In his book The Vanishing American Adult, former senator Ben Sasse pondered what might strike a person from the distant past as odd about our modern society. Aside from the technology, he said, they’d notice the extreme age segregation. Invariably today, we spend time almost exclusively with people our own age.
Our kids go to school with other kids. We work with other adults. Our own parents and grandparents are shunted off to retirement communities and old folks’ homes and cruise ships. The average age in the U.S. Senate, where Sasse worked, is around sixty-one. There are only ten senators, as of this writing, who are younger than him. The closest they get to young people is summer interns, pages, and junior legislative aides.
When was the last time you stayed under the same roof as someone twice your age? How many conversations do you have with people who grew up without the things you completely take for granted? In Lori McKenna’s song “Humble and Kind,” she talks about visiting “grandpa every chance that you can.” But it actually requires more than that, more than just seeing your own family. You have to make sure your kids aren’t stuck in a bubble, living their lives away from anyone but other children.
Instead, you have to expose them to wisdom. Expose them to people who remember the good and the bad things that humans did in the recent and not- so-recent past. Expose them to people who have learned painful lessons. Expose them to people who have accomplished incredible things.
Otherwise all that wisdom might be lost, and so might your children.