Do Our Life Milestones Need Updating? | The Agenda

everyone has goals and Milestones that they Mark as life happens maybe it's graduation from school first career job marriage children and so on certainly meeting such Milestones can bring real satisfaction but does not meeting them mean the reverse or is taking The Road Less Traveled actually more common than ever in a world with shifting ideas about which Milestones even matter with us now for more on that in Pitt Meadows British Columbia there's Paul Kershaw he's the founder of generation squeeze which is not just a think tank but it's a self-described think and change tank he's also a professor of public policy at the University of British Columbia and here in our studio Tony Serafini associate professor in the department of sexuality marriage and family studies at the University of Waterloo and Dave mcginn columnist for the Globe and Mail and it's great to have you two here with us in the studio and uh great to have you Paul in British Columbia with us again for this program I want to start by reading something that was on the BBC's website a couple of years ago and that will kick-start our discussion here Sheldon bring this up if you would and away we go as it turns out these all-important deadlines are often arbitrary and the pressure to achieve them sometimes comes from amorphous unidentifiable places they also aren't as set in stone as they may seem from generation to generation changes in technology and the economy advances in science and even the political climate can turn what once seemed like a social necessity into an Antiquated expectation understanding where these expectations come from and how they differ from the reality we live in now is important for making personal Milestones that are meaningful instead of clinging to outdated expectations okay Paul get us started here the traditional deadline for life's Milestones typically tend to be between the ages of 20 and 30. can you give us some sense about how these expectations originated to begin with well I think that these dead these timelines originated based on the sort of social practices of the day you know when people were coupling up when people were completing school when people landed a job when did they get their secure housing and uh those established Norms over time and I think this conversation is bubbling up right now because the Norms of the past few decades especially when baby boomers started out they are not today's norms and they're not today's Norms because hard work isn't paying off for a younger demographic is it's starting into its adult years and as a result it's causing a range of delays in Milestones that some decades ago we thought had become the norm well let me follow up with Tony on that do you think the young people for example that you engage with at your University do you think they judge themselves and their circumstances by their parents Milestone expectations well Steve I think that the Milestone expectations go beyond their parents they're getting reinforced in society uh even through their friends and extended networks so the pressure that students are feeling is real they're very focused on I need to get a good job I need to be financially stable they're thinking about the potential of coupling up the potential of having kids and not having kids so they're really grappling with you know what do I do next and what does it mean to be an adult and what does it mean to be me they are thinking about all this at ages 18 19 20. oh absolutely really absolutely not healthy foreign but these are the concerns of emerging adulthood though and that's the the stage of life that they're in Dave let me get you in here because we've invited you here because you wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail about the end of your marriage which I gotta say was was extremely a beautiful piece and quite heartbreaking all at the same time and you said in that piece the entire future I had taken for granted was suddenly gone I wonder how all of that contributed to a sense of derailment in your life that the again the Milestones that you had expected to live by were suddenly all Askew oh sure everything's just a blank page now right I mean I think your big Milestones from 20 to 30 like you said are you know graduate school find a good paying job get married have kids find a house right let's say those are the big ones but from 40 on you know I was living in the house that I thought it was going to die in I expected retirement and and a plan not even a plan an assumed life had just suddenly vanished in the aftermath of my divorce right now you have to where am I going to live how are we going to share the kids what is my retirement going to look like what is what is my entire life going to look like and and that uncertainty it's a scary thing to face was there any satisfaction in knowing that once you went public with your circumstances you had a whole bunch of friends who said oh guess what I feel your pain brother I've been there too everyone so many phone calls so many emails and it goes back to the point of the story which is how much men are are reluctant often to talk about what's going on in their own lives but certainly it's it's comforting to have friends come out of the woodwork and say hey me too uh there was even a period where you know I'm looking for housing in Toronto because I want to be here still in the city and maintain a certain continuity for my kids lives and me and another divorced Dad we're only half jokingly talking about living in the 80s sitcom where we would buy a house together and he'd have his kids the week that I didn't and you know vice versa because that's just how sort of difficult that transition could be in this Brave New World where none of the Milestones you think are easy ours are easy anymore how close did that come to actually happening um too close for comfort Paul why don't you come in here and tell us again you deal with the young people obviously in in the course of your day with your University responsibilities and with your think and change tank how much are today's young people do you think still influenced by the sort of old-fashioned strictures um that were just outlined by our guests here well it's you know it remains a part of the cultural context by which people judge whether or not they're being successful I mean one thing that Jen squeeze had to do in our early days was help a younger