SIXTY IS THE NEW EIGHTEEN

As I get ready to turn 60 in a few months, it is gratifying to read that this landmark is considered by some sociologists as the new adolescence. If 50 is the new 30, than 60 is the new 18.  We boomers have an added 30 years to our lives compared with our ancestors in 1900.  We don’t feel old and are ready for liberation and growth. Similar to our adolescence, we have cut the ties that bind us.  Free from children, jobs and the other socially constricting realities of middle age, we are ready to kick up our heels and make a difference. 

 Recently I have been reflecting on those events that were most transformative in my life.  The important ones seem to be centered on the time I was a young adult, moving away from my childhood toward career and family.  At 17 I graduated from high school.  That summer I attended Woodstock.  For better or worse, sex, drugs and rock and roll, shared by 500,000 kindred souls over 3 days was transformative. The power of youth to change the world was everywhere.  In college I would attend the DC marches, the Bobby Seale rally in New Haven, campaign for McGovern. The first time I was tear gassed by my government was transformative.  Seeing the father of my high school friends, David Dellinger, put on trial with the Chicago 7 was transformative.  Maybe I could live my life as a social activist.

 The parallels with the recent Arab Spring were overwhelming to me as the power of organized, idealistic youth took to the streets to begin the messy business of democracy.  Let us not forget that the Freedom Riders in Alabama and Mississippi, well before my time, and the students at Kent State, suffered more injuries and deaths than the young protestors on Tahrir Square.

Other adolescent transformations for me were more mundane.  My first day at that small liberal arts college, where every freshman seemed smarter and more self assured, taught me that the world was not only a big place, but a tough place to make your way.  There was much to learn.  The basics of science, history, theology, economics, sociology, political science, philosophy, art history at first seemed so abstract.  Later these disciplines would become clear, overlap and give me transformative ways to see the world.  Lastly, travel as a young student was a transforming experience.  To interact with other cultures, where families sometimes survived on a dollar a day gave me a new prospective.  The American way was not the only way.  The world economy was out of whack.

I know now, that my own transformation was more assured than the transformation of society as a whole.  Liberal boomers in the late 60s and 70s got a lot of things wrong.  Our views on sexual liberation fed the Aids epidemic and encouraged the trend toward single mothers.  Our views on drug experimentation fed the crack epidemic among the poor families we were trying to help.  Our views on communism did not differentiate between the menace of totalitarianism and the promise of social democracy.

            Of course we also got some things right.  I believe that by scrambling some eggs in our youth, the Obama presidency was made possible.  I further believe liberal boomers set the stage for racial, social, gender and sexual equality.

By 1980, the transformation of many liberal boomers, were youthful memories.  The liberal arts educations gave way to focused professional careers in medicine, law, engineering and accounting.  We thought we could argue liberal issues at cocktail parties and vote our conscious to keep the flame alive.  In truth, families and careers became our concern, social climbing rather than social reform our responsibility.  There were few David Dellinger’s among us.

If the pundits are right and 60 is the new 18, bring it on. As long as we are willing to step back, consider the options and take some risks, our remaining years may be as individually transformative as our young adulthoods.  Now we actually have some knowledge and money to go with our exuberance.  We have time to read, learn and rediscover the world. We can live out every liberal boomer’s dream: to change the world a second time.

 Next year, Obama will need help getting reelected and I’ll be 61.  Just give me time to take a nap.