Coming of age
May. 9th, 2012 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWhen it comes to significant birthdays, mine is the lost generation. Those older than us came of age on their twenty-first birthdays, gained the right to vote, received shiny birthday cards with 'key to the door' motifs (I have had a front-door key since I was eight, but that is not the point). Those younger than us were adult at eighteen. But all of them could point to a birthday, a particular point in their own lives at which they officially became grown-ups.
My cohort came of age en masse on the first of January 1970, when the age of majority in England and Wales changed from age 21 to age 18. No personal celebration, just a legislative change.
This is ancient history, of course, but it's in my mind because forty-odd years on, I've been caught in the same trap. Once upon a time, the retirement age for women was 60, and for men 65. This was clearly unfair, and since on this occasion it was men who got the worse deal, something had to be done. Which is why we are now in a ten-year period of adjustment, during which the age at which women qualify for retirement benefits is gradually sliding upwards until it meets that of men.
Once again, women older than me retired on their 60th birthday; those younger will retire on their 65th. Anf my cohort retires on a date between the two, deduced by some arcane calculation on the basis of our date of birth.
I should probably put 'retires' in inverted commas of some kind, since when you retire, and what it means to retire, is not as simple as this makes it sound. Nonetheless, last Sunday I qualified for my pension, and today I went to the council office and claimed my bus pass.
My cohort came of age en masse on the first of January 1970, when the age of majority in England and Wales changed from age 21 to age 18. No personal celebration, just a legislative change.
This is ancient history, of course, but it's in my mind because forty-odd years on, I've been caught in the same trap. Once upon a time, the retirement age for women was 60, and for men 65. This was clearly unfair, and since on this occasion it was men who got the worse deal, something had to be done. Which is why we are now in a ten-year period of adjustment, during which the age at which women qualify for retirement benefits is gradually sliding upwards until it meets that of men.
Once again, women older than me retired on their 60th birthday; those younger will retire on their 65th. Anf my cohort retires on a date between the two, deduced by some arcane calculation on the basis of our date of birth.
I should probably put 'retires' in inverted commas of some kind, since when you retire, and what it means to retire, is not as simple as this makes it sound. Nonetheless, last Sunday I qualified for my pension, and today I went to the council office and claimed my bus pass.
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 05:32 pm (UTC)We don't have pubs here, at least not in the way that Brits do. We have cafes. ;-)