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05-06-2017, 01:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-06-2017, 01:16 AM by GeekyCynic.)
Both of my Silent grandmothers ('28 and '34 cohorts) have been having health problems lately and I know my time with them may be limited. This and also the fact that most of the newspaper obituaries are Silent has hit home to me how their generation is now deep in old age and is slowly beginning to leave us (in spite of a few active Silent in public life like Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, John McCain, etc). Has anyone else had to deal with the decline or passing of aging Silent family members? What do you think will be the ultimate legacy of a generation that has often been overlooked by historians?
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(05-06-2017, 01:14 AM)GeekyCynic Wrote: Both of my Silent grandmothers ('28 and '34 cohorts) have been having health problems lately and I know my time with them may be limited. This and also the fact that most of the newspaper obituaries are Silent has hit home to me how their generation is now deep in old age and is slowly beginning to leave us (in spite of a few active Silent in public life like Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, John McCain, etc). Has anyone else had to deal with the decline or passing of aging Silent family members? What do you think will be the ultimate legacy of a generation that has often been overlooked by historians?
Grandmother on the sperm donor's side of the family and the only one of them that will have anything to do with me or my brother. Odd for a fifty-one year old to still have a grandmother left but my life has been a long set of rather unusual circumstances. Ironically, she outlived a much younger Silent stepfather.
Sadly she is showing signs of cognitive decline but that often happens when you are eighty-nine.
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My mom and I suspect that my 1930 cohort maternal grandmother is showing the beginning signs of dementia. One of the most telling things was that when my niece was driving my grandmother, mom, and I to my sister's house for Easter dinner she was often accidentally thinking my niece was my sister.
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My parents are both tail end of the silent generation, born in 1943 and I have noticed that as they've retired a few years ago, they are starting to noticeably decline and slow down, showing signs of things like impaired driving ability. As a generation goes, I have no idea what they will leave as a legacy. In my own case, I see in them an odd combination of "me me me", which I attribute to them being close to the Boomer cusp, and a desire to preserve and help prepare for a time that they feel is coming again that they experienced during their infancy and early childhood - the last 4th turning.
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My mother is very early silent - Dec '29 - while she probably could have almost been a GI she definitely exhibited way more silent tendencies. Most of her friends have already passed, and any influence she has had is pretty much gone. Any family or friends from that cohort are pretty much in subsistence mode.
Of course,the textbook answer societally is that silents have provided a moderating influence over the boomers (in particular); which once gone, will leave them unchecked. Seems like that process is just about complete (last night's health care vote being one last gasp).
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(07-28-2017, 03:39 PM)tg63 Wrote: Of course,the textbook answer societally is that silents have provided a moderating influence over the boomers (in particular); which once gone, will leave them unchecked. Seems like that process is just about complete (last night's health care vote being one last gasp).
The vote wasn't the last gasp; the delusion that the two sides could work together and find changes to one side's signature work that both sides would like was. That might have happened when Congress was dominated by Silents, but then, Silents would not have forced through a bill supported only by one side the way the ACA was forced through.
My parents are both 1932 Silents. They are pretty healthy, considering their age, but they won't be around forever. I try to take my kids to them as often as I can, but that's only once or twice a year.
