The Grand Narrative

For a geek, it’s been very frustrating being surrounded by quality second-hand bookshops this holiday, as I’ve had to balance the 50 or so purchases I’ve wanted to make against the 20kg weight limit on my check-in baggage, my backpack already straining with shoes that actually fit me, shirts I don’t look completely gay in, roller-blades, English copies of Men’s Health (And now Women’s Health too), and rather all too many gifts for my daughter from her grandparents. But, thinking of my promises to my readers, I just had to buy the first book below by Maureen Baker when I saw it, a comparative study of Australian, Canadian and New Zealand families, and the mere 12,000 won I paid for it more than made up for the fact that I realised my other, more recent sociology book purchase was also by her, and so was probably unnecessary. Here’s a review for anyone interested, and I’ll be looking at it in great depth myself in February. 

(Families, Labour and Love: Family Diversity in a Changing World, by Maureen Baker, 2001)

As for the second book, it was a gift from my father, who for birthdays and Christmases usually gives me books on subjects that I’m semi-interested in, but which come low on my book-buying priorities; it’s an appreciated, but often hit and miss affair. On top of that, in my recent travels amongst the sociology sections of bookshops in downtown Auckland I’ve come across a great deal of complete rambling crap on Australian and NZ demographics, many such as Advance Australia Where? being of such a standard and depth that I would have been embarrassed to hand in to lecturers even as a freshman. Being quite the  purveyor of complete rambling crap myself, I saw no need to pay to read someone else’s when I could read my own for free, so I groaned a little when I opened this gift by yet another supposed expert:

(The Big Picture: Life, work and relationships in the 21st century, by Bernard Salt, 2006)

I soon grew to like it though. And it turns out Bernard Salt is quite an expert (see his homepage here), or at least people pay to listen to him - which makes him a demi-god as far as I’m concerned - and what’s more he writes in an hilarious style that I hope to emulate myself, but is still some way off. Let me give you a taste, first on 20-somethings’ blasé attitudes to premarital sex. After explaining why 50-somethings are happy to let their grown children to stay at home because it helps them get over being biologically “nurturing” to “completely obsolete”, (not completely true - New Scientist magazine says that parents have a big impact on the fertility of their children if they’re around to help raise grandkids - but still funny) he observes: 

When baby boomers formed pre-marital sexual relationships in the mid-1970s they did the respectable thing: they hid the extent of these relationships from their parents. That’s why the drive-in was invented. Not like the youth of today: they have no respect for the double standards preferred by parents. A stay-at-home generation Y male is just as likely to say to his parents: ‘Oh, mum and dad I thought Tracey might “stay over” tonight.’ There is, apparently, a subtle emphasis on the term ’stay over’ which precludes anyone from seeking to define precisely what ’staying over’ entails. Does this hotel get any better: free meals, free laundry…and now sex? Why would these kids ever leave?

I am curious as to how exactly this situation is manoeuvred by generation Y. On the first occasion that Tracey ’stays over’, how is this arrangement executed? Are mum, dad, son and ‘Trace’ all happily sitting on the couch watching Sale of the Century when son nonchantly yawns and says something like ‘Gosh I am so tired. I think we might head off to bed now.’ And do mum and dad then turn around and say ‘Oh, okay, nighty night. See you in the morning.’

And a little later:

Baby boomers have very different attitudes to sex than did their parents. They did not even ask their parents whether their girlfriend or boyfriend could ’stay over’ in the 1970s; boomers intuitively knew not to even pose the question. The parental response would have been first an apoplectic fit and then an admonishing lecture: ‘While you’re under my roof you will live by my rules’. And so it is for this reason that boomers left home early; it was a lust-driven imperative. (pp. 65-67)

And here’s a section on the short and fleeting period of “youth” that Baby Boomers had, something which Korean university students, with only a narrow window between sleep-deprived, rote-studying teen years and then long hours at work and then marriage and parenthood, would readily identify (see my posts on Korean Education for more information on that, especially this one and then this).

Today’s crop of 20-somethings resile from commitment to marriage and to the groundwork years required of a career, let alone to the concept of a mortgage (James - Its okay: I didn’t know what “resile” meant either). These people are easily bored; they up and off from whatever, or whomever, as they please. They travel, they trial relationships, they flirt with this, they flirt with that. They float into a share house, or into an apartment, and then they float back to mum and dad when things go pear-shaped.

Despite their radical image, 20-something baby boomers were conservative in such matters. They married and bought into housing and careers at an early age.

Prior to World War II, you were a child until the day you turned 14 and metamorphosed into an adult. The concept of teenager didn’t exist. Young women made their debut at 17, which meant that they could court. Generation Xers please note: to ‘court’ means to establish a non-sexual romantic relationship with a person of the opposite sex, and to hold that relationship over several months (years in some cases) with the (fervent) intent of joyous consummation on the ‘wedding night’.

Until the mid-1970s, some Australian women would wait until their 21st birthday to announce their engagement (tearfully during the speech for maximum impact). These female chameleons moved from teenager to debutante to fiancée within 4 years, and to wife and mother within anouther 2. (pp. 249-250, italics added)

Despite everything I’ve said about rapidly changing sexual mores in Korea, that still sound like a lot of Korean couples I know (although for that reason alone wouldn’t count as friends), so that struck a chord with me. Needless to say, I look forward to reading the rest properly once I’m back in Korea. In the meantime, do any Australian readers know any more about him?

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