The First Steps

This photograph is one of four generations of women in my family.  My grandmother, born in 1903,  my mother, born in 1934, myself, born in 1955 and my two day old daughter, born in 1980.

We are all, for the most part, representative of our generations and the expectations and rules of those generations.

My grandmother was only 6 months old when her father died, but fortunately he had bought some parcels of land during his time as a house builder, and so the family were able to live by selling bits of land off through the years.   There was no National Health Service or Social Services at that time.  My grandmother was brought up by her mother, and her aunt, a single woman who had a career as a  headmistress and who lived next door with her own mother.   She was 11 years old when the First World War broke out.  Her brother was too young to fight, and she had had already lost her father.  Through coincidence, she was probably not unusual in having few men in her family, although others lost their menfolk in the fighting.

Unusually for the times, she went to London as a young woman and trained with medical students achieving a qualification as a physical education teacher, one of the first in the country.  She had two children, and was not able to have any more, despite wanting a larger family, as my grandfather, her husband, was rhesus negative.  These things were not well understood at the time.

My mother, born second, was a ‘blue’ baby, and had to have a transfusion at birth.  The doctor who delivered her was well up on the latest developments in childbirth, and his knowledge and quick thinking saved her life.  My grandmother was told that any subsequent babies would not be born alive.  She had no further children.  These days, the problem would have been known before she even started to have children.  A simple injection after the birth of her first child would have left her with the choice to have as many children as she wanted.

My mother, born between the wars, won a place at Cambridge to read English.  This was one of only 10 places available to women at the time.  She was forced to leave university when she became pregnant and got married.  She never had a job but was a ‘company’ wife, supporting my father in his work as they lived and travelled abroad with Shell.  Her main work was to manage the many servants we had, and organise social events on behalf of my father, and to do charity work in some of the far flung places that we lived.  Contact with home was conducted through letter writing, the few phone lines being very unreliable and extremely expensive.  She came back to England every few years between postings.

I was born in England, but before I was a year old, travelled abroad with my parents.  At 6 I was sent back to England to attend a private boarding school, flying out to join my parents for the holidays.  The only contact I had with my family were weekly letters, and an exeat weekend once a term, which I spent with my grandparents.

My daughter was born in a National Health hospital, whose service I did not pay for.  She attended many schools, including grammar schools, for which I did not have to pay.  I received an allowance to help me with her care as a child.  When she was older, she was given a grant to help with university costs.  She attended several universities as she changed her mind about what she wanted to study, and then was trained first as a teacher and later as a nurse when she changed her mind again.

Commonly for her generation, we, as her parents, bought her her first car, allowed her to come and live at home again when she was already 30 because she changed her mind again about what she wanted to do, and helped her with the deposit on her house.  Now married, she has her own house, a decent car, a widescreen TV and expectations of holidays in exotic locations.

My generation… that is.. the generation that was born in the 50’s and barely post war…. are a lucky generation in many ways.  Although we have engaged in conflicts in other parts of the world, our own country has not been directly affected by war as have the previous two generations.

We have so many more choices than our parents and grandparents had.

As a woman, I have been able to choose to have sex for pleasure without the fear of unwanted pregnancies.

I can choose and live with, a partner of my own sexual persuasion,  and be married and have children, or not,  without social constraint or exclusion.

I can educate myself to the level I choose, ability notwithstanding.

I can work at any kind of a job, and to the level of my ability.

I can receive medical care free of immediate cost.

I can be housed if I am not able to provide for myself.

I can vote and have a hand in determing who will be making the big decisions in the country where I live.

My grandmother had none of these choices.  My mother had some but certainly not all.

OK, ok….. I know that this is the theory and that in practice some of these things don’t quite match the theory… but nevertheless…. I don’t have the  spectre of workhouses…. or dying of measles because I can’t afford to pay a doctor… or starvation…. or having to stop work because I am now married….. or being socially excluded and unsupported because I am divorced……or having children at the whim of my body rather than through my own choice.

I live in a country where those that I have assigned authority to… the police and judiciary particularly… I believe are amongst the least corrupt in the world.

