In his influential 1979 book The Culture of Narcissism, sociologist Christopher Lasch argued that while human beings have always feared death, this fear “takes on new intensity in a society that has deprived itself of religion and shows little interest in posterity. Our society,” he continued, “notoriously finds little use for the elderly.” 

I found myself confronted with my own “cult of youth” while struggling to make the sacrifices necessary to take care of my grandparents as they aged. It was hard for me to turn down a friend’s birthday party invitation in order to stay with my grandpa, whose Parkinson’s disease made it difficult for him to move around the house, and with my grandma, who needed to be reminded to take her medication for dementia. 

We have come to define productivity in a way that disregards senior citizens as “useless,” reinforcing, as Lasch put it, their “sense of superfluity at every opportunity.” Recent data indicating that about one in three Americans between the ages of 50-80 feel lonely or forgotten reaffirms that Lasch’s assertions continue to be true—perhaps even more so—47 years later. 

Lasch goes on to say that this disrespect for elders is made worse by the “cult of youth,” which values “beauty, charm, celebrity, or power-attributes that usually fade with time,” while devaluing “the wisdom of the ages.” This mentality sends “all forms of authority (including the authority of experience) into disrepute.” I can’t help but think of the “OK boomer” memes that are meant to signal that an older person’s perspective on current events is irrelevant. A more grim example is New York state’s recent legalization of “Medical Aid in Dying.”

Aging and Grace

Surely, caring for the elderly during their last phase of life is no easy task. We would be naïve to romanticize the emotional and financial tolls it takes to stay with someone until their “natural end.” Even the simpler act of engaging in intergenerational dialogue comes with its challenges. Yet my relationship with seniors—and especially my experience of caring for several of them until their death—confirmed my conviction that we not only have a duty to accompany them, but that forging intergenerational dialogue, relationships and spaces are crucial elements of a healthy society. 

It wasn’t until I read Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” that I began to see how the demands my grandparents made on my time and energy were actually a grace from God. Francis cited Psalm 71’s call not to “cast me off in the time of old age” in his warning about the consequences of a society that discards the elderly, including “cultural discontinuity, uprootedness and the collapse of the certainties that shape our lives.” 

Should we “break all ties with the past,” the pope writes, we will find it difficult “to realize that reality is bigger than [we] are.” Caring for the elderly, he wrote, rather than being an empty burden, can make the caretaker “feel connected to the living history” of our families, neighborhoods and country. It can help the person in her last stages of life experience her “sense of fulfilment and participation in the Lord’s paschal mystery.” 

Caring for three of my grandparents on their deathbeds was truly a redemptive and empowering experience—for all of us. The experience taught me to learn to love—to embrace and accompany—another person in a way I did not think myself to be capable of. But beyond the work of washing and feeding them, of taking them to doctor’s appointments and keeping vigil while they were in the hospital, was the work of learning to simply talk—and listen—to them. Indeed, Francis says that “listening to the elderly tell their stories is good for children and young people” as it can “help us to appreciate the continuity of the generations.” 

This was the least challenging—and perhaps the most interesting—part of caring for them. Growing up as an only child for most of my early years, I got accustomed to hanging around and talking to adults. The fact that my parents divorced when I was three only added to my “old soul” complex: On top of having to mature faster than children of intact families, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, who took care of me when my parents were busy working. I learned from a young age to enjoy hearing their stories about the old days and benefiting from their wisdom. Our conversations took on a new depth in their last years, as they began opening up to me with questions about the meaning of their suffering and their fears about reaching the end of their lives. 

Naïvete and Wisdom

Even beyond my family, I have developed a deep appreciation for intergenerational encounters. In college, I sought out numerous older professors during office hours to talk about everything from classwork to my existential questions. In fact, I owe much of my spiritual awakening (and eventual “reversion” to the Catholic Church) to an elderly Jesuit as well as a philosophy professor who had been teaching for nearly 50 years. I continued to depend on the wisdom of elders after starting my first full-time job at a Catholic high school. There I was mentored by veteran teachers as well as by the Benedictine monks who had planted their roots in the community long before I was born. 

After entering a community of lay consecrated men—all of whom are older than me—two years ago, I began to realize that intergenerational dialogue goes both ways. I can soak up the wisdom of those who have lived longer than me, but they also have something to learn from me as well. This is especially the case when discussing current events and divisive cultural issues. Needless to say, we don’t always see eye to eye. Sometimes I feel like the older members of the community are out of touch with the times, and they feel that I am overly naïve about the way the world works. And I have to admit to having felt tempted to say “OK boomer.” 

Yet through patience and God’s grace I have found this kind of friction can be surprisingly fruitful. I have come to see that I am indeed naïve about plenty of things, and that it’s OK to accept the fact that I have a lot to learn. But they have also embraced that my immersion in today’s culture gives me certain insights that they lack. 

On a deeper, spiritual level, I see how much these elders benefit from my youthful energy and excitement—which can tend to fade as time goes on—and even more so from my questions about the spiritual life. As one of my formators told me, “sharing your questions with the community members gives them the opportunity to rediscover the joy with which they first said yes to their vocation.” 

The sad reality is that most young people will miss out on these kinds of interactions if they do not intentionally seek them out. As the elderly continue to be pushed to the margins, and same-generation socializing becomes the norm, we can no longer take it for granted that people will find themselves in intergenerational spaces. We are far past the days of the multi-generational household—where children, parents, grandparents, and even aunts, uncles and cousins lived under the same roof. We have moved on to the norm of nuclear and single-parent households—or even of the single person living alone. As participation in local community and civic organizations and in parishes declines, there are even less opportunities for intergenerational interactions. 

Across Generations

Sociologist Ashley Frawley recently wrote about the erosion of “key informal spaces (the neighbor’s garden, the walk home)” where intergenerational relationships that “carried reciprocity, responsibility, and aspiration” could be forged, where a young person could encounter adult life and absorb “its demands without needing to be explicitly told how,” and “through which meaning was once transmitted.” 

Perhaps one of the least noticed examples of this erasure of informal intergenerational interactions is the age-segregation of partying and spontaneous fun. While teens may be around elders at family parties, I wonder how many of them consider these occasions to be opportunities for real fun. 

I remember my shock the first time I went to a summer festival in Greece, where I saw joy-filled teens having the time of their lives—dancing, talking, eating, drinking (to “the point of hilarity”)—alongside octogenarians. There’s something surprisingly thrilling about dancing, sharing a bottle of wine and even puffing on a cigarette alongside someone in their 80s. 

In a letter to one of his students, the Italian writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini lamented the parents who deprive their children of the gift of their wisdom by abdicating their authority and attempting to make themselves more “relatable” to them. I can only imagine how challenging it is to celebrate, let alone embrace, one’s old age in a society like ours. But no one truly benefits when we give in to the narrative that tells us that youth is life’s apex and old age is a useless burden. Instead, young people should be looking for ways not only to care for our elders, but to dialogue, have fun, and simply inhabit spaces with them. 

Stephen G. Adubato is a writer and educator based in New York. He is also the host of the Cracks in Postmodernity blog and podcast.