“YOUNG PEOPLE KNOW EVERYTHING about the last 50 minutes and nothing about the last 50 years”. I should find out who originally said that line because I think about it often. I get appalled when young quizzers on TV don’t know who Ena Sharples or Keith Holyoake were (ask your parents), just as those youngsters would roll their eyes at my ignorance of rap music.
Of course, I have an advantage when it comes to history – I’ve lived through more of it than they have. I also got the bonus of having older parents who loved to yarn about the ‘olden days’. I grew up familiar with – and even nostalgic for – times decades before my birth.
I was a drastic afterthought. Or lack-of-thought. Somehow, I cleverly managed to evade 1950s technology and got myself conceived, arriving at the tail end of an already large family, years after more sensible parents would have called it quits. My older siblings were teenagers and deeply embarrassed that my aged parents were doing something as silly as having another baby. Mum started popping out babies in her youth, and here I was, late as usual, arriving in the twilight of her fertility, and Dad was 11 years older than she was.
Compared with the hip, modern parents of my peers, Mum and Dad were ancient. I was asked more than once, “Are they your Grandparents?” My folks got their clothes by mail order directly from the 1940s. Our orchard home was a pioneer museum.
As a teenager, I was embarrassed by my parents (teenagers are embarrassed by everything). But I was surprised, and proud, that my mates loved coming to our old-fashioned house where my parents would greet them with old-fashioned manners, and give them home-made ginger beer and scones. And stories.
Dad, born in 1907, had a whole 20th Century of experiences and loved to talk about them. He employed many of my friends to work on our orchard over the holidays, and they got to hear lots and lots of his yarns. It took all the fun out of being an angst-ridden teenager, wanting to rebel and grizzle about my parents, when all my mates regarded them as national treasures.
So I grew up in the museum of their memories. I never lived through the Depression or war years, but their vivid tales got stapled into my own memory so that I almost feel as though I did. My memory landscape extends back years before I was born.
So, apart from a minor advantage when it comes to quizzing, are there any other advantages of having older parents?
My four older brothers and sister had broken them in. After their antics, nothing I could do could shock or traumatise my parents: they had been through it all before. As a result, I was raised with benign neglect. They didn’t seem to know or mind what I did or where I was; I’m not sure I’d recommend it as a parenting style, but it suited me fine. Their edges were all filed down. My older brothers talked of a grumpy father still getting over war trauma, whereas I had a gracious, gentle old dad. Did I ever see him angry? Maybe, once or twice, but I deserved it.
I’ve met other parents who, like my folks, have had a widely spaced family, and they’d say things like: “As a young mum, I know I played more with my oldest kids, but I read more to the later ones. I had more energy when I was younger, but more patience when I was older.” Older parents often have maturity and problem-solving experience, a few more dollars and a more settled home life. The downsides? The generation gap can be huge. I never felt my parents understood my world at all. And the worst downside: I was an orphan by my early 30s.
Even though I had no choice in the matter, I prefer the idea that I was born last and had the benefit of older parents. I think I got a better deal. And (though my older siblings would howl with protest) the greatest benefit for my parents was that they had me!
AFTER DECADES STUDYING FAMILY LIFE, JOHN NOW FOCUSES ON THE ‘PRIME-TIME’ ISSUES OF LATER MIDDLE AGE. CHECK HIM OUT ON JOHNCOWAN.CO.NZ – ESPECIALLY IF YOU NEED SOME WRITING, EVENT SPEAKING, VIDEOS MADE, OR SOMEONE TO HAVE A COFFEE WITH.
