Another Country

I've been reading Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders by Mary Pipher, Ph.D. I picked the book up years ago when I saw it on sale at Half Price Books and it was this week that I suddenly pulled it off my shelf to read. Perhaps it is the fact that I'm working with an older client or perhaps it is because both my parents are navigating their own terrain of being senior citizens, but the book called to me and I am really enjoying it.

There is a way that I see my parents as people – individuals with their own lives, their own meaning and perspectives driving their own understanding of the world around them. That doesn't mean that we still don't sometimes clash but what I love about Pipher's book is that she makes the claim that of course that clash is going to happen. It is a "time zone" difference. Each generation – or time zone – has its own culture. The problem is that it looks the same on the outside but is very different on the inside. We figure we all lived together for so many years that we share the same culture. Perhaps we do in some ways but in others, we don't. We all speak the same language but those words have very different values based on the era we live in. Without trying to understand those cultural differences, we will never really hear each other. Understanding the different perspective allows us to step back from the clash without trying to change what we cannot change.

Pipher is really looking at the generation born in the first third of the 20^th century and their children. My parents slip into that category by a hair's breath. Just as I straddle the baby boomer generation and gen X (or whatever they call the generation that followed the baby boomers now). And I can see so much of what Pipher discusses as being very true – especially for my mother. Pipher talks about the way in which this older generation grew up within a much more communal society and all that that entails. She writes, "Sharing, loyalty and cooperation were held in high regard. Appearance and good manners were important. Because people saw each other every day for lifetimes, reputation was critical. Conformity was a positive virtue. Social training had to do with going along to get along. Wisdom wasn't seen as the property of individuals, but rather as a collective possession…Emphasis on duty and connection made sense in a society in which, day after day, and year after year, people were together. The rewards of good behavior were membership in a tribe and lifelong friendships." (Pipher, 70)

I've always seen my mother's family as a tribe. There was a way that they worked together, survived hardship together because they had each other. For generations, my mother's family moved west together – the whole extended family moving into the same areas and maintaining that sense of kinship. During my mother's lifetime that communal living truly did start to break down somewhat in a physical sense as people began to marry and move outside of the community, but the culture remained. The culture permeated family gatherings and there are still pockets where the tribe of my mother's family still exists.

There's more – reading this book is to look at American culture over the last 100 hundred years from an interesting, almost anthropological perspective. For me, it is thought provoking and continues to help me let go of my own pre-conceived values and beliefs when I think about what my parents should or shouldn't be doing. Anything that helps me see them more clearly for who they are allows me to also accept my own culture and values. I have conversations now with my children were I am beginning to see a shift between our two generations. It doesn't make anyone right or wrong – just perspectives that have been molded not only by our families of origin but the culture within which we live.

And as a culture, America does tend to devalue our elderly. We are youth-centric and age phobic. Our elders are marginalized and infantilized which is a shame. There is such wisdom there about life, community and resiliency. I find myself listening more and more to how my parents cope with age and what they have found out to be true after all these years. There is a way that they have let go of so many of life's annoyances – and other ways that they still feel such deep pain (and yet live and cope). I wonder what else I have to learn if I really start to listen.