“One day, we asked her why she sat with all us old ladies when there were other teachers that were her age nearby,” my former art teacher recounted. She was explaining the habit of a teacher 20 to 30 years her junior, who spent her lunch with the older teachers, instead of those her own age.
“She said to us, ‘I can’t learn anything from them. You are good teachers who have been doing this for a long time. I can learn from you.’”
I listened intently and the words of the young woman surprised me. As a millennial in college, I rarely hear stories about a younger person eager to listen to the words of an elder. Most of the stories I hear are about baby boomers and traditionalists (people born before 1946) constantly criticizing millennials, who then return fire either in public or private.
The account was not only interesting or unexpected—it was a learning experience.
From what I have seen over the course of my life, particularly during my time in college, listening to elders is not really a priority. We might read a heartwarming story in an edition of "Chicken Soup" where someone had a great experience at a nursing home, where they were captivated by the stories and the histories of those there, and that's about it.
While these tales provide emotional entertainment, they seldom seem to motivate the rest of us to take elders seriously as more than beings that are an odd mix of cantankerous and endearing. They don’t stop us from bashing “the baby boomers” or make us reconsider how we think about older people. Really, we’ve just interacted with these narratives on the same level as a Hallmark movie.
While it should be needless to say, we ought to give people greater attention and respect than we do cheesy, sentimental movies.
Respecting others is a value the majority of us would likely profess. However, for younger and older people alike, respecting one another often is sacrificed because of prior conflict, a lack of forgiveness and an abundance of pride.
This is actually understandable. Today’s older and younger generations come from vastly different contexts. Interactions between the two can even be described as intercultural. With different values, experiences, dominant cultural ideas and ways of communicating, there is going to be some conflict that naturally occurs. However, while understandable, continuing to contribute to that conflict is not justified.
It is important for us to get past the barriers that separate two or more age groups. In so doing, we will realize how much there is to learn. Both sides can contribute valuably to one another, but what younger individuals can learn from their older counterparts will be the ongoing focus.
People who are older, by virtue of age, have more overall experience than we do. Greater age does not automatically mean someone knows more or deserves a greater honor. However, more life experience will generally come with more wisdom about said experiences.
For instance, I am a college student. Both myself and many of my peers are in a state of panic over thinking about what they are going to do with the rest of their lives. Those for whom more life has passed, this may not be so acutely their concern. They’ve been through it. They know. They can talk to individuals their junior about their own experiences and how life has gone on since—how life didn’t end then, how mistakes were made, how they still moved on.
Having heard some of these stories, I know they are a great comfort. I imagine at any stage of life, whether a person is graduating college, getting married, having kids, approaching retirement or nearing the end of their lives, having someone older, more experienced and wiser to talk to would be a great comfort.
Besides comfort, there is a great deal to learn practically. Some things are stupid to do. Some people have found that out the hard way. Listening to them could help us avoid unnecessary blunders. Someone may have faced a tough moral dilemma and may have wise words for another person in a similar experience. We might even just need a different perspective on our situation from someone with a bit more of a vantage point than our friends. Regardless, those who are older than us can be a great aid.
Ultimately, all of us are learners—and it may be more than a little beneficial to accept the wisdom of those who have been learning for longer than we have.
