THE PERENNIALS

5 stars

Because we're octogenerians, conversation between my husband and I every once in a while turns to where we'll need to live when we actually start to get old. On one thing we totally agree: neither of us is particularly excited about spending time in any kind of elder care facility. But that's not because we've heard horror stories about how poorly old folks are treated; rather, it's that we know our mental and physical health would suffer enormously anywhere we couldn't routinely interact with other people of other ages.

Focusing on and promoting age-oblivious lifelong interaction instead of pigeonholing people by age group (i.e., Baby Boomers, Millennials) and sequential life "stages" (i.e., childhood/play, then education, then work and retirement) is what is needed if we're all to reach our full potential, maintains the author in this intriguing book - that's just one of several benefits. For the record, I totally agree - and I honestly don't know anyone over age 50 who gets a kick out of being stereotyped simply by virtue of the year of birth.

But alas, that's the real-world truth; most of us can attest, for instance, that's it's darned near impossible to get back into the work force once we've crossed that line into "senior" status. We also know, though, what employers have been conditioned to ignore: that our skills and experience remain valuable assets that we want to contribute - and that we're capable of and willing to learn new skills (yes, even if we're learning them from someone 30 years younger).

What is needed, then, is nothing short of what the author, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, calls a "multigenerational revolution" - shifting gears to the concept of "Perenniels," or those who are not identified by the decade in which they were born but rather by the way they work, learn and interact with others. Doing so will free individuals from near-mandatory adherence to those life stages in exact order, instead allowing them to move in and out of each as the need, or desire, occurs. When this happens, not only will those aforementioned sectors - education, work and retirement - take on a different and more meaningful framework, but all lives will be enriched by the experience of interacting with people of all ages.

Abandoning the sequential model of life, the author emphasizes, would usher in a multitude of other benefits to society as a whole; consider, for instance, that by 2030, the largest consumer market will be age 60 and up - with big implications for virtually all retail markets if for no other reason than buying power. Consider the stress faced by most new college students (traditionally those who enter right after high school) to decide what they want to be not only when they grow up, but for the rest of their lives. Such an attitude just isn't appropriate, or feasible, in this era of rapid technological changes wherein having to learn new skills and switch career paths more than once is inevitable.

Much pressure would be lifted if young people didn't believe they were locking themselves into a box by choosing a college major because they'd be able to shift gears at any point. And at the typical retirement age of 65, most of us can expect to have at least as many years ahead of us as we spent on the way to that high school graduation. Why shouldn't we be free to fill them with more education or a new job instead of being, essentially, put out to pasture?

There are countless other negative ramifications of continuing with our linear approach to life, and the author artfully presents the benefits that shifting to a multigenerational approach can bring. To some extent, we're already seeing it happen in some sectors (as an academic retread in my 40s when I returned to college to finish a bachelor's degree and go on to earn a master's, for instance, I was the only student in my classes who actually wanted to sit in the front row; these days, so-called "nontraditional" students are anything but). It's certainly a start, but the author maintains that the timeline for meaningful change needs a jumpstart. He lays it all out in this well-written book, complete with references, citations and resources for further enlightenment. It certainly gave me a bounty of food for thought, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review it.

The Perennials by Mauro F. Guillen (St. Martin's Press, August 2023); 272 pp.