demographic as they're starting into their adult years recognize that if they're struggling to establish a financial Foundation it's not because they're necessarily doing something individually wrong it's because the way in which the economy and societies evolved has made their hard work pay off less and we haven't used public policy to adapt all that urgently for them and I'm going to say Dave's story Dave's story is really interesting Dave you know Israel in midlife but the moment that a previous marriage breaks down and you have two individuals now having to start out again in a housing market it's kind of replicating the experience of those in their early 20s who are trying to figure out how do I make a go of it as an individual in an economy which has really allowed home prices to decouple from what people can make from full-time work and that is at the heart of eroding today's younger demographic in particular from being able to make the Milestones of the past and the question I think we need to ask ourselves is do we allow them to internalize that and then often sort of suffer a kind of anxiety anxiousness mental ill health because they feel like they're doing something wrong with failing or do we say no no no it's something bigger going on something systemic going on and the problems out here at the systems level that we need to fix not something wrong with you individually well Tony how about that do do the do the parents of the young people that you teach reinforce these milestones and is their sort of disappointment expressed by parents if the kids are not meeting those milestones so the key words that came up here was success at these Milestones are markers for success in adulthood and they've been set somewhat arbitrarily they're certainly connected to the social situation of the day and the economic situation our parents reinforcing these Milestones yeah to a certain degree absolutely they are but again young people are also getting very similar messages from other folks in their Circle as well so it isn't just parents and also remembering that parents and caregivers are on their own life Journey with their own Milestones to meet and depending on the strength of their parenting identity seeing their kids be successful is important to their sense of self as a parent so they're pretty invested in their kids success and of course generally people want the best for their kids of course Paul why do parents put that kind of pressure on their kids I mean they just have to look around to know that the way Society is set up today it's just nothing like it was 20 30 40 years ago when they were in similar circumstances so why do they do it that's really an interesting question no one's actually asked to me quite that way before I think I think one of the challenges right now for our aging populations are reflecting on where they are relative to their their adult kids is that the Legacy that is being left for their kids isn't quite as strong as they might have liked and so then we tell different stories to ourselves you know when we look in the mirror our culture kind of reflects back to us and you know I think of the bank at bum and Dad as being a quintessential you know really harmful narrative in some ways for a younger demographic but it does definitely make the you know their their parents who are thinking about retirement feel like oh you know I'm continuing to have to you know pick up my kids and you know take care of them and continue to play this role as looking after them my kids are infantilized they need to go to adulting 101 and thank goodness the bank's putting that on because if only they were better Financial managers that would be great but I'm the bank of mum and dad rescuing them again that is a very powerful narrative right now in society and it kind of I would say risks letting off the hook an older demographic or asking some of the tougher questions like how on our much did we tolerate public policies that allowed home prices to leave behind earnings how on our watch have we tolerated our kids having to pay more for post-secondary and start with more student debt and then get creamed with really expensive child care how on our watch did we you know allow climate change to create so much disruption in young people's lives where they can't count on the jobs of the past they have to you know eat differently commute differently holiday differently in order to fend off the worst that climate change has to offer those are some of the big elephants in the room that I think culturally today's aging population wants to shy away from because those are parts of their legacy that are tougher to feel good about and as a result we then fall back into the habit of you know individualizing some of the challenges facing younger people and you know talk about their eating too much avocado toast or drinking too many lattes and the the public policy angle in that is really important we're going to come back to that in a few minutes okay Dave let me get you on this you could take I mean on the one hand we've talked about the handcuffs that some of these Milestones represent but there's the other side of it which is did you take comfort in knowing as you grew up that you know by 18 or 19 I'm going to be at post-secondary 22 23 24 gonna have my first job you know get married at a certain age house at a certain age did you take comfort in that of course yeah I think I think this is the sort of two-sided coin of these Milestones right is the one they provide a certain predictability to your life and that predictability is comforting as long as they actually are predictable right like you and I grew up knowing or at least I grew up knowing I will graduate from University in my early 20s that University degree will afford me a decent paying job that I can then you know move up a career ladder I'll be able to buy a house by the time I'm 30 31 32 I will get married I will retire at 65 and it kind of plots out your life in a way that that as long as you're achieving them and and and they are open to you and those opportunities are available to you they provide a kind of map to your life that releases a lot of anxiety that I think you might otherwise feel let me pick up on that anxiety there's this thing that um well all the kids are talking about it you know Tony fomo right fomo fear of missing out fomo I just learned about this a few years ago how is that affecting in your judgment based on