The Older Person I Want To Be
At 51 years old, I ask myself: Who do I want to be as an older person, especially in relation to the generation behind me? With Mother's Day and Father's Day approaching, I've been thinking about the kind of parent I want to be to my adult children and the kind of relationships I want with others' adult children.
Everything changes when the "younger" outgrows the "older," and the only model I have to follow is the baby boomer generation before me. My experience tells me there is a choice: make room in my life to adapt as they outgrow (and surpass and outsmart) me or to feed my anger and disappointments about my life.
We outgrow people
As we grow older, we grow into new people, and sometimes we outgrow the people around us: colleagues, friends and family. In my life, I know I've grown into someone new at different stages of adulthood:
Leaving home to move to a new city
Going to university
Moving to a new city for a first job
Getting married
Having kids
Moving to a new city for a big job
Leaving the big job
Starting my own company
Choosing work that nourishes my soul
Ending my marriage of 21 years
Allowing distance from people who are not able to support me
Creating new and nourishing friendships
Moving across the city into a place I could call my own
I have always been growing into someone new, and sometimes people travel with me. There are close relationships where the newness in me is welcomed and encouraged. Some of those relationships are steadfast, while others are people who pop in and out along the way. In some cases, people cannot make space in their lives for the changing me, and I outgrow them. It can be painful—for all of us.
What it means to be older
Dr. Edward Kelly, a researcher in Dublin, Ireland, writes about "the third act of life." What was old age for our great-grandparents is now middle age for us, and this is new territory:*
Sandwiched between your second and fourth act, the Third Act is a new developmental stage in human evolution… the new gift of time has profound implications for us.
Here are the four stages of development we now experience, according to Kelly:*
First Act – Formation, childhood, adolescence, dependency, growing to adulthood (age 1-25)
Second Act – Development, independence, career planning & progression, partnering, bringing up family, saving for later (age 25-55/65)
Third Act – Transformation, second chance, new career after retirement. Time, space, opportunity for growth & development (age 55-80+)
Fourth Act – Pairing down, old age. Facing increasing frailty, loss of acuity of senses, health or mind and facing the inevitable end of life.
We don't have a map for life in our 50s and 60s. Instead of dying of old age at 55, we live for potentially decades longer. Only one generation, the parents of the baby boomers (my grandparents), lived this long, and we still don't know what to make of it.
I’m not at the end of my life at 51. And the baby boomers ahead of me continue to have the capacity for significant psychological growth and development.
Think about this:**
Two thirds of those who have ever lived over the age of 65 are alive today
Average life-expectancy in the developed world continues to rise, currently nearing 80 years and forecast to rise to 90 by 2050
Most people born in the developed world from the year 2000 can expect to celebrate their 100th birthdays.
Kelly flags an important question: how can we prepare for this period of life never lived before? For the Third Act, I have an additional question: What is the quality of relationship we wish to have with the next younger generation? Not the grandchildren, but the younger adults that follow us? (For baby boomers: Gen X. For Gen X: the Millennials.)
A choice for me
Younger generations learn from older generations. As a parent with young children, I learned from baby boomers and as a parent with adult children now, I'm still looking to baby boomers for insights about how to be a parent supportive of who my kids are becoming.
For three decades now, I've been observing how baby boomers behave with younger people. Not the grandchildren they gush about, but the trickier territory of their relationships with younger adults: their children or others' children, in personal and professional settings.
The challenge seems to be when the older generation is outgrown, surpassed in some fashion by younger people. In a professional setting, it could be when a younger person has more expertise than an older person. In a personal setting, it could be when a child, at any age, has surpassed a measure the parent deems important: the younger makes more money, has more status, more friends, is physically stronger, knows more about something, etc.
When outgrown, the choices made by older people reflect two distinct energies: nourishment of, or attack on, the younger generation.
Invite the growth of younger people
When I was 35, I was promoted to a big job. My colleagues, ranging from 5 to 25 years older than me, were going to report to me, and I was worried about how they would react. I was worried that they'd think I was too young and not work with me, but their response welcomed me into a new level of leadership capacity: tears of happiness, a cheer with jump-up-and-down excitement, a hug and a hand on my shoulder that said, "I've got your back."
To this day, I can see their faces, hear their words and feel their commitment to support me so we could, as a leadership team, do the hard work ahead of us well. They weren't threatened by my moving up in the organization. On the contrary, they were buoyed and thrilled—for the organization, for our work, for me, and themselves.
They felt excited, and they provided me with tangible support for my success.
Attack the growth of younger people
In my mid-forties, I started making some changes in my life that better aligned with my sense of self. One day, I spoke to a couple of older people about the gratitude my former partner and I had for each other, and our ability to do all the financial and legal work to end our marriage without high levels of conflict and lawyers. We uncoupled with grace, and I was experiencing the relief of a significant milestone: legal separation.
I also invoked some boundaries that day, holding these older people to account for sharing my (and my partner's) personal story about the end of our marriage without my permission. (We let some people around us know what was happening and asked them to hold it in confidence until we had sorted out the terms of our separation.) I wasn't overly upset, just enough that I needed them to know that they breached the trust I placed in them. These older people responded with an out-of-proportion attack; among many harsh things said to me, they accused me of elder abuse.
They felt uncomfortable, and their strategy to find relief was to attack.
A continuum
I'm at an age now where I work with far more people younger than me than older, and I recognize I have a choice when they outgrow me: I can be the kind of person who supports their growth or harms them. Either way, I will feel sad and upset from time to time as I grapple with dreams I haven't realized or things I haven't accomplished and perhaps never will. I can't avoid feeling bad. I have a choice about whether I will allow myself to feel those feelings. In the end, this is about my relationship with myself.
