Hi everyone!
As noted on my website (reginaldbibby.com), I have been taking a slight break and rethinking blogging.
Beginning in January, I will return - offering very short "takes" on any number of topics - and inviting dialogue with readers.
Until then, still enjoying the breather. I don't know about you, but life has never been more full, even though it also has never been much more enjoyable.
Very best to you! Perhaps will "see" you in 2010.
-Reg
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Why the Shock - and Anger - Over Some Good News About Teens?
My new teen book, The Emerging Millennials, won’t be out for about two-to-three more weeks. But already, media attention – notably that of Maclean’s (April 13th cover story) and the National Post (April 7th) – indicating that the overall findings about teenagers are positive is being met with predictable anger by some people. That’s not surprising. What’s surprising is that anyone should be surprised – as this short excerpt from the book explains.
Are We Making Progress?
In Canada, we continue to make young people a very high priority. Precisely because we want “our kids” and “our grandkids” to turn out well, we direct significant resources toward their well-being. Part of the Boomer legacy has been the creation of government departments that have specialized in enhancing the well-being of youth. Along with multi-faceted school programs, such government initiatives address a wide range of themes, including education, employment, drug abuse, personal development, recreation, family life, and personal counselling.
Further, the explosion of information has been accompanied by the emergence of a seemingly endless number of information industries, many of which specialize in youth. Government departments and schools routinely draw on people who provide expertise in any number of areas, as illustrated by the roster of a major teachers’ convention, or a one-day training event for people involved with youth.
Consequently, it’s ironic that we continue to engage in considerable hand-wringing about young people today. Like so many adults before us, we frequently repeat the old adage about teenagers facing more challenges than ever before. In addition, we express concern that they are not going to turn out as well as the emerging generations that preceded them.
Why do we continue to say such strange things? If we are investing those millions – no, billions – of dollars in young people and providing them with the unprecedented body of resources that we have at this point in history, why on earth would we expect that they should turn out worse than previous generations of teenagers?
Such morbid negativism amounts to a damning indictment of the collective resources being directed at youth, including the hundreds of thousands of women and men employed in the youth sector who are giving their lives to elevating life for young people.
For example, I’ve sometimes been appalled at the negative reaction of people involved in the drug field when I bring some good news about drug use being down – or the wincing of teachers when I suggest students are feeling more positive about school than they did in the past. I am treated like the bearer of bad news. Heavens, if people have been doing their jobs well, those are precisely the findings we would expect to uncover.
The more appropriate response? Give some credit, and take some credit!
Source: Reginald W. Bibby. The Emerging Millennials: How Canada’s Newest Generation is Responding to Change and Choice. Lethbridge: Project Canada Books, 2009:67-68. Available in bookstores and via www.projectcanadabooks.com.
Are We Making Progress?
In Canada, we continue to make young people a very high priority. Precisely because we want “our kids” and “our grandkids” to turn out well, we direct significant resources toward their well-being. Part of the Boomer legacy has been the creation of government departments that have specialized in enhancing the well-being of youth. Along with multi-faceted school programs, such government initiatives address a wide range of themes, including education, employment, drug abuse, personal development, recreation, family life, and personal counselling.
Further, the explosion of information has been accompanied by the emergence of a seemingly endless number of information industries, many of which specialize in youth. Government departments and schools routinely draw on people who provide expertise in any number of areas, as illustrated by the roster of a major teachers’ convention, or a one-day training event for people involved with youth.
Consequently, it’s ironic that we continue to engage in considerable hand-wringing about young people today. Like so many adults before us, we frequently repeat the old adage about teenagers facing more challenges than ever before. In addition, we express concern that they are not going to turn out as well as the emerging generations that preceded them.
Why do we continue to say such strange things? If we are investing those millions – no, billions – of dollars in young people and providing them with the unprecedented body of resources that we have at this point in history, why on earth would we expect that they should turn out worse than previous generations of teenagers?
Such morbid negativism amounts to a damning indictment of the collective resources being directed at youth, including the hundreds of thousands of women and men employed in the youth sector who are giving their lives to elevating life for young people.
For example, I’ve sometimes been appalled at the negative reaction of people involved in the drug field when I bring some good news about drug use being down – or the wincing of teachers when I suggest students are feeling more positive about school than they did in the past. I am treated like the bearer of bad news. Heavens, if people have been doing their jobs well, those are precisely the findings we would expect to uncover.
The more appropriate response? Give some credit, and take some credit!
Source: Reginald W. Bibby. The Emerging Millennials: How Canada’s Newest Generation is Responding to Change and Choice. Lethbridge: Project Canada Books, 2009:67-68. Available in bookstores and via www.projectcanadabooks.com.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Boomer Barbie Turns 50…A Memo to Women Turning 50 in 2009
I get some requests from the media from time to time that at first sound strange – like when Misty Harris, the Consumer and Social Trends National Reporter for Canwest News Service, contacted me last week and reminded me (!) that even Barbie (yes, as in Barbie Doll) is not exempt from aging. The iconic, best-selling, much-embraced and much-maligned doll is turning 50 this year.
Misty asked me if I could dig into my Boomer material and provide her with ““a small picture of what Barbie’s life would look like in real life if she were a flesh and blood woman turning 50 in Canada.” It was an interesting exercise, primarily because it resulted in a profile not only of Barbie, but also of a large number of Canadian women who are turning 50 in 2009.
Well, since Canada Barbie was born in 1959, she found herself near the end of the Baby Boomer cohort (1946-65).
As such, by the time she reached her famous teen years in the early 1970s, she – like her American counterpart – was enjoying the music of the likes of Bread, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart, and Simon and Garfunkel.
