Age

Age. I've been meaning to write about it for a long time now. I'm still not sure quite how to approach it; there are so many levels.

Culturally, Americans are more obsessed with age than most/all other cultures that I've ever heard of. I once asked a Malaysian co-worker what was strange about the United States and she replied "green blinking traffic lights and how important birthdays are". I couldn't really explain either to her.

I think that part of the reason age is so important to Americans, besides the cliche that youth is part of the American dream, is that we don't have any other major anchors to mark our progression through life. In more "traditional" cultures the phases are clearly marked: babyhood, childhood, bachelorhood, marriage/children, grown children/grandkids, old age. In our culture people get married at all different ages, some people stop going to school and become "adults" at sixteen, some don't finish school until they're thirty. With bigger and more uneven gaps between generations, age is really the only way to measure differences.

Independence is also highly valued in our culture. Old people are not independent. We are afraid of being old as if it means being a child again. And we often treat our grandparents like children, putting them in "daycare" and talking to them like they're stupid. A shame.

Wisdom does not come with age for us, as change happens so quickly that no child looks to their parents for advice. We might be the only culture to expect children to live very different lives than their parents. If you do exactly what your parents did (which is weird), you're still doing it with far more advanced technology and "modern" problems. Old people do not contain information on how to use the latest technology. They are obsolete. Our culture fears being obsolete.

But on a more individual level, age is our indicator of how to behave toward each other. You would never speak in the same manner toward an eighty year old as you would toward a twenty year old. People get very freaked out if someone much younger than them (or older, for that matter) is supposed to be considered a peer. We think of people of different ages as being different from us, when they are just living different lives with different concerns. This is where my own personal experience has given me a little perspective.

My other half is fourteen years and five days older than me. That's a lot by almost any standard. I only know two couples with a larger age difference. Most couples in our culture are within three to five years of each other. I also went to state college at sixteen. Teachers were always shocked to find out my age. At nineteen I went to night school, almost always the youngest in my class by at least eight or ten years. My first semester I got to be friends with a woman who almost fell off the bar stool when she realized I was only three years older than her son.

People have never known what to do with me. The relationship between adults and children is lopsided. Children talk about what they're doing in their life, but adults are not expected to reply similarly. Just nod and smile. But what happens when you are expected to respond in kind, be a peer? And when do you act like a peer versus an adult toward a younger person?

My other half is only five or so years younger than some of my parents' young friends. They are totally freaked out by us. They used to change my diapers and now I, this little kid in their minds, am with someone that they should see as a peer. But they more just see her as a freak, because she falls into no category. We are very uncomfortable with people who have no category, for whom there is no script on how to act.

I've been asked by a number of my older friends and aquaintances, "why are you different? why are we able to be friends?"

I honestly don't know. But I don't think it is me, per se. I think it is my life. I live the same life as them. I'm a married old lady. I go home to my other half every night and make dinner and go to bed. I pay my bills, work my ass off, and enjoy gatherings with friends on the weekends. Most of my age-mates wander around looking for things to do, trouble to cause, out of boredom. They have no space to call their own, are out looking for alcohol and sex, and just generally live very different lives than I do. I have more in common with settled down people, which is always necessary for friendship.

So now the qustion of maturity arises. Am I more mature because I aimed at a settled down life so young? Or am I just boring? People always say that with age comes insight. In general, that might be true, but I know older people with no insight and younger people with tons. And there's the reverse thingy, where as I get older I realize more and more how young I am. But I also see myself aging and knowing myself and my motivations better. So, try as I might, I am still unsure of the nature and meaning of age on an individual level.

Culturally, aging for Americans is a painfully negative thing. But I take great delight in the few people I know who honestly do not care. I know a woman who is forty-three and her husband is in his early sixties, and she is completely ageless. She doesn't care about the number on her driver's license one bit. When I met her I wasn't sure if she was twenty-five or fifty. She talks to me like a peer and forgets my age all the time. She tells me that she doesn't understand people who are uncomfortable around people of a different age. I feel the same way, but the reasons for that lack of comfort have become more and more apparent to me over the years. If/when I become a teacher I am going to have to draw a very strict line between myself and people who are much closer in age to me than my own wife. I will have my age- and position-defined role. But it won't be so hard because high school kids live very different lives than I do. What is hard is remembering that my parents' friends still think that that line is there between us. I forget about it because I live a very similar life to them. I always get a rude awakening when I hang out with them. They make me feel more like a kid than my grandparents, who force martinis and beer into my hand as soon as they see me and tell me about their lives, too.

I am sure that my perspective on age will continue evolving, especially as I become a teacher. Watching my brother grow up is teaching me a lot too, because he is very mature but also very inexperienced with the world. I still haven't nailed down the relationship between maturity, age and experience. I am interested to see what a few more years will teach me.