what you see how is that affecting the mental health of kids that you engage with these days oh well mental health that's a really really really big topic um but I appreciate how having a plan and things um falling into place around that plan can decrease anxiety but what if they don't what if you hit the age you thought you were going to get that job and you didn't and you're still looking and even though you went to school you're not able to get a job in your field which is what I'm hearing from students real concerns about what kind of job am I going to get when I'm done I mean I had the same concerns many decades ago um and you know put some things in place whatever made things happen but I'm I'm hearing that a lot with students especially the senior students who are getting close to graduating what am I going to do and in some ways they're talking about echoing concerns of their parents too well you're going to agree to me you don't have a job yet you're going to graduate in a couple of months what do you mean you don't have a job yet isn't this what university was for um so shifting some of those expectations is going to be important to help support students mental health their Wellness because those disappointments they can be big and they can throw you right off track Paul what are you noticing about fomo and whether or not it's affecting kids mental health in an adverse way well I I see it all around me when I'm doing my teaching at the University of British Columbia and let's just be clear it's not only fear of missing out it's just it's fear of the current circumstances you know to go to grad school increasingly students are relying on food banks and homeless shelters because you know being out of full-time work makes it so difficult to live in cities like Toronto and Vancouver and you know in Hamilton and in Kelowna and so you know it's it's not just the fear of missing out on what they might have imagined their parents life could have offered them going forward it's then experiencing the reality of that eroding Financial Security and again housing is just such you know it's such the center of this and I think there's a to some degree a bit of a bubbling up of anger amongst those especially in the early 30s right now like many people you know decent degrees they're you know Dave's story of Landing good jobs but you know doing it a decade or so later than Dave did and later than I did and now that good job doesn't actually get you home ownership it barely sometimes pays for secure rent and then you're kind of more at the whim of you know your landlord and often the landlord is going to be an older person who's invested in this home that you're now living and it depends on when they're going to want to tap into the equity of that home for their retirement and suddenly you're disrupted at the moment you're like but I just had my baby and I wanted my baby to be able to go to this child care for the next few years but now we're disrupted all over again and that lack of security it financially is exacerbated by these moments where you know there's a lot of stressful things in the world right now but climate change is identified as the greatest risk to human and economic health in the 21 first century and we Face other issues around you know International strife and War these things I think are contributing to kind of cynicism setting in for a younger demographically it doesn't matter like what's this all about and that then I think can feed into some other kind of coping strategies which don't help people be as successful in today's challenging economies we might otherwise like in which case Dave do does somebody have to say or maybe do we all have to say all of those Milestones that maybe our generation grew up with I'm ahead of you guys but our our Collective Generations do we just have to put those aside right now and throw at all the rules and say look at your it's going to take longer for you to get to where your parents got to and and that's okay so don't fomo you guys just chill yeah of course I think I think when we look at all of those milestones those were the results of social conditions of their era and those social conditions no longer apply right to think that it should somehow be a norm that everyone could have a a house who worked Hardy no quote-unquote play by the rules by 30. that's a fantasy now it's an unfortunate one but it is it's a fantasy now right the the Milestones that we had for a previous generation no longer apply and what we have to do is accept that one they no longer apply we have to look at it very as you said at a very political level and a policy level to understand why they don't apply and decide which what sort of outcomes we want for a younger generation and what we're actually going to make happen for them what's the average age of the students that you teach right now they're between 17 and 22. okay so no one's talking about having kids yet right some of them have plans two have families someday and some are thinking about the fact that they will choose not to have families now that's what I'm interested in are some you're hearing some kids of that young age say it's not gonna this is not a part of my agenda I used to teach a course family child parent relations and um in it we followed the child through the life cycle along with the caregivers and students often talked about how they were really clear at that point they they felt they knew at that point that they would not have children of their own why not lots of different reasons maybe it was something like um you know some just talked about parenting's not for me that's not something that I want to do um uh I have older siblings who have children I want to be an auntie or I want to be an uncle I'm good with that um your cost Ah that's interesting uh it's not standing out for me as one of the reasons but I imagine that that would that could be a factor to some degree some talk about you know I have a really clear academic plan in terms of graduate school and in terms of what I want to do um it's not part of that plan or I'll be too old when I finish and I wouldn't want to be an older parent so I'm happier to just take this route at least that's what they're talking about as they're again they're in that stage emerging adulthood where they're thinking about who do I want to be and what do I want to do in the future and those decisions sometimes they stick and sometimes they shift right