ESSAY this! Go fetch that!’ Any adult in the community, in the village, has the right to tell a kid what to do. It seemed so different from contemporary child rearing in the United States. In our society, we Advanced in years impose very little of our needs on children. “In our society,” he concluded, Americans have long valued youth over age and “children rule.” experience. Shouldn’t seniors have their moment? When Lancy came back to the United States, he started By Frank Bures reading ethnographic manuscripts focused on other cultures around the world. After studying more than 1,000 societies, he realized that what he had seen in that Liberian village was the rule ot long ago, a letter appeared in and that U.S. culture was the our local newspaper. In it, the writer exception. In most places, he argued that the U.S. death toll from found, children are not even COVID-19 (more than 525,000 at this considered full persons; instead, writing) couldn’t be compared to the personhood is something you earn. “One of the common U.S. death tolls of various wars: Korea, threads that run through those 36,574; Vietnam, 58,220; World War II, societies is that children start out N405,399; the Civil War, 498,332. with very few expectations, and very little importance,” he says. The reason, he wrote, was If we follow this logic to If our culture can be described that wars killed young people. its end, here’s where we find as a neontocracy, the arrangement COVID-19, on the other hand, was ourselves: believing that the that he found to be more common killing old people. process of living is one of throughout the world is what “The average [age at] death inexorable decline, and that every he calls a “gerontocracy”: a of a soldier,” argued the writer, day we are worth less than we society in which the elders are who was in his mid-70s, “is were the day before until, at the the most valued members. “In conservatively [estimated at] 25, end, we find ourselves without a gerontocracy, your venerable and if they lived on average to be any value at all. age alone gives you status,” — again, conservatively — 75, each David Lancy, an anthropologist Lancy says. “On top of that, death represents 50 lost years and the author of Raising good work, hard work, taking of life. The most common age of Children: Surprising Insights care of others — all those things COVID death is over 70, and even from Other Cultures, coined a — can enhance your social with a life expectancy of 85, that’s term for this kind of mentality, standing. A child doesn’t have a 15-year loss of life or less. which he found to be prevalent any of those experiences. What’s “A death is a death,” he in the United States: He calls it considered important is what concluded, but averred that a “neontocracy,” meaning it is the child contributes to others even so, a 25-year-old cannot be centered on its children. They and how they contribute to the compared to a 75-year-old. are considered the society’s most community as a whole — not Many of us feel this way: that valued members. what they accomplish on their the death of a young person is Lancy first took note of own. Gerontocracy, in many ways, more tragic than the death of an this in the 1960s, when he was is much more compatible with our old one. In this calculus, a life’s doing fieldwork in Liberia. “In evolution as a species.” Frank Bures value is determined by the number the village I studied, you’d see is a longtime How did we in the United of years not yet lived, rather than far more instances of little kids contributor to States get to be this way? How the amount of life experience running errands for those who Rotary and the did we arrive at the point where acquired. This assessment posits were older, bringing food, bringing author of The we worship our children and that potential life is more valuable tools,” he told me. “Children are Geography of scorn our elders? According to than actual life. at their beck and call: ‘Go fetch Madness. Lancy, by the middle of the last 24 ROTARY MAY 2021 mayC-Our-World-5-Essay-final.indd 24 3/15/21 1:54 PM Illustrations by Brett Ryder MAY 2021 ROTARY 25 mayC-Our-World-5-Essay-final.indd 25 3/15/21 1:54 PM ESSAY century, parents began putting or at least the appearance of it. adversity they had seen, the more their children on a pedestal, and Yet among the costs of content they were. that tendency has increased with neontocracy, perhaps the most Puppe wanted to know why. every subsequent decade. At the telling is our underwhelming So in 2004, after he retired, same time, the birthrate was response to the deaths caused he set out to find one person in dropping, so in a sense, the value by the pandemic, which has each community in his state of each child increased. Children disproportionately killed our with wisdom to share. He would also consumed a growing share of elder citizens. show up in a town and ask family resources. Imagine, for a moment, that around for someone with “human The American love of youth COVID-19, when it arrived, killed spirit, optimism, good morals, has deeper roots than that, 80 percent of infected children. values, and integrity” whom he however. In the late 1800s, There would have been panic. There could interview. historians say, the process of would have been outrage. And More often than not, this was aging came to be seen as a there would have been action someone older, a person who medical problem to be solved. and much more serious attempts had made it through tough times. In her book This Chair Rocks: A at controlling the virus, as there Puppe would sit down with them Manifesto Against Ageism, Ashton were in less youth-centric cultures and listen to what they had to Applewhite makes the case that such as China, Italy, and Spain. say. At the end of each interview, this trend accelerated in the 20th We would have taken extreme he would ask what advice the century. “Propelled by postwar measures to protect our most person might have for their leisure and prosperity, the valued citizens. grandchildren. “They would say explosion of consumer culture, But we didn’t. And now the love, respect for others, honesty,” and research into a stage of life generations that fought in World he told me when I called him. newly dubbed ‘adolescence,’ youth War II, Korea, and Vietnam are on “But one fellow just sat there for culture emerged as a distinct the front lines of this war, too. a minute and said, ‘I have no twentieth-century phenomenon,” Jim Puppe knows that old age advice for them.’ she writes. “As this ‘cult of youth’ is not a long slide into irrelevance “And I said, ‘You don’t have grew, gerontophobia — fear of and that getting through life, and any advice for your grandkids?’ aging and dislike, even hatred, of through hardship, can increase “And he said, ‘No. Let how I old people — gained traction.” the value of one’s life. Growing live be my advice.’ ” Throughout the 20th century, up in North Dakota, he heard Over 14 years, Puppe visited the status of our elders fell, and stories about the Depression, 617 towns, and he published the today they find themselves at the about the “Dirty Thirties” of the stories he collected in a book very bottom of the ladder. We’re Dust Bowl, about World War II, he titled Dakota Attitude. “What all future senior citizens, if we’re and other challenges that society they told me was just priceless,” lucky, but we often look down the faced. Yet, he recalls, the people he says. “There’s a vast resource road with fear and denial. In 2019, who went through those hard of knowledge, experience, and Americans spent $53 billion on times didn’t seem bitter. They wisdom that we can gain from anti-aging products promising to didn’t seem angry. Rather, they these folks that’s been untapped. stave off this natural process, seemed content. In fact, the more In my opinion, most of the problems we have in the world today could be solved by a good grandma.” If anything good comes of this pandemic, my hope is that more “There’s a vast resource of knowledge, of us will end up like Jim Puppe, experience, and wisdom that’s been and less like my local letter-writer. I hope we can come to see that life untapped. Most of the problems becomes more, not less, valuable with age. And if our culture won’t we have in the world today change from its child-centered could be solved by a good grandma.” ways, then let’s each create our own small gerontocracy among the people we know — before all that wisdom, all those memories, and all those lives are gone. 26 ROTARY MAY 2021 mayC-Our-World-5-Essay-final.indd 26 3/15/21 1:54 PM.