For our parents and grandparents…. many of those things were not so.

I am a woman approaching 60…. and for my parents generation that would already have been old…. and there would have been many social expectations of my behaviour.  My own grandmother at 60 was a little grey haired old lady who delivered the parish magazine…. worked in her garden… and was a helpful grandmother.

I still dye my hair a surprising red…. and take myself off on adventures….sometimes on my own….I’m still trying to work out who I will be when I grow up… because I believe that if I choose to learn something new… or work at something different… I still have that choice.

But it does cause me a problem….

With so much choice, and without many immediate role models… I don’t really know where to go from here.  This sounds very much like petulance, and I don’t mean it to.  I am very well aware that if I had been born in one of the urban sink estates and not into a reasonably affluent family, I would not have many of the choices that I do have, and I don’t in any way want to discount the difficulties of such a life.  But I can only speak from my own condition and with what I know from my own experience.  Whatever our background, some things are still true for all of us born at a certain time.

My generation are the last to be affected by the World Wars 1 and 2.  Our parents were all in the war one way or another and were themselves parented by those who got used to scarcity, uncertainty, and the absence and loss of friends and family members.  The generation who really did not know what the future would bring, or if there was to be any future at all.

Most of my family on my father’s side perished in Auschwitz, and my father barely escaped with his life from Poland at the age of 7, after the invasion of Poland at the beginning of the Second World War.  Amongst the possibilities for my english family was invasion and domination by another country.

As with all wars, there was no way to know how long it would last, how ferocious it would be, and how near the action might come to ‘home’.  Fear ruled, and children born to those who endured it were infected with the fear.

My generation were precious, not only as hope after the horror, but also carried the burden of making a new hopeful future that had been hard won.  We are still close enough to know what sacrifices and losses were endured, and how those impacted on our own families.  We have an innate drive to repay a debt and a feeling of responsibility to make best use of what has been offered to us.

My husband’s great uncle died in the First World War at the Somme, in his early twenties.  His mother, a widow, bravely travelled to France on her own, hearing that he was gravely wounded.  She arrived too late.  He had already died.  He had not in fact been fighting, but worked with the Ambulance Service at the front.

We have a large bronze medal, the size of a saucer, which shows a bowed Britannia, trident in hand, lion at her feet and carrying a laurel wreath which she holds above a plaque inscribed with his full name.  Around the edge the words…. He died for Honour and Freedom…. It was accompanied by a scroll which read.. “He whom this scroll commemorates was numbered among those who, at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom.  Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten.”

My father in law, his nephew, was named after him at birth, his family obeying, in the most literal sense, the last instruction, a common practice at the time.  The debt at that time was to carry the name of the dead through life and to always live with the pain of the loss.   As was also common then, my father in law was always known by his second name, David.  His own name.

The recent veto of our own government to engage in conflict with another country, despite the horrendous behaviour of some of those governing it, speaks of a different view of how to honourably involve your country in matters which seem unjust, immoral and inhumane. We now invest more heavily in taking care of those who survive than in commemorating and forever actively living with the pain of the loss of those who have died.

With two global wars fought within only 40 years, those who survived World War 1 and 2, in whatever condition and of whatever age, now lived, utterly traumatised, in a world unrecognisable from that in the early years of the century.  I am certain that from this distance, none of us who did not actually live through those times can possibly know the horror and trauma of all that happened.  All certainty had gone, everything had changed, in every way, the old order was displaced, and almost everyone had been touched by the conflicts in the most immediate way.

The debt owed after the Second World War was more subtle.  Gone the habit of naming children after those who had died fighting, now, the more esoteric insistence to purposefully use all those gifts for which the war was fought:  freedom, opportunity, equality and abundance pushed at the lives of those who remained, and their children were pushed towards the new dawn of a new age.

At my age now I feel the time for reckoning has arrived.  As I approach retirement, my unease has increased.  Have I made the best use of what was offered to me?  What was I supposed to do?  Is what I have done enough?  How will I know if it is enough?  I think there are many of my generation who suffer from a cultural feeling of guilt.

