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[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1\/1″]\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Juniors, seniors, boomers, GenX, GenY, millennials, silvers, youthism, ageism, middle-age: there is now an entire newspeak of \u201cintergenerational\u201d terms. Lots of them are neologisms, some are code names\u2026 And could many be euphemisms? If so, what do they hide? What do these terms suggest about the various times in all our lives? The webmagazine team takes a closer look.<\/p>\n Once upon a time, the idea of youth just didn\u2019t exist<\/strong><\/p>\n We were all adults in the making\u2026 or adults approaching the end of our life on earth<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s start by taking a look back through history. After digging around a little, it becomes clear that the idea of \u2018young people\u2019 is a very recent phenomenon. The historian Philippe Ari\u00e8s<\/a> was the first to suggest that the \u2018ages of life\u2019 are actually a fairly recent construct. And it all starts with the \u2018discovery\u2019 that childhood is not simply an introduction to real life as an adult human being. It was only at the very end of the 18th<\/sup> century that \u2018being a child\u2019 became recognized as a stage of life. From that point on, childhood was considered to be a specific period in its own right, and began gaining value (especially legally, because laws were brought in at that time to prohibit work below a certain age). Children were no longer considered to be \u2018mini adults\u2019, but children, with children\u2019s lives and a relationship with the \u2018other\u2019 age group: adults. Because yes, at that time there were only differences between children and adults, with a slight nuance for the treatment reserved for \u2018old people\u2019, who were regarded as patriarchs.<\/p>\n The birth of adolescence<\/p>\n The idea of there being a period of adolescence took hold as the field of psychology developed, designating the time when a young person has gone through puberty but is not yet an adult. This stage of life had received legal attention due to the condition of girls: from the Middle Ages it was deemed necessary to establish a form of \u2018social contraception\u2019 in the words of the historian Patrice Huerre<\/a> whose field of interest is the standards regulating the age of marriage. Even though girls were physically able to have children, that didn\u2019t mean that they were able to live as adults!<\/p>\n The law provided protection but set constraints for older teenagers who became more and more impatient during the years leading up to their legal adulthood, which was 25 years until 1792 and 21 years until 1975.<\/p>\n And then in 1968, the youth movement finally happened!<\/strong><\/p>\n There were rumblings at the end of the 1960s among the boys and girls who were born during the baby boom and grew up during the wonderful Trente Glorieuses<\/em> between 1945 and 1979. They were determined to talk during family meals without asking their father\u2019s permission, at university without deferring excessively to their professors, in politics where they wanted to be taken seriously, and at work where they refused to be admonished!<\/p>\n \u2018Young people\u2019 sought to be recognized as adults, but didn\u2019t want the lifestyles of their \u2018old\u2019 parents. They weren\u2019t interested in bringing their adolescence to an end, nor did they want to rush off and start a family and build a house. They weren\u2019t looking to overwhelm themselves with responsibilities either, they demonstrated a furious desire to \u2018live their youth to the full\u2019. And that\u2019s how the boomers invented the concept of youth in around 1968 as a period of life during which people should enjoy their independence and their right to be carefree. A time for partying and debate. The idea of \u2018try before you buy\u2019 applied everywhere, including jobs and partners, and it was suddenly possible to change your mind or your career before perhaps settling down later.<\/p>\n The invention of seniors\u2026 Juniors and silvers<\/strong><\/p>\n When ageing is in bad taste<\/strong><\/p>\n As soon as youth became a concept, the idea of getting older was no longer appealing! First and foremost for the generation that invented youth as a counterpoint to grim old age: the \u2018boomers\u2019. In the world today, these pioneers aren\u2019t going to have their brilliant idea of youth taken away from them by kids of just 20 (or 30, or 40) years old who swarm in and push them to move aside or retire. You must be kidding! They have decided that they\u2019re not old people, they\u2019re\u2026 Seniors! But not in the Latin sense of the word, which designates an old or even dying man. No, these are seniors just like in college, like athletes who are over 20 years old before they choose to become \u2018veterans\u2019. \u2018Seniority\u2019 doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you\u2019re old, it just means you\u2019re experienced, even if you\u2019re given the title \u2018Senior Manager\u2019 after just four years with a company!<\/p>\n A \u2018senior\u2019 in this context is therefore different from an \u2018old person\u2019. Senior people are mature, but have not necessarily lost their freshness, they haven\u2019t left their youth behind. It\u2019s a tempting idea. For young people who can manage to shake off their age and achieve recognition for their experience and for not-so-young people who can keep a fresh attitude to work while retaining what they have learnt over their years of experience and the comfort it has afforded them.<\/p>\n Juniors, with potential to become seniors; silvers, who challenge the concept of age<\/strong><\/p>\n So nobody wants to be either \u2018too\u2019 young (wet behind the ears) or \u2018too\u2019 old (a has-been). But there is always a way to flatter everyone: a junior is an intermediary between the newbie and the senior. The name suggests potential, the promise of beautiful and lasting seniority in the making, future opportunities to prove oneself.<\/p>\n At the other end of the spectrum, the not-so-young are certainly not going to lie down and be trampled on! They are retired (or about to be), but fit and healthy. They are involved in all kinds of projects, and while they enjoy sharing what they have learnt, they don\u2019t see themselves as patient wise men and women who watch the world transforming without taking part in it. These people make up the \u2018silver economy\u2019. Their beautiful gray hair flows around their faces and they are the coolest grandparents. They only talk about the effects of aging in terms of crow\u2019s feet wrinkle smiles (beauty creams), cycling (urinary problems), sailing (hearing aids) or barbecues (because they need reminding that social distancing and other preventive measures are essential in the fight against CoVid-19), etc.