About the Legacy Project:
Legacies Across Generations

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

George Bernard Shaw

Legacies are about life and living. They are about learning from the past, living in the present, and hoping for the future.

Goals of the Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project

The Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project is a national initiative under the Parenting Coalition with the support of Generations United, both based in Washington, DC. It has been developed and is coordinated by The Communication Project. It has four goals:

1. To explore, document, encourage, and celebrate the legacies -- the important personal histories, memories, traditions, values, and life lessons -- passed down from generation to generation.

2. To let parents and grandparents know that they can and are making a difference in the lives of their children and grandchildren.

3. To encourage and support closer relationships across generations, as well as community building.

4. To explore issues and ideas from a multigenerational, life course perspective.

How The Project Began and What It Is

The Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project has been inspired by the hundreds of letters, calls, faxes, and e-mails received from children and adults across the country in response to the award-winning book Something to Remember Me By. This seemingly simple intergenerational story about special bonds and legacies across generations prompts discussion and inspires both young and old to think about legacies in their own lives. Once you start thinking about legacies and intergenerational relationships, this kit (and the others which are part of the project) takes you to the next step with plenty of ideas, information, and activities.

The Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project is ongoing, with a variety of activity theme kits available at different times of the year (e.g. Grandparents Day, The Holidays, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day). The activity kits are for use by schools, community groups, and families. There are also contests run throughout the year to focus attention on certain themes and activities, and a series of workshops at sites across the country.

Each activity theme kit is updated and expanded annually (activities are added, information and resources are updated, and we incorporate feedback and ideas from across the country). The latest information and the newest activity kit are always available at www.somethingtoremembermeby.org. The website offers the free edition of each kit. There's a more complete, printed edition of each activity kit available through The Communication Project, along with the Legacy Project Binder which holds all the kits. When you purchase the binder, you can also get a subscription so that new activity kits are mailed to you automatically as soon as they're available. Contact The Communication Project (1-800-772-7765 or tcp@tcpnow.com) for more information on the printed activity kit editions, binder, and subscriptions, as well as book discounts available as part of the Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project.

Part I of this Grandparents Day Activity Kit contains background information about grandparenting today and grandparent/grandchild relationships, as well as a complete planning guide for running a Grandparents Day event in a school or through a community group. Part II is full of activity ideas for young and old which can be used to bring the generations closer together. Part III lists other related websites, organizations, and books (including storybooks with intergenerational themes).

This Grandparents Day Activity Kit is being offered with an Intergenerational Contest for children and their grandparents (or a "grandfriend" or other older adult mentor). The Grand Prize is a Lane Cedar Chest with an IBM NetVista Computer inside. There are also 10 runner-up prizes of a $100 gift certificate from Books Are Fun. The contest runs to October 31, 2002.

The next kit, the Holiday Activity Kit, will be available in October, 2002. Filled with all new activities and ideas, it focuses on the traditions and keepsakes passed down across generations, and the special role of elders at the holidays. The Holiday Contest will involve writing about a special keepsake in your family.

The Valentine's Activity Kit (available January, 2003) celebrates love across generations, as well as the importance of mentoring.

For Mother's Day, 2003, the activity kit and contest will honor the special role of mothers and grandmothers as kinkeepers in families.

The Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project Partners include The Communication Project, Parenting Coalition International, Generations United, Lane Furniture, Memory Makers magazine, IBM, and Books Are Fun.

Defining Legacy

Where do you think it's best to plant a young tree: a clearing in an old-growth forest or an open field? Ecologists tell us that a young tree grows better when it's planted in an area with older trees. The reason, it seems, is that the roots of the young tree are able to follow the pathways created by former trees and implant themselves more deeply. Over time, the roots of many trees may actually graft themselves to one another, creating an intricate, interdependent foundation hidden under the ground. In this way, stronger trees share resources with weaker ones so that the whole forest becomes healthier.

Human beings also thrive best when we grow in the presence of those who have come before. Research shows children need four to six involved, caring adults in their lives to fully develop emotionally and socially. Research also shows that without a sense of helping those who come after them and working to create a legacy, adults lose meaning in their life. So legacy is fundamental to what it is to be human. Exploring the idea of legacy offers a glimpse not only into human relationships and building strong communities, but also the human spirit.

For some, the word "legacy" connotes death. One of the many euphemisms for dying -- "passing on" -- is also a term for the transfer of material and nonmaterial legacies. The idea of legacy may remind us of death, but it is not about death. Being reminded of death is actually a good thing, because death informs life. It gives you a perspective on what's important. But legacy is really about life and living. It is about learning from the past, living in the present, and hoping for the future. It helps us decide the kind of life we want to live and the kind of world we want to live in.

