Ok, Boomer: Thanksgiving Across the Divide

Baby Boomers grew up in an isolated, largely mono-lingual country with three TV channels, and rigid social rules. The whole world has changed, and they don’t have a map. Their eyesight is failing. Their bodies are challenged. They go to more funerals than reunions aware every day is one step closer to their own. They often present sadness as anger, and weakness as resistance, but mostly they just have so much fear.

By Kellie Schorr

Holidays in the Moment is a six-part series examining the paramitas, also known as the six perfections or the six transcendent actions, through the lens of the holiday season. These attributes help us to open our awakened heart and reduce suffering for ourselves and others. They are: generosity, discipline, patience, effort, wisdom, and concentration.

A few years ago at the Richmond Comicon I noticed a swarm of activity toward one side of the huge auditorium.

A storm trooper went clunking by led by the hand of an excited 5-year-old dressed as “Ballerina Yoda.”  Wonder Woman and her husband, The Punisher, pushed a stroller with a cooing child. The Punisher was also being dragged by a mini Wonder Woman about seven or eight. When I managed to mingle and merge my way to the front of the circle, I came face to face with one of the most beautiful blue gowns I had ever seen in my life.

Inside the gown stood a stunning blond woman with perfect posture, bright eyes, and a radiant smile. She was like a blue sugar cube under an ant hill of swarming pre-teen girls, with a picture line bending around the block. Between snapshots she told me she was a “Professional Elsa.”

I watched as children hugged her and whispered secrets in her ear. She was patient, kind, and confident. Being near her was nothing short of magic. Or so I thought, until I took my elation to lunch with two friends from work.

One was in her sixties, a solid live-to-work baby boomer and the other was a millennial mom who wanted her toddler son to always “follow his heart.” I recounted my complete joy at meeting the woman at the comicon.

“Professional Elsa? That’s a job now? How ridiculous!”

“I think it’s really neat. What a great way to have fun and make money.”

“She’s probably living off her parents with a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies and 50,000 in debt.”

“Or, she could just be doing a job she loves.”

“Uh-huh. Well what’s she going to do when she’s not so pretty anymore and she’s got nothing but a meme for a resume? She needs to grow up.”

I sat there silently sipping my tea, like a dutiful Gen-Xer sandwiched between the generations should, and watched the fairy dust disappear from my joy. I know where it went and so do you: into the great divide.

Holidays in the Abyss

It doesn’t take a six-week course in awareness to understand we are a fractured people struggling against time, tide and news channels to hold the tectonic plates of our relationships together. The fault lines are visible across the landscape of our families—politics, religion, dietary choices, gender theory and racial constructs are just a few of the sinkholes we try to avoid. One of the most troubling of our divisions is the “generation gap” which has grown so aggressive it has reached the status of an “age difference abyss.”

The constant acrimony between Baby Boomers and Millennials is evident in every disagreement. The latest salvo in this war of worlds is the phrase, “Ok, Boomer.” Depending on your lens, no matter how silly or sarcastic it pretends to be, it is either an ageist minimization of someone, or a quick way to shut off an illogical or frustrating conversation. Either way, it’s not going to make your green bean casserole taste any better this Thanksgiving.

The abyss is a thief of joy. Good experiences with the people who raised us or loved us over the years are devoured by conflict, blame and insults. It happens so fast.

One minute you’re chowing down on Grandma’s famous brown-sugar yams and the next your uncle is screaming about how avocado toast and tiny houses are signs of the apocalypse, and it snowed last week so climate change is a hoax. Before you leave, he wants you to fix the icons on his phone that are too damn small.

“Ok, Boomer,” you say, and leave the table before your head explodes.

Later, you walk outside to talk with your mom about why it’s wrong to serve turkey and how you wish she’d take that Trump sign off her lawn when you’re visiting. She silently withdraws, keeping the hours of work and multitude of offerings she made just for you in her private, broken heart. You ask her to pack some cranberry sauce for you to take home but don’t use plastic bags or paper bowls or cling wrap.

“Snowflake,” your aunt mutters as she shakes her head.

Did you really travel across the country (or the street) for this? Did you really get on the phone and beg for someone to come for dinner just to have this?  Of course not. No one wants to spend the day shouting across a cavern of biases. How do you bridge the gap?

