Open our governance doors to young people

 

Public domain image

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

-Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet 1923)

 

Cover photo Barry Feinstein, Courtesy Columbia Records

“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’”

-Bob Dylan (1964)

Photo courtesy Vermont State Youth Council

What’s changed 40 years? One thing has, we live longer than we used to.

When I was young growing up in Morrisville, many of the adults I knew died in their 50s and 60s. We smoked and drank, ate questionable food, and drove too fast. Some of our fathers worked in the Eden asbestos mills or the Atlas Plywood Company, breathing the toxic glue they used in manufacturing. Today the average life expectancy in Vermont is 78.4 years. I’m already past my “sell-by” date.

When I think of death, I’m less haunted by the thought of it than by my thoughts of the world that we’re leaving to our children and the power over it we’ve hoarded as we age. Clinging to power in the autumn of our years makes it impossible for succeeding generations to step up and begin managing the world they will inherit. We must learn to get out of the way of our children and grandchildren, welcome and cede to them the power they need to manage their future.

Here are some ways we might do that.

In my unexpectedly long life, I’ve chaired twelve statewide nonprofit boards. I’m now, by choice, no longer on any boards. It’s intentional as I want to make room for younger leadership. How many boards do you serve on, alongside members of younger generations? Has your nominating and governance committee tried to recruit young people? In the broader world of global decision-making, how much civic infrastructure or board governance encourages young people to want to serve? Does your local school teach civics and one’s inherent responsibilities to the common good?

Never a fan of term limits, I’ve come to believe they’re critical now that we live longer and have chosen to cling to the reins of what we imagine is progress. What systems do we have to recruit, welcome, and prepare our young into the world of civic governance and decision-making as progress careens forward.

Technological advances are accelerating even though our traditional governance systems remain largely the same as they have in the past. Just in my own lifespan, I remember when the last hill farms of Elmore and Wolcott were first being wired with electricity and farmers were still farming with horses rather than tractors. We shared our phone line with five neighbors and only answered our ring. I lived through the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – my father did not – and I’m now on my fifth all-electric vehicle, have a smartphone that answers all my questions and, as a writer, live in fear of artificial intelligence.

But how often have I had an inquisitive conversation with a young person in which I ask about their fears, or what they think about the world we’re leaving them?

As elders, we’re hoarding the decision-making spaces our children need to manage a future that works for them. We can certainly support their decision-making with the acquired wisdom of our advanced age, but we must make room for them to join us at the levers of control. This means making space in our for-profit and nonprofit governing boards and our political systems for succeeding generations. It may even mean offering life-style supports that enable their participation such as childcare, healthcare insurance, and travel expenses.

I’ve been a columnist for many years, and before that a regular commentator on Vermont Public, assuming that I was reaching people of all ages and interests. But recently, a young woman living with us challenged me by asking how many young people I believe read or even see my columns. I thought for a minute. Her question and subsequent discussion made clear to me that her generation not only doesn’t hear what I and others in the traditional news media have to say, they don’t access that media.

I asked how her generation gets their news, and she answered that it’s primarily through podcasts on social media. I winced. I’m neither a fan of “social media” nor “influencer capitalism.” After hearing Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony wherein he was confronted directly about the number of children exposed to pornography, direct-marketed Fentanyl, or sexually groomed by pedophiles on his Facebook and Instagram platforms, I decided that the evil outweighed the good and swore off all social media…promotional suicide for a writer.

Our conversation put front and center that my generation must confront the question of how we bridge the generational gap by talking with and listening to our children and grandchildren, so as to learn from them rather than clinging to our role as if we were the only intelligence in the room. They’re aware of the havoc in the world they’ll inherit while feeling powerless over it.

There are positive signs. Much of my nonprofit experience was in the arts, an area that seems to be a natural bridge between generations. Recently my wife, my former wife, and I spent an evening at the Mt Abraham school auditorium hearing Dido and Aeneas, a 17th century English opera performed by the Youth Opera Company of Middlebury. We all left imbued with great hope and enthusiasm for the 50-plus young people singing on stage. The Vermont Youth Orchestra is another stunning example that brings generations together in our love for the arts. Among our enduring memories was attending Peter Gould’s Get Thee to the Funnery last year in Craftsbury where teenage actors produce and perform a Shakespeare play every summer. Each summer at the Rokeby Museum in North Ferrisburgh, even younger children at their summer camp create and perform a play based on the history of the abolitionist Quaker farm family who welcomed fleeing enslaved people on the Underground Railway

Similarly, UpforLearning empowers young people to participate in the design of the very educational systems that prepares them for the future world.

Perhaps Vermont’s best formal recognition of this need in politics, although their role is only advisory, is the Vermont State Youth Council established in 2022 with its five subcommittees: Climate Change, Education, Equity and Anti-racism, Youth Mental Health, and Youth Voice. Perhaps Vermonters can elect more legislators like Will Geer from Bennington-2 to our governing body.

There are other emerging examples that bridge the generational gap and that open doors for young people to exert influence and power over their future.

We need to create more ways not only to talk with one another but to yield power to those who will inherit our earth.

 

 

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