In Reply to: It's okay if we don't agree. posted by jo on November 21, 2003 at 13:01:32:
I'm not going to deny that I've often been motivated by guilt (also known as an overly-scrupulous conscience). However, I feel like I've done enough work on this issue to set some healthy boundaries for myself. In other words, I don't try to take responsibility for stuff over which I have no control, so that I don't feel resentful or burdened by my choices as a helper/care-giver. Mostly, I feel joy. That is how I know I'm staying on track with my boundaries.
I'm probably needing some correction in my attitude, but I do feel that older folks have a responsibility to be more mature (wiser) than younger folks. This doesn't mean younger folks can't be very wise and teach older folks quite a lot, only that younger folks don't have as much lived experience upon which to reflect. Developmentally, young adults are in a much different place than older adults.
Another way of putting it: I have children who are 28-years-old. Although they are now young adults and our relationship is different than when they were minor children, I still feel it is my responsibility to be "more adult" than they. After all, I've been 28 and gone through the developmental stuff associated with that phase of life. I cannot be my sons' friend in the sense that their peers are friends...my generational perspective will always be different than theirs. I don't turn to my children for help with my personal issues--I turn to trusted peers for that. How can they know what it's like to be dealing with problems of physical decline that come with aging? Why should I burden them with that right now? If I'm fortunate to live so long, we will all reach the developmental phase where taking care of me is appropriate.
Now that I'm coming into my years, I feel there is a definite place in our society for wizened women. Too many people in my generation have not grown up. They haven't done their developmental homework, so to speak. I'm for helping them, too. Perhaps I'm less patient and understanding of people of my own generation who appear to have learned little from their life experience.
Well, I definitely have my biases, as you've pointed out. I am, after all, a child advocate trained to treat children & adolescents who have experienced abuse and neglect.