I've Always Liked Betty White...

I went down a Betty White rabbit hole after thinking about how my generation sees the world compared to later generations. Daniel Immerrwahr in The New Yorker explains that in the 1950s, places for seniors were called age-restricted developments. Developers hesitated to use that name and chose Retirement Communities instead. These towns were designed to be without children. The first one (irony probably not intended) was called Youngstown, located in Arizona. And it was a success. Within a decade there were thousands of these developments. This began a literal separation of generations by physical geography.

I believe we need to be more together rather than segregated by our “tribes” and narrowly held beliefs. It’s too bad that a separation that we probably could have lessened was between the old and young. The young moved to the suburbs away from their parents in the urban centers. And then in another couple of generations, the old (Boomers and Silents) moved to the warm weather retirement centers in the South. And this circles back to the various ages. I’m a Boomer, albeit one of the younger ones, our children are Millennials and our grandchildren are Polars.

And Polars give me the most hope. Polars are born between 2013 and 2029 so a significant number aren’t born yet. Dr. Jean Twenge calls them Polars because the Polar Ice Caps are melting and their generation will have to solve the climate crisis, but the other reason is more interesting: America is polarized. There is very little common ground, there is animosity, or worse between groups, and every issue is polarized and the view we hold is dependent on the person who states it. But we can do better and maybe a way to do that is to stop our self-segregation, spend time with those who are different than we are, and come to agreement on a simple truism: Betty White was great.