Influenced by the freedom movements that moved like a tidal wave through her entire cohort, Barbie had the freedom to live out life in ways that were virtually unknown to her mother and grandmother. She threw aside many of their constraints and inhibitions in being able to speak out and express what she thought about life, experiment as she saw fit with pot and sex, go to university, pursue the career she wanted, and – in the face of a variety of options - marry and have children. That latter decision resulted in her engaging in a tough juggling act in the course of trying for the twin wins of happiness and fulfilment in the twin settings of the office and home. She also was determined to find time to look after herself – time to stay fit, time to relax, and, of course, time to stay beautiful. After all, beautiful is what most people had grown accustomed to expecting of her.
In many ways, Canada Barbie wanted it all. And she had it all.
Now, at 50, life is quite different. Not everything has turned out as planned. The beauty thing has become increasingly difficult to sustain. All the effort, all the working out, and all the dieting haven’t been able to neutralize the harsh reality that 50 isn’t 15 – or 25 – or 35. Like most of her friends, she gave up smoking a few years back, but still likes a drink now and then.
It would have been great if both her marriage and her career had succeeded. Her career, she discovered, was at times seemingly hurt by her good looks. She often wasn’t taken seriously or taken too seriously – not only by men but also by women. She felt she gradually got beyond that. But the time and energy she found herself giving her career made things tough on the home front. Her first marriage added one more case to the Boomer file marked “the generation with the highest divorce rate in Canadian history.” She has remarried, is pretty happy, and intends to stay with her second partner for the rest of her life. Then again, who knows?
The biggest problem she has faced is the sheer lack of time – although money also has sometimes been more than a shade elusive. It hasn’t been easy to give her career all that it needs, while being able to be the kind of wife that her husbands have expected, not to mention the kind of mother that her daughter and son have seemed to want and need. On balance she thinks she has done a pretty good job of combining both roles. When we asked her kids, they were not so convinced. When we asked her husbands, one was anything but convinced. Canada Barbie finds it all a bit demoralizing.
From time to time, she has reflected with her grandmother and mother about what they wanted out of life and how things turned out. What’s surprising and intriguing to her is that they are more inclined than she is to say that they feel pretty fulfilled with life as a whole. They tend to be more positive than she is when they reflect on their marriages, the enjoyment they get from their kids, how far they went in school, and even their financial situations. Go figure.
“But hey,” Canada Barbie reminds herself, “I’m still only 50. There’s still time to turn a few things around. My ‘doll days’ may be behind me. But I still have some good years to find better balance in my life. By the time I hit 70. I’m going to have the last laugh!”
Misty asked me if I could dig into my Boomer material and provide her with ““a small picture of what Barbie’s life would look like in real life if she were a flesh and blood woman turning 50 in Canada.” It was an interesting exercise, primarily because it resulted in a profile not only of Barbie, but also of a large number of Canadian women who are turning 50 in 2009.
Well, since Canada Barbie was born in 1959, she found herself near the end of the Baby Boomer cohort (1946-65).
As such, by the time she reached her famous teen years in the early 1970s, she – like her American counterpart – was enjoying the music of the likes of Bread, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart, and Simon and Garfunkel.
Influenced by the freedom movements that moved like a tidal wave through her entire cohort, Barbie had the freedom to live out life in ways that were virtually unknown to her mother and grandmother. She threw aside many of their constraints and inhibitions in being able to speak out and express what she thought about life, experiment as she saw fit with pot and sex, go to university, pursue the career she wanted, and – in the face of a variety of options - marry and have children. That latter decision resulted in her engaging in a tough juggling act in the course of trying for the twin wins of happiness and fulfilment in the twin settings of the office and home. She also was determined to find time to look after herself – time to stay fit, time to relax, and, of course, time to stay beautiful. After all, beautiful is what most people had grown accustomed to expecting of her.
In many ways, Canada Barbie wanted it all. And she had it all.
Now, at 50, life is quite different. Not everything has turned out as planned. The beauty thing has become increasingly difficult to sustain. All the effort, all the working out, and all the dieting haven’t been able to neutralize the harsh reality that 50 isn’t 15 – or 25 – or 35. Like most of her friends, she gave up smoking a few years back, but still likes a drink now and then.
It would have been great if both her marriage and her career had succeeded. Her career, she discovered, was at times seemingly hurt by her good looks. She often wasn’t taken seriously or taken too seriously – not only by men but also by women. She felt she gradually got beyond that. But the time and energy she found herself giving her career made things tough on the home front. Her first marriage added one more case to the Boomer file marked “the generation with the highest divorce rate in Canadian history.” She has remarried, is pretty happy, and intends to stay with her second partner for the rest of her life. Then again, who knows?
The biggest problem she has faced is the sheer lack of time – although money also has sometimes been more than a shade elusive. It hasn’t been easy to give her career all that it needs, while being able to be the kind of wife that her husbands have expected, not to mention the kind of mother that her daughter and son have seemed to want and need. On balance she thinks she has done a pretty good job of combining both roles. When we asked her kids, they were not so convinced. When we asked her husbands, one was anything but convinced. Canada Barbie finds it all a bit demoralizing.
From time to time, she has reflected with her grandmother and mother about what they wanted out of life and how things turned out. What’s surprising and intriguing to her is that they are more inclined than she is to say that they feel pretty fulfilled with life as a whole. They tend to be more positive than she is when they reflect on their marriages, the enjoyment they get from their kids, how far they went in school, and even their financial situations. Go figure.
“But hey,” Canada Barbie reminds herself, “I’m still only 50. There’s still time to turn a few things around. My ‘doll days’ may be behind me. But I still have some good years to find better balance in my life. By the time I hit 70. I’m going to have the last laugh!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
