I will turn 60 in April and as a card-carrying Baby Boomer, it seems that we have been hoist on our own petards. We, the generation that cried, “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” find ourselves looking at 30 so far in our rearview mirrors that we need a telescope to see it. We are the ones who vowed into the cultural consciousness that it was not okay to be older, that there was something irrelevant and even a bit wrong about aging. Getting old, we averred, was totally uncool. Oops.
We have become the very people we warned ourselves against, age-wise. We had protested and fought for social change. We had impact upon the wrongs we saw in society and because there were so many of us and we were so vocal. And, there was change. The culture has taken massive steps toward diversity, broken through many of the ceilings that barred advancement to women and people of color. There now is a broad consensus to take better care of the environment, locally and globally. Much work is still to be done but it is certainly not the same world we fought so hard to turn upside down.
It was our youth that gave us the energy and the willingness to believe that things could become better, as they never had been before. It was our sheer numbers that pushed the change past the tipping point. While we may not still have our youth, we still have the numbers. And those numbers are power.
Retailers know this. As our generation started to get a bit of middle-aged spread, we were reluctant to admit that those 501’s didn’t quite fit anymore. A whole new terminology was invented – relaxed fit. Do you think it is an accident that right when we were between 25 and 35-years-old, stretch jeans became a retail staple? That is power. Marketing power.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of mass-marketing is still geared toward an ideal – ideal body weight, ideal social standing and an ideal age. Madison Avenue still worships at the fountain of youth. Advertising is geared toward the young in the old-fashioned belief that only the young are willing to try anything new. We boomers have always forged the trail in inventing and trying new things.
The effect of youth-first media barrage is that we start to question our validity and deny our age. We dance as fast as we can to avoid it. The purveyors of plastic surgery, laser correction, liposuction, chemical enhancement, personal trainers, cosmetics, and Botox are enjoying unprecedented boom times.
Let’s take a look at what we are really trying to hold on to. What do the concepts of youth and youthfulness represent? Relevance, vitality, flexibility, creativity, sexiness, and upward mobility are a representative sample of qualities that we commonly ascribe to youth.
In business there is a term called “head room” and it refers to a person’s growth potential in his or her career. The potential for growth and future longevity within an organization is one of the parameters used in calculating figuring head room.
Since we cannot change the marketing zeitgeist about head room at the moment, let’s work on increasing the head room in the place where it counts most – inside our own heads. Youth can be wonderful, exhilarating, vibrant and creative. The myth we buy into is that only youth can be wonderful, exhilarating, vibrant and creative.
It is the norm, not the exception, to find successful, beautiful, brilliant, energetic, fit, creative people in their 50’s, 60’s, and well beyond. Look around you. Who are the heads of state and the vast majority of business leaders in every industry? Tennis courts, golf courses, artist’s lofts, gyms, and dance studios are filled with active baby boomers. Boomers have second and even third careers. They counsel, mentor, design, create, organize, travel and much more. We even have one of the most powerful and effective lobbying organizations for positive change, the AARP.
I am advocating that each of us accepts and celebrates our age, whatever that might be. Be healthy, be fit, look good, take care of yourself, but don’t pretend to be younger because you believe that youth is the only place where relevance lives. That is a lie. Wear your age, your experience, your power and your face proudly. You’ve earned it.
Dennis Tardan is a communications consultant and empowerment trainer. His passion is helping people to communicate their core messages with greater clarity, effectiveness and confidence. His company is Tardan Professional Development and he is based in Texas, USA. www.tardanprodev.com. Write to Dennis at .