This summer my daughter was married.  She is 33.  A common age in this generation for this important decision.  In my time this would have been considered old.  I was married at 23 and considered myself to be on the shelf.  When in hospital having my second child at 27 I was described on my hospital notes as an ‘elderly’ mother.  When a few years later, and after much heartache, I divorced, I suffered castigation and condemnation from older members of my family for taking this step, but nevertheless was able to emerge with my two children without having altered my possibilities for work, friendship or being part of my community.

I am surprised now that I thought that way then.  In current times, this seems ridiculous.  Many of the younger generation, including my own children, don’t even think about having babies until they are in their mid thirties… and it is not uncommon for women to give birth to a first child when past 40.  In my time there was great alarm and general tutting when such a thing happened.

Many choose to have children without marrying first, without any significant influence to opportunities of every sort.

Many choose not to have children at all.

The next generation are a confident generation.  Confident they have a right to make their own decisions:  confident that they have enough time to wait to make those decisions: confident enough to travel round the world while still young, and live wherever they choose, with whoever they choose,  in that world.  They do not seem to be infected with the same fear as us, but rather are willing to step into the unknown with a feeling that everything will work out fine and there will be enough time.  They feel absolutely that they are entitled to determine their own identity, and we encourage them in this.

A friend of mine recently remarked that what we have not taught our children is how to manage disappointment.  We have worked very hard to make sure that they have not only what they need, but also what they want and even to anticipate what they might want.  If I examine my motivation for everything that I have done for and with my children, I feel, in some ways, that I can never give them enough.  I have probably overindulged them.

I am a grandmother now.  My gorgeous grandaughter lives across the other side of the world in Australia and is 18 months old.  When my son and his wife visited this summer to attend the wedding, my grandaughter and I made a close bond, when they left I was heartbroken.  It is a typical of this modern age.  Of this new confident generation.  I know many of my age who have grown up children living in far away countires.  Families are often separated by distance now.  Families, and the roles of their members are acted out through personal choice more than ‘ought to’s’ or what we might have called duty in the past.  We do not insist, overtly or covertly, on compliance to our needs.

Of course there are always exceptions to the rule in every generation.  It’s not like there haven’t been women in the past who did precisely what they felt moved to do, despite social convention, and who were gloriously successful in their choices.  But I am not exceptional.  I am ordinary.  I am a woman of my times.  I have friends who have the same dilemma.  We all suffer from a fidgetting sense of disquiet and question ourselves about the worth of what we have done or not done and some anxiety about what we are supposed to do next.

Some bury themselves in grandmotherly duties.  Some invest furiously in their work.  Some invest in altuistic pursuits.   Many are tyranised by large mortgages to pay off, or dependant children long past the time when those children would have been confidently seated in their own lives in the past.  Many give their children significant amounts from their own savings to ease the way to house purchase.  There are a significant number who are without partners, although with successful careers.  Certainly many are heavily involved in the care of their own parents.  A consequence of all of us living much longer than in previous generations.

I am fortunate to have a choice.  It seems ungrateful to complain.  I could have been one of those mentioned above, but I am lucky enough to have a husband who is happy for me to completely determine my own path and life, and who is willing to share what he works so hard for so that I can do this.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have worked hard too, and had multiple careers, and contributed significantly to the family.  Through circumstance and choice I no longer do regular paid ‘work’.

I have never really subscribed to the idea of work as being a paid job.  Some of the things I have done have not felt like hard work at all, but I have been handsomely remunerated.  Other responsibilites that I have taken on have felt very hard ‘work’ indeed, and I haven’t received a bean for my investment of time and effort.  For many years now, when asked what I do, I simply report those things I choose to spend time doing that requires my commitment.

I don’t want to waste the opportunity that I have now, and I have got to a place in my life where I am not willing to compromise the time I have left to me.

My body is telling me that it is ageing.  My joints are stiffer.  My stamina less.  My eyesight not as sharp, nor my memory as agile.  I do know a thing or two.  I have experience in many arenas.  The way that human beings age has not changed through time, and the changes are inevitable.

