But Freudian psychology taught the boomer generation to look inward for self-realization, instead of looking outward to the community, Pipher says. Other cultures honor their elders, but ours too often dismisses them as codgers, geezers and biddies. By 2040, America's elderly will outnumber college-age youth by 4 to 1. Meanwhile, our elders are literal, not ironic. When her uncle asked what was the biggest carrot she'd ever seen, he wanted to show off a 3-footer he had in the root cellar.
Boomers expect emotional openness and elders tend to make light of feelings.
Pipher tells a story about how a young boomer executive who rushed anxiously to be at her dying father's bedside. For months, she jockeyed between the demands of children, work and her mother's exhausting, disheartening decline. But Pipher, who was trained as an anthropologist before getting a doctorate at the University of Nebraska, wanted to work a few things through. And I came to realize that it has to do with trauma, with needing to talk about health the way you would another kind of threat.