The Age of Not Acting Your Age

While millennials are hitting traditional milestones later in life, the older generation is enjoying youthfulness, mid-life and old age all at once

Item A British child psychologist has suggested that the definition of “adolescence” should be extended to age 25.

Item In Canada, 30 per cent of millennials aged 25 to 29 are still living at home with their parents, compared to 12 per cent when the baby boomers were that age.

Item A new study just released in the U.K. indicates that 25 per cent of men over the age of 85 have had sex in the past year.

Item The younger generation is getting married later and having kids later. For the boomers, the average age of first marriage was 20 for women and 23 for men. Today, it’s 27 and 29.

Item The fastest growing age group in percentage terms is the centenarian. Since the average age of becoming a grandparent for the first time is about 55, this means many people will spend almost half their lives as grandparents.

What’s going on here?

Nothing, it seems, is unfolding “on schedule” – at least, not based on the traditional milestones and expectations that used to determine how we looked at any particular age.

We already understand this when it comes to the “older” age groups. We know that the Zoomer generation is “reinventing aging” – displaying attitudes and behaviours that, in years past, would never have been expected of people of that age. Sixty is the new 40, 80 is the new 60 … you know the story. And it’s reflected, in all its groundbreaking glory, in every issue of this magazine.

But what’s less obvious – and has equally serious implications – is the “reinvention” of other age groups as well. If the “older” people are acting younger, it seems the “younger” people are acting younger still. If 60 is the new 40, can 30 be the new … um … 15?

There’s ample evidence, particularly on university campuses today, that the youngsters are considerably less mature – and certainly, less self-sufficient – than were the baby boomers at that same age. They demand “trigger warnings” of potentially sensitive course material so they don’t have to confront content that may be upsetting. (At Brown University, students alarmed by a debate topic created a “safe” room equipped with pillows, blankets, Play-Doh, and videos of puppies. Seriously.) Where the boomers marched against the Vietnam War, students today demonstrate against racially offensive Hallowe’en costumes and proclaim (Brown again) that it’s unfair for the school to demand they complete their coursework, given all the time pressures of social justice activism. Yikes. But maybe these are just style points. After all, the older generations have been rolling their eyes at wayward youth since the dawn of history. “I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today,” wrote