Generosity to the Rescue

Paramita (usually translated as “perfection” “perfect realization” or “transcendent”) can also be translated as to “cross over (para) to the other shore (mita).” The six paramitas are six attributes we can cultivate in our life to transcend our suffering and take ourselves, and our relationships, to a higher, better place.

The first paramita is generosity (dana). The paramitas are huge concepts so I like to define them in a way that makes them a little more manageable by showing them in a moment.

Generosity means giving all that you can give to each moment. If you are listening to a teacher, it means giving them all of your attention. If you’re caring for a sick friend, it means giving them all the food, help, patience you can offer in that moment. If you’re doing a job, it means using all your skill. If you are suffering from depression, it means giving yourself a chance to rest, or the courage to reach out, or the persistence to make it to the next moment.

At Thanksgiving we tend to get so caught up in being grateful that we forget the founder of the feast—generosity. We can be thankful because someone gave to us. Someone gave birth to us, and someone chose to raise us. Many people gave us the education we needed to care for ourselves and get the job that bought the meal, or they grew the food we consume, or made the roads we used to get to dinner. You can think of a thousand ways we connect to one another on a day of thanks but it all flowed from one source—generosity in the moment.

On a day so auspicious, you can be generous too.

You can be generous with your understanding.

Baby Boomers grew up in an isolated, largely mono-lingual country with three TV channels, and rigid social rules. The whole world has changed, and they don’t have a map. Their eyesight is failing. Their bodies are challenged. They go to more funerals than reunions aware every day is one step closer to their own. They often present sadness as anger, and weakness as resistance, but mostly they just have so much fear.

Millennials grew up in a cyclone of change, bludgeoned by hundreds of types of awareness, and social norms that have never been very solid. They watch their children’s world fill with pollution and the ravages of gun violence. Their debt is high and their hope is stretched. They present powerlessness as protest and insecurity as criticism, but mostly they just have so much fear.

Each generation has plusses and pitfalls. The ingredients are different but the stuffing is the same.

Instead of seeing your boomer uncle feasting on white privilege and spewing conspiracy theories, give to him the soft eyes that also see a man who lost his job to the economy or his best friend to cancer. A man so hungry for safety he eats from any hand that will feed him affirmation, even one that stokes those fears, just to appease them.

Instead of seeing your millennial niece as a vegan social justice warrior who wants to take away all the guns and hamburgers in the nation, then corrects every word you say because she’s so woke, give her the open heart that still sees a woman who has no idea what is going to happen to her world and has her own life  scrutinized ten times a minute on a hundred screens

It’s not about justifying bad behavior or judging the “rightness” or “wrongness” of ideas. It’s about taking a larger picture with a heart awakened lens. Set the table with compassion, and you’ll find it a lot easier to give what respect, love, and patience you have to your moments together.

Besides, It’s not like you are going to change someone’s life view by arguing with them while eating pumpkin pie. It is very likely you’ll make someone feel less alone, or afraid, by finding common ground on other topics to share a moment of giving. It is only by spending quality, mutually beneficial time together that we create change for good.

Deal Breakers

Before you can give space and compassion to others, you must first be generous with yourself. That means ensuring your physical and emotional safety. Create a set of deal breakers that you will honor. Some of those could be:

You won’t sit at a table with someone who has abused you sexually, physically, or emotionally. You will reject any invitation that involves a scenario you are not prepared to inhabit.

You won’t listen to comments purposefully designed to provoke aggression or harm toward you or people you love. You will communicate that you are not willing to be a part of that conversation and it needs it change. If it doesn’t, you will leave the room.

You won’t be forced to eat or reject any food or drink that is not within your dietary choices.  Communicate clearly that saying “I don’t want to eat that” is all that is required and you won’t be talked, teased, or shamed into something you don’t want to do. It’s dinner, not the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

Before you can give space and compassion to others, you must first be generous with yourself. ~ Kellie Schorr Share on X

You cannot change the behavior of others, but you are always in charge of you. Invest in the generosity of self-protection and you will be equipped to give the same kind of generous space by not harming others, purposefully provoking them with your views (no matter how “right” you are), telling others what they should or should not eat, or treating the traditions of others without respect (If you don’t pray, you can sit quietly while they pray. If you know they don’t pray, then pray without them).

There are a hundred bridges of memories, smiles and heart that can span across the divisions that tear us one from another. They are made of compassion, connection, and communication. Why does it have to be you who builds them?

Generosity means giving all that you can give to each moment.

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

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