A Baby Boomer Grapples With Becoming Irrelevant — 'The Transition From Babysitter To Spectator Is Very Painful'
The transition from babysitting grandparent and game companion to the spectator and occasional participant is disheartening.
philipimage | Canva My Florida family ventured north and rented a home for two weeks in my resort community along the Jersey Shore. Teenagers now, the grandkids are immersed in their generational lifestyle.
Friends rule. Family time is endured, even enjoyed, until teen goings-on beckon. Their parents’ lifestyle is not a lot different. With friends who live in the Northeast, a shore vacation offers an opportunity to reconnect and mix fun, sun, and social time.
That leaves the older generation, my husband and me, AKA Grandpa and Grandma. We are tolerated for intervals between teen and grown-up time. I am not complaining. Anytime spent with the young’uns is a terrific time.
But as a Baby Boomer, I am starting to grapple with becoming irrelevant.
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The kids age, we age, and relationships transform.
My sister and I spent our childhood summers at my grandparents’ bungalow in the Catskill Mountains. How did we view the adults? Boring, old, un-energetic? Probably.
The only athletic-like activity recalled is long walks (or they seemed long to a little girl) along country roads. There were other pastimes spent together — card games, mah-jongg, trips to the library, and of course meals and nightly bowls of ice cream.
Fast forward to a 21st-century generation that savors summer break. The kids love to walk to the ice cream parlor to indulge in their favorite dessert, especially when the old folks pay.
The old folks enjoy sharing meals with the kids; any meal I don’t prepare is appreciated. The teens link with friends in person or via electronic means I am only vaguely familiar with. There are additional active activities — old folks uninvited. We are favored for brief periods, fleeting moments of connection.
The transition from babysitting grandparent and game companion to the spectator and occasional participant is disheartening.
It's a transition not welcomed due to the realization that, on the part of us oldsters, it is one more sign of aging into … extinction. Obscurity? Irrelevance? Invisibility? All of the above?
I understand why some people want to live in a 55+ community where everyone is on the same page, and folks are not regularly reminded of their creeping maturity.
We oldsters may be young at heart, but let’s face it — our faces and our bodies betray us. We chug along, keeping an eye on the kids and watching their energy soar as ours dissipates. And life goes on.
Meryl Baer lives at the Jersey Shore, where relatives and friends descend all summer, but no one visits in winter, so she writes. Her work has appeared in anthologies and journals, on Medium, and her blog, Musings of a Shore Life.