We cannot deny our children the lessons of inter-generational connections. Margaret Mead said that the strength of a culture is sustained as three generations vitally interact. And yet I think it's not unfair to say we're building in this country a kind of horizontal culture, in which each age group is separated from the others. Infants are in nurseries, and toddlers in day care. Children in school are organized consistently by age.
Young people go off to college and spend four years isolated on campus.
Older adults are spending more and more time in the workplace, away from their families for up to ten hours every day, according to recent research. And elder people are living all alone, in retirement villages. Each child had an adopted grandparent, and inter-generational connections were made every day. When you see this connection, you realize that young people need to observe the difficulty and courage of growing older, and elder people need the inspiration of the very young. These are lessons that cannot be taught in an isolated school.