The lost cohort
Jan. 28th, 2021 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustA neighbour messaged the street WhatsApp group: that day was his significant birthday, and if we put glasses in front of our houses, he would come down the street and pour fizz into them. So we did, and he did: it was cold and wet but not actually snowing, and we wrapped up warmly and kept our distance, and raised a glass to the birthday boy (crémant de Jura, explained his wife). Not the birthday celebration any of us would have chosen, but a celebration of sorts ...
I'll pass the same milestone myself in a couple of months. So S. and I are very much of an age, and he, like me (and everyone born in the UK at that time) missed out on the big coming-of-age birthday. When I was 18, the crucial age was 21; by the time I reached 21, a legislative change had reduced the age of majority to 18. A whole cohort of us came of age as the clock ticked over to January 1st 1970. Many of my university friends celebrated their 21st birthday anyway, but we language students missed that too, as the course required us to spend that year abroad. I celebrated my 21st in Versailles: my sister was visiting, and at the end of the school day we went to a café where we were joined by one of my pupils (she should have returned immediately to the boarding school after her swimming exam, but she was able to steal a little time first).
So my "significant birthday" happened on a day that wasn't my birthday; and not just mine. Later, it happened again: throughout my working life, the retirement age for women was 60, and men retired at 65. Sex discrimination legislation brought about a change in this, and it's no suprise that the change wasn't to level up to the more generous date. Instead they introduced a sliding scale, and I passed retirement age somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65 - no, I don't know when. I could look it up, but what is more relevant than the actual fate is precisely that it wasn't a day that had any significance for me. And again this fofn't just affect me, but all British women of around my age.
Because I was born in the year I was, I have missed out on two significant birthdays. It's a curious coincidence, and I complain of it from time to time, though without any real sense of grievance. Which is just as well, because this year puts it into perspective: as the calendar comes full circle to a year of lockdowns and restrictions, almost everyone in the world has missed out on a birthday, and some are about to miss out on a second. And if that's the worst the pandemic brings us, we are getting off very lightly. So I don't know what the point of this post is, it's just something I've been thinking about.
I'll pass the same milestone myself in a couple of months. So S. and I are very much of an age, and he, like me (and everyone born in the UK at that time) missed out on the big coming-of-age birthday. When I was 18, the crucial age was 21; by the time I reached 21, a legislative change had reduced the age of majority to 18. A whole cohort of us came of age as the clock ticked over to January 1st 1970. Many of my university friends celebrated their 21st birthday anyway, but we language students missed that too, as the course required us to spend that year abroad. I celebrated my 21st in Versailles: my sister was visiting, and at the end of the school day we went to a café where we were joined by one of my pupils (she should have returned immediately to the boarding school after her swimming exam, but she was able to steal a little time first).
So my "significant birthday" happened on a day that wasn't my birthday; and not just mine. Later, it happened again: throughout my working life, the retirement age for women was 60, and men retired at 65. Sex discrimination legislation brought about a change in this, and it's no suprise that the change wasn't to level up to the more generous date. Instead they introduced a sliding scale, and I passed retirement age somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65 - no, I don't know when. I could look it up, but what is more relevant than the actual fate is precisely that it wasn't a day that had any significance for me. And again this fofn't just affect me, but all British women of around my age.
Because I was born in the year I was, I have missed out on two significant birthdays. It's a curious coincidence, and I complain of it from time to time, though without any real sense of grievance. Which is just as well, because this year puts it into perspective: as the calendar comes full circle to a year of lockdowns and restrictions, almost everyone in the world has missed out on a birthday, and some are about to miss out on a second. And if that's the worst the pandemic brings us, we are getting off very lightly. So I don't know what the point of this post is, it's just something I've been thinking about.