but we need to respect them where they're at in their thinking you've got kids did it ever occur to you as you were going through that Journey that you would not have children or was it always a given [Music] uh I think it was I think it was mostly always a given I mean I didn't really think much about having kids until I was maybe 25 26 kind of late 20s and then I met who the woman who would eventually become my wife and we fell in love and we wanted to have kids and and it never crossed my mind to not have kids I was I was in love and loved with the idea of having kids Paul I hear you wanted to jump in in order to look at the data British Columbia was the province that first lost control of home price as relative to earnings and by no coincidence it is the place where we've seen the highest average age of birthing in the country because more and more people and more and more women are delaying starting their families until they have a little bit more of some Financial Security but you can only delay so long because the biological clock is tick-tocking and and um then we see as people are delaying you know our Medical Care system is having to pick up to some degree with some of the the consequences because BC is also not only the the highest average age of birthing but it has the highest rate of cesarean sections and that is the reality of you know having to make these adaptations at a species level like going from having kids in your early 20s to now you know almost a decade later a lot of the time that's a big adaptation at a species level in a remarkably short period of time when it comes to our reproduction and so I want to I want to ask Dave you know or engage with Dave where he said of course the social conditions of the days set the Norms that we were going to judge our success by and we should no longer hold on to those because the social the social conditions have changed so much but we need to acknowledge that is a major loss Dave's made that point but it's a major loss for that younger demographic following in our footsteps that's asking them to give up a lot and so I think it invites the really important question what do we owe in return how do we help the adaptation it's not just that those of us who've come before um you know can sit on the sidelines and say well we'll just watch these people struggle with the you know challenging social conditions that by the way happened on our watch but not our problem I think actually the fact that these are our kids and grandchildren the people that we love we ought to tap into that and and think with some intergenerational solidarity what do we do right now to help the adaptation and take some of the pressure off and the stigma off our kids and grandchildren and make sure that you know we don't let that fomo and you know societal judgments about you're not meeting these expectations give rise not only to mentally health but to financial insecurity well I'm going to quote you back to you okay Paul Kershaw here's you writing in the Globe and Mail from last year in which you wrote Solutions can be found in public policy changes policy change requires younger generations and older folks who love them to contribute their voices and stories to changing cultural myths like the lazy Millennial altering political incentives like lower voter turnout among younger citizens and signaling support for policy solutions by joining groups like generation squeeze when enough individuals make these changes we create political cover for politicians to respond bravely to fix intergenerational injustices can we get some ideas going here Tony why don't you start us off here what do we what do we need to do in terms of policy change in order that this generation will not feel hamstrung by the typical Milestones that we have placed in their in their path well I'm not a policy expert but one of the things that's always really dear to my heart is education and the cost of education and it is unfathomable and disgusting to some degree that education in this country is so expensive um it what what our policies reflect is the values that we have in this country and when education is so expensive that reflects a value around education so access to education is limited and okay yeah some say wow we've got OSAP we've got this we've got that let me tell you paying back OSAP no fun and the rules have since changed and you start accumulating interest on your loan before you even can begin working um making things really really difficult for those who are trying to access education so I mean one of the things for me would be let's decrease the cost of Education let's make it more accessible to more who wish to go that route who are qualified to do so yeah I mean most high school kids I'm I mean boarded to go on to post-secondary if they choose to a college diploma a University degree even to have that experience of uh well shifting into adult roles right having more responsibility learning to think more critically thinking outside the box in terms of what are the options we want to change people's ideas and values about these Milestones well we encourage young people to think critically to challenge a status quo to to move into policy change for example I use the word qualified because the province of Ontario has a policy that any qualified student will have a place somewhere in the post-secondary world of this province now it's not to say that they'll get out of that experience debt free but it is to say that there's a spot for them somewhere yeah okay you want to throw an ID on the table here I'm sure Paul could speak to this much more I'm going to get to him don't worry but I want him to have to sit through YouTube first oh my to me the the the centerpiece of this the centerpiece of this idea of of milestones in life is housing that's to me the big one that your your family planning probably revolves around a lot about that your your economic stability is reflected a lot in that and so again I'm no policy expert but first and foremost I think our priority should be establishing policies that make housing available and affordable to a lot more people than it is currently to that end I'm going to quote generation squeezes information here it took 13 no sorry let me rephrase back in my day it took five years to come up with a down payment for a home five years today 13 years so parents your kids aren't lazy your kids are dealing with some economic realities here