is the story. Nothing new here. From the beginning of time the older generation has complained about the younger. Young people are lazy, aimless, don’t understand the value of hard work or a dollar. They are narcissistic ( we now have a test to prove it), selfish, and self-absorbed. They are now called the generation of praise. Too many parents were too enthusiastic with their toddlers. But are they much different from many of today’s aging boomers, with their demands for Viagra, cosmetic surgery, and uninterrupted frivolity? I guess that’s the point, in an affluent society we can afford to be as frivolous as we like regardless of our age.