“We represent a phenomenon that never existed before,” says Mary Catherine Bateson of herself and her age peers. She has been interviewing a lot of them and they tell her: “I don’t feel like someone who’s 60, or 70, or 80.”

This she explains by observing that “we all carry the mental picture of our own grandparents, what they were like when we were children.” But they lived in a different world and they aged differently.

Author, educator, and cultural anthropologist, Catherine Bateson sees today’s older people as “something new.” Not only do more of us live longer but we live in an era of radical change.

This change has not merely altered technology and introduced new material objects such as emails, cell phones, and i-Pods. More profoundly, our generation has had to change attitudes on basic human realities─relationships between men and women, attitudes toward sexuality and gender, views about race and the environment.

Our era also has made it possible to bring together two realities that often used to be in conflict: wisdom and activity. Many older people are now volunteering, taking courses, traveling, and eloping (the latter much to the surprise of their children and others.)

As for wisdom, it’s the one word about aging that most of us like, observes Catherine Bateson. And we like to think it comes almost automatically with age.

It used to. Viewing the past with and anthropologist’s eye, she observes that in older traditional societies people knew the rules, and by age 40 they could prove useful by providing memories that were important to the community.

However, she points out, it no longer happens this way. What brings wisdom nowadays is not mere experience or length of years; if you wish to become wise, you have to take your experience and reflect on it

This means valuing a “kind of learning that takes place outside of the classroom. Something happens, delights you, scares you, tweaks your curiosity. That’s what wisdom consists in: not just years, but years of experience.”

When you combine the two, activity and wisdom, you produce something of which the world stands in sore need.

Our new longevity has extended the life span of families. Formerly, children were lucky to see one grandparent, more often than not a grandmother.

But now, Catherine, observing the structure of the extended family, says, “I’ve known kids with seven or eight grandparents: the grands, the great-grands, the ex-grands, the step-grands, and the grands-in-law.”

“They have enough grandparents to choose from,” she adds, “so a bit from this one and a bit from that one and they get their full share of grandparental love.”

Another new phenomenon has given children great-aunts and great-uncles who, by virtue of good health and mobility, display a vitality that used to be rare.

But Bateson sees most of us as still “stuck in an old imagination.” This prevents us from claiming the influence we could have in society.

As for politicians, “they are dead wrong: in thinking that just because a person is 60 or 70 or 80 they don’t care about the future.” Social Security, prescription drugs, and other such issues are by no means the only ones that interest us. We should be confronting the politicians more broadly and telling them “What you’re doing is going to make the world worse for my grandchild.”

Many Americans who are in early or middle adulthood typically do not have time for the future. In Bateson’s view, they tend be “incredibly busy and they have fewer assets than they thought they’d have, they are really scraping economically.”

This is where older people can be of help and also help themselves in the process. “The world is full of parents, couples working two jobs who would be grateful to have an honorary aunt or uncle or grandparent tactfully involved,” Catherine suggests.

She feels strongly about intergenerational bonding, as do I. “If you don’t have a child in your life, get one,” she advises us elders quite bluntly.

To the excuse of persons who say they cannot establish such contacts, Bateson sees volunteer activity with organizations as a helpful way of getting in touch with younger people. So are joining organizations, taking courses, going to church.

You might also reach out to the grandchildren of friends who live far away, perhaps inviting them to eat with you. Ours is a society that indulges in segregation by age and thus squanders opportunity and sets limits to what we can do to change things for the better.

Bateson believes strongly in the value of volunteering. She does so not merely because it helps to build up society and improve our communities.

She also considers volunteer activity important to individual development. That is why she urges those involved to “use your volunteer work as a way of framing and reflecting on what it means to be wise and active, both at the same time.”

Richard Griffin