What does Bernice Neugarten have to say about the following, " We are becoming an age-irrelevent society."

Answer 1

The gist is that in the past (up through the 50's and mid-60's) it was very easy to break U.S. culture down into age brackets. Our society had very firm rules and expectations for how people in each grouping were supposed to act.

Starting in the 70's or so, things began to be shaken up. Nowadays age means much less than it did before, socially.

Kids had one set of expectations for them. You were expected to be children, you had limited privileges, a certain level of responsibility, no real social authority. There were very clear social delineations for when you became an adult, and when you reached that age (basically, 21, or graduating from college), you were expected to marry and hold a steady job. You were now given some social authority as well.

At that point, you worked productively, raised your family, became established in your career, and eventually moved on to old age / grandparent.

You could easily stereotype each one of these categories and even mark off the "probable age" where the expectations changed. Kids acted one way; parents, another; and grandparents, another.

Nowadays kids have many of the privileges that we did not have until we were adults. They have technologies that would normally have been reserved for adults/parents but are now used by kids. Social drinking by underage people is done overtly. Kids have a much louder "voice" because of the Internet.

(Check out the entertainment industry, and the slew of kids with their own TV shows and movie/recording careers... and often the inability to handle the pressure.)

Many young people still live with their parents after college, until their late 20's, without marrying; and their parents allow them. Even when married, they sometimes postpone having children until their mid-30's.

Meanwhile, people get divorced all the time, stay single, raise kids in a single-parent home, change their jobs, jump from workplace to workplace, try out new ventures.

The stereotypes that used to mark each "age group" no longer work. There is less predictability based on age.

So the line between the age groups have been blurred. If I am a parent of a two-year-old, you could no longer say for sure that I am probably in my early 20's -- I could be in my late 30's. If I am a grandparent of a young grandchild, I could be anywhere from age 40-70. I might have a job. I might be retired. Or I might be an entrepeneur, or high-impact sports enthusiast. You just don't know anymore.

The quick onset of technology has played a very large role in this. Our culture is also reacting to "being put in a box" 50 years ago, seeking give people of all ages more freedom.

[Note: This can be both good and bad. I've mentioned some of the good stuff above; freedom to define oneself is good. However, kids are being given adult privileges without having adult maturity. Meanwhile, adults are not taking responsibility to teach the younger generations and have had some of their authority taken from them. In an ageless society, who is in charge? Who has consistent wisdom? Who takes responsibility to lead and provide necessary structure? Does life experience count for something? All good questions to ponder.]

Answer 2

That we grow as long as we live.