that we didn't have to deal with back in the day so okay Paul come on in here policy changes that would address that issue that Dave just raised very important issue of actually being able to get into that first home what do you see well I think we need to acknowledge that our current national housing strategy hasn't been up to the task of you know Keeping home values connected to what local jobs pay so I think we need a National Housing strategy upgrade and NHS 2.0 we might describe it as I think that we should take a step back from that and say every provincial and federal government ought to appoint a minister who has responsibility for intergenerational fairness and then that person could bring in all of government lens saying you know okay when thinking about climate change what are the intergenerational risks right now that we're taking on for younger people and future Generations if we're not asking people to pay enough for their pollution or on the housing side you know have have people like me who live in Metro Vancouver have I extracted so much wealth out of the housing system that I'm contributing to leaving less affordability for those who follow and if so what might I be asked to do to help you know contribute to a solution and we are going to need to have a conversation with our aging loved ones and our families because to some degree the reason that you know post-secondary is more expensive now than in the past that we're still you know not urgent enough investing in child care and you know having a better parental leave program let's say is because so many of our tax dollars are being used to invest later in the life course right now as our baby boomer population is aging and there is a there is a difficult conversation to have with that part of our demographic with those members of our family to say yes you worked very hard over your your working lives you've raised us you've invested us thank you very much but as a generation you haven't paid enough taxes for the medical care and the old age security on which you are now counting we want you to have that but we need to figure out how to ask your generation especially the affluent members of your generation to contribute enough to cover those those costs so we don't even leave larger deficits and debts for your kids and grandchildren via unpaid bills which is only going to exacerbate the struggles they have going to school longer to land jobs to pay less to then face home prices that are so much higher and then they are delaying starting their families but they can only delay so long and they're caught in this economic vice grip well Dave I have Boomers say this problem is going to solve itself because when we die you're going to inherit all our money and our homes and you'll be fine how's that for a solution I don't think when we die everything will be okay is a plan to get out of any trouble no but there is a certain I mean there is a certain as as Macabre as it sounds there's a certain economic truth in what I just said well it's a hierarchical truth though because not all baby boomers are in a position where they have Equity of that nature too close behind to their kids so you know it's a dual system here are we really thinking about everyone or are we continuing to think about you know those in a particular social status right Paul we've tried we've talked about this before the fact that I'm not sure uh How brave a poet well I am sure you'd have to be an incredibly Brave politician to run on a platform of I'm going to tax the people who actually vote in disproportionate numbers to their share of the population more so that we can take better care and give a better break to those in the population uh who disproportionately vote less and who most older people think are whiners and complainers anyway that would be a very brave politician to run on that platform so how do you see this actually happening well too full I'm going to rip off from every automobile the bumper stickers that say I'm spending my kids inheritance and then I think actually I'm going to emphasize more that there is love between older and younger Canadians in this country um parents love their kids and grandchildren grandchildren love their grandparents and I think we need to tap into that as the Cornerstone for building intergenerational solidarity not only around our holiday family tables but in the world of politics because that can then give the political cover for the politicians to bravely respond to the data that show there are pressures on an aging population but there are also pressures that are being left by that aging population to their kids and grandchildren both of them need to be addressed we can do both but we need to you know prioritize a conversation about intergenerational fairness that asks those of us who are older myself included now I'm much older than when I started gen squeeze to reflect on what is the Legacy that we are leaving and parts of that Legacy are not nearly as strong wrong and there's time for us to fix that I think there are enough older Canadians who are Keen to be feeling proud about what they're leaving for their kids and grandchildren who doesn't want it to be better for those who are following in our footsteps and that I think can pave the pathway for any political party to win an election that says I want to make this country work for all generations we're going to give the guy from the Left Coast the last word on this and even though he's on the right of the screen he's actually the furthest west of us right now that's Paul Kershaw from generation squeeze and the University of British Columbia Dave mcginn in the middle there you can read his columns in the Globe and Mail Tony Serafini associate professor in the department of sexuality marriage and family studies at the University of Waterloo thanks to the three of you for coming onto TVO tonight great discussion everyone thank you thank you the agenda with 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Channel: The Agenda | TVO Today

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Keywords: The Agenda with Steve Paikin, current affairs, analysis, debate, politics, policy, life span milestones, life's accomplishements, graduation, career advancement, marriage, children, parenting, home ownership, retirement, The Agenda, Theagenda, OTT, Accedo

Id: tRZPR0GwUbE

Length: 30min 54sec (1854 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2023