Transmission of Silverist Culture
Where I live, San Francisco, I see a lot of older parents with young kids. I don't know this for a scientific fact, but it appears that people are waiting longer to have kids. My wife and I had our baby girl, Rowan, at 36. So you get 35-45 year olds with young children. As this becomes more wide spread (if it does... and my guess is it will) you get a skewing of cultural transmission toward an older norms. My parents were quite young when I was born. My mother was 21. My parents both admit "we were kids raising kids".
What does this mean? Well, to the extent that parent's ideals, temparaments, desires, etc are absorbed by the growing child, the child of older parents will carry those "more mature" traits into adulthood themselves. And if enough kids are raised this way... over time this can help skew the overall culture toward set of (dare I say) more mature norms. Overall could this lead to a mature culture? More evolved thinking? More peaceful? More graceful way of living. All the good things that come from the influence of older wiser humans? We can hope. (Please also see the entry on Wisdom Accretion)
Here is a snippet from an article on older parents:
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There are definite advantages to being mid-life parents.
- Older men tend to be more involved fathers. "Men's attitudes about what it means to be a father have dramatically shifted," explained William S. Pollack, Ph.D., Co-director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass., and assistant psychiatry professor at Harvard. Many middle-aged men choosing fatherhood today are well-established baby boomers. Fatherhood in the 1950s usually meant a distant male who went to work, supported the family, but left the child rearing to mom. Men of this era may not remember having much affection or physical contact from their dads. Today's dads are part of the team and are more committed to fatherhood.
- Parents are more established in their careers. If career issues are ironed out, children are less of a threat. Parents feel like they have time for both their career and a family. Parents are also more financially stable. They probably own property or a house. This is one less financial burden. This also means that they can probably better afford quality child care.
- Older parents say they are more patient, calm, and better able to go with the flow than they were when they were younger. The farther away from childhood that you are, the easier it is to understand it. Many parents feel that if they had become parents in their 20s, they were still too much a child themselves to be a good parent. They've reached a new level of maturity. They don't worry so much about their children's position on the developmental scale. They realize now children don't have to be perfect. They don't need children to fulfill their ambitions and prove they are good people. The children are freer just to be individuals and grow up in loving, supportive atmospheres.
- Older parents have more time to spend with their children. They realize what a precious gift they have been given and want to make the most of it.
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