I’m a believer in identifying problems and then compiling ideas for combating them. Right now I am convinced that I represent a difficulty for our nation. Yes, you heard that right. I understand that we have an inverted economy that was created through nobody’s fault but now must be addressed.
So here’s the situation. After World War II the population of the world boomed. There were so many babies that schools were crowded and often had to resort to half day programs just to accommodate all of us who are now known as the Baby Boomers. Of course this was before birth control pills were a big thing. Women tried all kinds of methods to limit the number of children they had but were not always so successful. Homes were filled to the brim with kids.
When I was a child and a teen there was still no such thing as Medicare. That came from the Lyndon Johnson years when I was a young adult. Before that time older people were mostly on their own when it came to getting medical care. I vividly recall my grandmother Minnie Bell being sent home with her cancer once my grandfather no longer had the funds to pay for her hospital stay. He was an eighty eight year old man who became responsible for replacing her colostomy bag and cleaning her wounds. Once she died he had to sell everything that he owned and clean out his savings to pay all the bills for her medical procedures. He rented a room from a kindly young widow and there he stayed for the rest of his days.
Of course now we do have Medicare and as a result hospitals and clinics are filled with Baby Boomers who enjoy all of the advances in medicine and use up so many of the available appointments that the younger people often have to wait for months just to see a doctor. While I am a happy recipient of this wondrous gift I can also see that it poses a great strain on our medical community. We are living much longer than our grandparents once did and in the process we are hanging onto our homes and our wealth to the point of literally owing almost seventy five percent of America’s wealth. In the meantime the younger folk are facing a housing shortage unlike anything we have ever seen.
I remember visiting a sweet Amish town in Indiana a few years ago. I was one of many tourists who paid for a tour of an Amish homestead. I learned that the Amish have a tradition of taking care of family that is different from the usual American model. Once the children become adults they begin to take over the reins of the family business even moving into the larger houses while the aging parents go to a modest home nearby. There is an acceptance of the seasons of life that takes into account the needs of each generation.
Of course I see that even the Amish system has its flaws but I wonder if those of us who are now older are too quick to ignore the realities of today’s problems. We are attempting to stay young and vital which is a good thing but we often do so at the expense of young people who deserve better opportunities for investing in homes, growing families. We are too often prone to pepper them with platitudes about working hard like we did rather than admitting that their concerns are actually quite legitimate. It’s time that we get serious and look for ways to balance the imbalance that truly exists.
I have forward thinking friends who have sold their homes and moved to smaller living spaces. They have distributed family heirlooms and gifted children and grandchildren with tax free sums that allow them to move upward on the economic ladder. These people do not suffer from the King Lear syndrome that worries that somehow their benefactors will selfishly forget them and leave them to die in dire straits. Instead they are finding joy in sharing what the fruits of their lifetime labors. They are righting the imbalance whenever they are able.
I am at a point in my life when I have had a satisfying career, wonderful experiences, and a comfortable home. Right now I am determined to focus on the young adults who are my grandchildren and were once my students. I see their hard work and their dreams but I also know how difficult it is for them to recreate the kind of perks that were far more available to me. I am determined to do all that I can in how I live and how I vote to set the stage for a better world for them. I believe that this is how it should be. I want to give them educational opportunities and trips that will enrich their lives. I want them to know that I trust them to build a world that will be good for all of us. I see their ideas pointing to a wonderful future. I want to move forward with them in any way that I am able.
One of my favorite people is a woman that I only know from the texts that we send each other. She is retiring soon but she has enjoyed an exciting and quite lucrative career. She shares her good fortune with her many grandchildren in the most wonderful ways. She pays me a sizable mount each week to tutor ten of her grandchildren in mathematics. She considers it one of the best possible investments she will ever make. I think she is wonderful!
I want all of us Baby Boomers to stop for just a moment and ask how we might sacrifice just a bit to insure that our grandchildren have as much likelihood of making progress in this world as we had. Part of doing that is going to mean balancing an equation that right now is incredibly lopsided. With a bit of thought I think we can do it.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 