<\/p>\n Intergenerational: no more \u2018young\u2019 or \u2018old\u2019, just different generations? <\/strong><\/p>\n Working together\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Intergenerational issues are all the ideas about age and the social conditions that go hand-in-hand with each stage of life. The word \u2018intergenerational\u2019 appeared in sociological literature as early as the 1970s, mainly to address the question of renewing relationship patterns between children, parents and grandparents during major changes in family unit structures.<\/p>\n As we have already said, children now have a voice, young people go on living willingly with their parents as adults, at least until they finish studying, or even for a few years in their first real job. Parents don\u2019t force themselves to live as a couple their entire lives, and allow themselves a \u2018second chance at youth\u2019 when their children have grown up. They sometimes marry again \u2013 or not \u2013 and form new couples, which is hardly compatible with having grandpa and grandma under the same roof. Moreover, now as grandparents, baby boomers are keen to look after their grandchildren from time to time but are less and less willing to provide constant daycare; they too want their independence, they want to pursue their own interests and make plans, they want to live their lives. And because everyone knows what they want, it should be easy\u2026<\/p>\n … Then the conflicts begin<\/strong><\/p>\n The issue is that each age group is influenced by how its members were raised. The older generations of today no longer sit in armchairs by the fireside, but they find it difficult to relinquish the stern authoritarianism in which they were raised. Young adults, because they were not involved with money matters during their childhood, want autonomy but they don\u2019t want to have to worry about putting food on the table. \u2018New\u2019 parents aspire to less vertical, more democratic relationships with their children, but when they arrive, the parents feel they should be in charge! Similarly, while there are internal, individual tensions for each age group, there is also friction between the different age groups. Intergenerational concerns arise when we need to think about that friction and the dynamics which sometimes suggest that the different generations are fighting each other.<\/p>\n Effect of age\/generation<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018I hope I die before I get old\u2019 said The Who in their hit Talking About my Generation<\/em> in 1965 But there\u2019s a difference between a generation and an age of life.<\/p>\n Why are there so many Ys? It\u2019s rather X-cessive!<\/strong><\/p>\n The notion of intergenerationalism and theoretical thinking about the issue first took hold in the business world during the 2000s, when Gen Y (why?) arrived on the labor market asking constant questions and couldn\u2019t get down to business before receiving answers. Gen Y is on the other end of the spectrum from the Boomers, with Gen X in the middle like the missing pieces of an unknown puzzle.<\/p>\n The clues to resolving this unknown puzzle seem to lie in figures: how much does it cost to turn down a \u2018new generation\u2019 talent for a job? What is the price of Gen X-style management? How much are Boomers going to drain away when they retire, especially because Gen Z are studying endlessly and doing endless internships before getting their feet on the salary ladder.<\/p>\n Are we denying the effects of age? <\/strong><\/p>\n Youthism or the untenable promise of never getting old<\/strong><\/p>\n Senior, junior, boomer, X, Y, Z the list goes on. When newspeak<\/a> appears, it\u2019s often because there is something embarrassing that needs to be hidden behind new, fresh and beautiful words.<\/p>\n So what is it in this case? To begin with it\u2019s the persistent youthism which dominates our thinking, and it does so effectively because we don\u2019t really call it by its name. In contrast to what you might think, \u2018youthism\u2019 does not mean discrimination against young people, but actually refers to all the sociocultural signals that give young people an advantage over older people. In society generally, \u2018youthism\u2019 encompasses everything to do with the attribution of desirable qualities to youth: freshness, dynamism, beauty, sense of trends, agility<\/a> and so on. And it\u2019s reflected in various ways: a preference for young people in certain trades or sectors<\/a>; representations in advertising imagery<\/a> or anything else that needs to be made attractive by figures of youth (you\u2019ve seen it before, a mother in a sit-com who is supposed to be in her forties, but is played by a 25 year-old actress!). Youthism means valuing people who \u2018don\u2019t look their age\u2019, with the powerful moral implication that this fresh \u2018well-preserved\u2019 appearance can be attributed to a healthy lifestyle, good self-esteem, it is even a form of respect! Youthism means encouraging people to slow down their lives lest the passing of time leave its marks on their bodies and minds.<\/p>\n Ageism or the observation that growing old is bad<\/strong><\/p>\n But then is there a word for the stereotypes used to describe a specific age group and its associated discriminations? There is one, yes, but using it actually underscores the problem of youthism: the word is \u2018ageism<\/a>\u2019 and we use it almost exclusively to talk about discrimination linked to being… old! That was its original meaning when it was coined by the gerontologist Robert Butler<\/a> in 1969. Mr Butler gave it the following definition: \u201cprofound psychosocial disorder characterized by institutionalized prejudices, stereotypes and the installation of a distance or avoidance of elderly people\u201d. This is well understood and clear to see in employment figures for active workers over 49 years old (14% of whom are unemployed in the 49-55 age group; 28% between 56 and 60 years and 69% between 61 years and retirement).<\/p>\n What about young people? <\/strong><\/p>\n So does that mean young people aren\u2019t discriminated against, because there isn\u2019t a word for it? Of course not! They too are subjected to stereotypes, both positive and negative, which affect their socioeconomic position: nearly 20% of active 15-24 year olds are unemployed, and the same proportion of 19-29 year olds are in situations of financial instability (not to say poverty). And youth is an \u2018aggravating factor\u2019 for other forms of discrimination: young women, young people of color, and young people with disabilities see their chances of entering the labor market drastically reduced, let alone reaching a position of responsibility. It\u2019s easy to say that something you can\u2019t measure with statistics does not exist. But it is clear that when something doesn\u2019t have a specific name, or has a challenging name, it is resistant to change, even when the numbers back up the ideas.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Marie Donzel. Translated from French by Ruth Simpson.<\/em><\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text] Share this Post<\/p>\n