Part of my dilemma is whether to still follow the demand put on me to purposefully use my choices, as seen by a previous generation, or to simply do what I want, as I have encouraged my children to do.  The truth is, I do wear purple.  I do sit on the pavement if I feel like it.  I don’t feel there is anything I absolutely couldn’t do because most people don’t do it that way.  The consequences on the whole are not what they were.  Maybe the dilemma is that I do know that I have a choice about what I do, but I don’t have the same confidence as my children to simply do it.

There are many things I still want.

I come from a generation who still carry the fear of scarcity and loss but who have been offered, what was until our arrival, unknown freedoms and opportunities and abundance. In a way, I think we were rushed at a shining future to make up for an unthinkably horrific episode in our history.   This combination, I believe, has left us with a sort of guilt about whether we have sufficiently honoured the gift, knowing the sacrifices that were made to make them possible.  Maybe that is why we have so indulged our own children, wanting to pass on some of the largesse, and release them from the feeling of indebtedness.

Of course, releasing them from this has had a consequence: what has crept into the space is more a feeling of entitlement on their part, because that is what we have led them to believe.  We have taught them to expect to have what they want, and as a consequence, to become impatient when they cannot immediately have what they want.  I believe another consequence of our openhandedness with our own children is partly to blame for the problems of debt, antisocial behaviour and aggression, poor health through over indulgence and often, an apparent absence of personal responsibility.  It is an inevitable outcome when reciprocity and gratitude is not encouraged, and where there is more emphasis put on personal actualisation than social effect.

The benefits are also many.  At their best, the next generation are confidently themselves, personally committed rather than just obedient, hopeful and curious and excited about the unknown rather than fearful, generous in their inclusion and confident about being part of a global community, and where there is a belief about an endless and hopeful future.  It is a generation of no limits.  For good and bad.

Each generation has its curse and its good fortune, bequeathed by a former generation trying to right the wrongs of their own experiences, both in their families and in the world at large.

The wonderful poem, ‘Warning’ by Jenny Joseph, cites many of the insignificant and seemingly unimportant rules which many of our generation have obeyed in growing up.  In fact, the whole poem speaks of obedience to someone else’s set of rules.  Now made confident by our own children, we see that we have as many choices as they do, if we are willing to act more like them.

We live in the world that they are moulding and have already changed through their actions.  The world we were born into is already transformed out of all recognition.

We will not live to see the true legacy of our choices.  Our children will produce another generation, and grow older, and probably question the validity of what they have encouraged and taught their children to do, and bear the consequences of those choices as we are now doing.

I am now stepping into the part of my life, like every generation before me, where my own obedience or disobedience to family and social rules, my own passions and rebellions, have been part of influencing my own children and the paths they have taken.  I am fortunate that in my lifetime, the country where I live has not been engaged in war in a way that immediately affects our everyday life as in previous times.  The stability of my life has not been threatened as at least the two previous generations have been.  But the ghost of those times lingers still.  World War and a breakdown in social order is still a possibility with everything that comes with it.

I will grow old, inevitably.  And yet I still have the feeling of not knowing what I will do when I grow up, never mind when I grow old.  Maybe that is normal.  Maybe everyone feels like that and always has.  Maybe that thing that so many elderly people say when being close to the end of their life about still feeling twenty inside, is that same feeling that currently occupies me. A dissonance.

My physical being has matured through a predictable timeline, while my internal identity morphs and changes in reaction to experience, rather than time.

It is thought that babies first become aware of being seperate and different from their primary carer at about 8 months old.  It is part of being human to have consciousness of this.  After this first awareness, I believe that our individual identity (me) is co-created with many different forms of ‘other’ (you) and needs relationship, conversation, connectedness to mediate meaning: I don’t know who ‘me’ is until I have ‘you’ to interact with and I can see where we are the same and where we are different.

I am listening hard for the relationships and conversatons with other  generations, cultures, collectives, to hear what any of these ‘others’ is calling me to do, to be, to become.

Hello…… is anybody out there?