I don’t know if you’ve noticed but over the last few years it’s starting to seem like the lines of division between age groups have shifted.  I’m sure you know what I mean, how the sixties are the new fifties, the fifties the new forties and so on.

Even kids seem to be getting in on the act; my baby sister is one of the first to tell me if I’m being childish or stupid; she’s 11 I’m 35. 

With the medical advances we’ve made over the last hundred years and our much-improved quality of life we’re living a hell of a lot longer.  I’ll admit previous generations could well have experienced similar phenomenon but never before has age, and what is expected of its groups seen such upheaval. 

The facts speak for themselves; circa 1950 the mean life expectancy in the UK was 69 years of age.  Today the average is up to 79, an increase in real terms of 10 years in less than sixty.  Women live slightly longer, men slightly less and there are projections that by the end of the century UK residents will commonly live to be 100.

So what’s my point?

Well we’re living longer, which is a good thing, but the social and economic repercussions are staggering and I don’t mean care for the elderly.  I’ll take a moment to look at this on an individual basis.  As an example I’ll use Rene, born on the first of January 1950 and the youngest of five children.

She’s lived her life as society demands, firstly a dutiful daughter and then a wife and mother.  Married in her early twenties to Bill, and with two kids by the time she was 25 she’s so far dedicated her life to staying one step ahead of the Jones. 

Her dad, a workingman, retired at 65 when she was in her early forties and pottered around in his shed for a few years dying, after a short illness aged 71.  Her mother seemed to fade after that and followed him three years later aged 73. 

After the children had left home she took a part-time job as a teaching assistant, just for something to do, and now works full time. 

The Kids have grown up and got their own children now and with retirement soon to be a reality the future looks rosy. 

With them both being hale and hearty they can look forward to a good quality of life for the next ten maybe even twenty years.  The options are almost endless so whether it’s off on some tropical cruise, a canal boat on the Norfolk Broads or visiting Pandas in China, as long as the funds are available the world is your oyster. 

Then sell the house and get something smaller and more manageable, perhaps a nice little place in the country and maybe even a villa somewhere in the sun. 

Most idyllic and a deserved retirement after a lifetime of hard work you’d think. 

I agree, but it’s also a complete departure from earlier generations experience.  The human race has, for tens of thousands of years lived in close-knit family groups forced to follow a pattern set by nature.  Then along comes medicine and moves the goalposts, bring in industrialisation and we have the beginnings of the modern world.  A bit of a shock to the collective system but we are nothing if not an adaptable lot, especially when the pressure is on.

Add a couple of World Wars, a baby boom, the victory of capitalism and there you have it, the basis of our society.

It’s taken a while but all the upheaval and the advances in technology are starting to have a visible impact on society.  From the MTV generation and claim culture to rampant political correctness, they are all are symptoms of the same disease.

I call it ‘me culture’.

It’s just dumb; we spend actual millennia learning to get along with one another, inventing complex language to better communicate and understand.  We get this really good system going, tried and tested, everyone has his or her place and generally things run smoothly.  In Darwinian terms we have evolved to work as a group, even if it is a small one called family.

Then along comes this faux family known as society, that we invent as we go along and is convinced it knows how we ‘should’ live.  You know 2 cars, 2.4 children, the dog, cat and the holiday in Spain, not to forget the credit cards, hire purchase deals and mortgaged up to the eyeballs. 

This is the replacement for the bonds of family support we have lost.  Kids can’t talk to their parents because they are so busy following careers or just not caring.  Parents can’t talk to kids because they just don’t understand or stop listening because they don’t like what they hear.

Oh and grandma and grandpa live in Tuscany.

Of course society doesn’t work alone, it has a partner called advertising that is in turn driven by market economics.   I don’t actually blame the free market economic structure for the problems we face today; it’s a necessary part of technological advancement (as well as social and political).

I think that advertising has a lot to answer for; it promotes greed, selfishness and covetousness and in the UK it may as well be unregulated.  The bombardment starts at pre-school and carries on throughout your life. 

The only European country that has really addressed the problem is Sweden who have banned advertising to the under twelve’s.  Other countries are starting to act with Greece prohibiting toy advertisements between the hours of 7am and 10pm.

So we have moved on from the old family values where the old cared for the young and taught the basics of survival.  Those able to work did so, whether as a hunter-gatherer or a 1950’s housewife.  Everyone knew their place and education was by example, an inclusive system that promoted the sense of belonging.

Fast-forward to today where the old have their independence and the young are brought up more by the TV than parental example. (Violent cartoons, adverts, Hanna Montana and as they get older MTV)  Then on to an education system that inadvertently does more to marginalize teenagers than create a sense of inclusion.  The world of work is no better with job security being a thing of the past and competition for advancement so fierce.

It’s not all doom and gloom, as long as there is more action from government than the current round of head burying.  I admit some of the decisions that need to be made will be unpopular, especially with business (and children!) but they need to be addressed soon.

Better hard choices now while we have a chance to stem the flow, than continuing, as we are.  Bombarded from an early age by the twin pronged attack on our values from society and advertising.  The latter tells us to want everything and the former that we really do need it, oh and it’s OK to go into debt to get it.

As for the sixties being the fifties and so on, well I think it’s more nonsense from the advertisers designed to boost the sales of anti wrinkle cream.

I’m happy to be the age I am and not waste time wishing for a youth that I’d never regain, what with lost innocence and all that.  I look forward to growing old ungracefully and promise to celebrate my age, whatever it may be.

And lets just hope the government does something.

(by the way ‘me culture’, market economic culture(as if you didn’t get it))