Here's why I write this as Mother's Day and Father's Day approach: It's time for Baby Boomers and Gen X to think about who we are and how we support the younger adults in our world. We don't deserve bouquets and BBQs just because we made children. We certainly don't deserve them when we are not supporting younger adults to be their fullest selves. We have work to do.
Those choices above, about supporting or attacking the growth of younger people, are real. Here's how I see them on a continuum:
The two contrasting events I describe above help me imagine who I want to be when faced with younger people who surpass me with their skills and knowledge, or with their emotional courage to tell me what is working or not working in our relationship. Whether in personal or professional settings, I see four choices for myself.
#1 Invite the other’s growth (and mine)
When older people welcomed and supported my growth, I could feel the motivation behind the scenes: let's do great work together; I want to help you be the best person you can be; let's improve this world we have. Their sense of security in themselves was palpable. I was not a threat; they welcomed the change in our relationship and provided me with professional and personal support.
To choose this, I must also be motivated by a desire to support others as they reach their fullest potential. To do this, I must do the inner work that allows me not to be threatened, jealous or envious of their progress. By inviting their growth, I am also inviting my growth.
#2 Tolerate the other’s growth (and keep mine to a minimum)
Between support and attack, there is a middle ground that appears to be accepting but is tolerance. While nothing is said, or there are no actions to limit, to dissuade the other's growth, there is no support. I experience tolerance as silence. If I share what I am excited to be learning about, the other asks few or no questions. Any discussion about "me" is avoided and not initiated by the other person.
To choose this, I am motivated by a desire to be in relationship but to not open myself up to have to make space in my life for other people's changing. I may or may not be conscious of this motivation.
#3 Dismiss the other’s growth (and not grow)
Between support and attack, there is another middle ground of passive resistance. In my experience, this happens with comments that dismiss the growth that is underway in the other. I've heard statements like, "you're going to do it anyway," "that's just a silly new thing he's into," or "it's just a phase; they'll grow out of it." When called out on this, the person will say, "I'm just joking."
To choose this, I am motivated by wanting to appear to be on friendly terms. I do not want to change, and I'm not clear with myself or others about this. I may or may not be conscious of this motivation.
#4 Resist my growth
When older people attacked my growth, I could feel the motivation behind the scenes: I'm feeling upset, and I want things to go back to the way they were; I'm feeling uncomfortable, and I want it to stop.
Out of proportion to what was happening, the attack indicates that what they were experiencing was not about me; it was about them. I witnessed (and yes, it hurt) resistance to grow with the changing world.
I choose to be conscious
Learning and growing do not make me better than others; it makes me someone who learns and grows. Each of the choices above has an appropriate time and place. With some people, I can be fully present to support them in their growth. With others, I haven't done enough inner work to be able to put my hurts aside.
It feels good to feel superior to other people. I have to monitor this sense of superiority because it means that I am not inviting another person's growth, even if I think I am. If I'm fluffing myself up, I'm putting someone else down. That is not supportive energy.
It can also feel good to outgrow friends, colleagues or family, but this is not about superiority. It is about growth, growing into someone new. I am conscious of the people around me whose energies are not supportive of me and my growth. I want to be more aware of how my energies erode the growth of younger people in my life, especially when I am feeling challenged, hurt, or left behind.
“I want to be more aware of how my energies erode the growth of younger people in my life, especially when I am feeling challenged, hurt, or left behind.”
When the other is growing, and I’m feeling tension about it, I have a choice: support them or bring them down. Either way, the choice I'm making is about me—am I allowing my learning and development?
Habits
I've noticed that older people have different habits when challenged by younger people:
People in Invite and Support mode: express their emotions; are self-reflective; consider the needs of others in addition to their own; welcome honesty and transparency, even when it is difficult; do a great deal of inner work to ensure their fears and hurts do not harm others; can witness the other without inserting themselves; take ownership for mistakes they have made; able to hold the discomfort of others without making it about them; are in a long-term learning relationship with the 'self.'
People in Resist and Attack mode: hide their emotions (from themselves and others); exercise power over others; operate with secrecy; believe they are superior to others; belittle others; change the rules of the game, or insist on the old rules to suit their needs; deny mistakes made by them; resist change that they do not initiate; make others’ discomfort about them; have limited self-awareness
As an older adult who wants to invite the growth and development of younger adults, I have a lot of work to do to monitor myself, notice when I drift into tolerate, dismiss or resist modes of behaviour.
Who I am is up to me
What if, instead of requiring our adult children to perform on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, we took a day to reflect on our capacity to be the kind of parents who support unlimited growth in their kids and other people's kids.
What I think and my emotional reaction to what I think dictates how I behave when faced with someone who is outgrowing me. It's my choice to be supportive or not.
To support my kids or other people's kids' growth, my work is the constant examination of what is brewing within me. A foul inner stew will always spoil my good intentions.
I'll start by acknowledging how I feel when someone:
Tells me about the negative impacts of my actions
Achieves status I desire
Has higher mental capacity to handle complicated and complex situations
Has higher emotional capacity to handle tricky situations
Knows more about something than I do
The quality of relationships I craft with younger adults starts with me.
Reflection
Who are the older adults in your life who nourished and supported your growth beyond their skills or abilities?
Who are the older adults in your life who tried to hold you back from your growth or attacked you?
What relationships have you outgrown throughout your adulthood?
What relationships have grown stronger, along with your growth? Who do you have new relationships with because of your growth?
Who do you want to be for the generation that immediately follows you?
Sources
*Kelly, Edward. "Introducing the Third Act of Life." The Third Act. Accessed May 4, 2021. http://thethirdact.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/What-is-the-third-act_1.pdf
**Kelly, Edward. "The Third Act: When There is No One Left to Blame," Accessed May 4, 2021. http://thethirdact.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/The-Third-Act-No-one-left-to-blame.pdf