The giving and receiving of legacies can evoke, all at once, the entire spectrum of basic human emotions: hope, longing, regret, anxiety, fear, dread, jealousy, bitterness, rage, a sense of failure, a sense of accomplishment, pride, contentment, joy, gratitude, humility, love. When you start thinking about legacies, no matter what your age or state of health, you take stock -- of your possessions, and also of your accomplishments and disappointments. You take stock of what you've learned from what you've done in the past, what you're doing now, and what you still hope to do. With varying levels of awareness, individuals also inevitably reflect on the people, work, ideas, commitments, and social institutions that have given their lives shape and meaning.

Most of us will not be an Albert Einstein, with our name and accomplishments remembered forever in the history books. But that does not lessen our need to create some meaning in our lives, to have what we've done and thought live on after us, to be remembered in some way. From a purely practical standpoint, if you don't pass on your life experience by leaving a legacy, the wisdom you've gained through decades of difficult learning will disappear as your physical body wears out.

Unlike the older trees in a forest, which don't know they're helping the younger trees, we know. We can be very conscious of how we affect what comes after us. We can choose the way we live and, in turn, the legacy we leave. A legacy can be many different things. It can be nurturing a business, a poem, an ideal, a community, a home, and always yourself. It can be deciding how to pass on your material possessions -- to family, as well as endowments to colleges, churches, or charities. And it can be helping your children, and your children's children, to grow and thrive.

Reaching Out Across Time

The word "generativity" was coined in 1950 by psychoanalyst Erik Erikson. It is the second last stage of the eight stages into which he divided the human life cycle. He came up with the term because he felt words like "productivity" and "creativity" were too narrow to encompass all the ways we try to make our mark on the future.

At its simplest level, generativity is about providing for succeeding generations. It's choosing to take an active interest in guiding the next generation. In its broadest sense, generativity is the desire to put your energy into things that will outlive you. It's a sense that your life is worthwhile and extends beyond yourself. Erikson called the life cycle itself "a system of generation and regeneration."

Erikson saw generativity as a stage of later life. More recently, researchers have treated it as a personality trait. In other words, the idea is that some people, no matter what their age, have more of it than others, or at least choose to be more conscious of it. Not everyone focuses on generativity. Those who don't, tend to become absorbed in themselves. They may have gained material success, but find life boring and feel that something is missing, even though they're not certain what it is they long for. Neither education nor privilege seem to be connected with generativity, but successfully dealing with challenges faced earlier in life may. Women tend to score higher on measures of generativity, since they are still largely the kinkeepers in families.

People weren't very interested in Erikson's concept of generativity when he first proposed it. He was seemingly ahead of his time. With today's shifting demographics, we may now be ready. It is a rich and deep concept that has to do not only with nurturing the generations that follow us, but with creating legacies and leaving the world a bit better than we found it. In a time when so many people are searching for meaning, it's about creating something meaningful and lasting.

It's About You, It's About Us

Leaving a legacy is a human need. It is in part selfish -- we want to feel immortal. The idea of leaving something behind that will "live forever" is appealing. We also want to feel like we matter in the vast sea of humanity. By connecting with those at the beginning of their lives, we do complete a full circle in life's journey and leave some of our "selves" -- our experiences, ideas, values, and personal example -- in the minds and hearts of others.

But leaving a legacy also has an altruistic component. If we don't leave a positive legacy, what kind of society are we building? What kind of world are we leaving behind? What are we passing on to our children and grandchildren? We do our good little bits in the grand scheme of things, and in no time at all the tiny gestures multiply in significance.

Said Albert Einstein:

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others... for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself to give in return as much as I have received.

From Albert Einstein to Robert Ball, former US Social Security Commissioner:

We owe much of what we are to the past. We all stand on the shoulders of generations that came before. They built the schools and established the ideals of an educated society. They wrote the books, developed the scientific ways of thinking, passed on ethical and spiritual values, discovered our country, developed, won its freedom, held it together, cleared its forests and invented new technology.... Because we owe so much to the past, we have the obligation to try to pass on a world to the next generation which is a little better than the one we inherited so that those who come after, standing on our shoulders, can see a little further and do a little better in turn.

This is where the personal becomes political. Through legacy, "me" becomes "we" (and the irony is that "me" actually becomes more in the process). "We" encompasses past and future, old and young, and the society we create and perpetuate. "Society is indeed a contract," said Edmund Burke, a British writer and member of Parliament. "It becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

We are all, young and old, part of a larger community, a community that must remember its history to build its future. Community exists before you are born and remains after you are gone. Each part of your life, from childhood to adulthood to older adulthood, has a part in taking in or passing on the lessons of the past in order to create a better future.

As a society, we presently face a number of challenges: stresses on the family, shifting demographics, shrinking time and resources, violence, poverty, environmental damage, strained educational and health care systems, the new global economy, and the rapid pace of social, technological, and economic change. Social policy -- which is, in effect, the foundation of the legacy we will leave and the future we will build -- must address these challenges. And as it does, intergenerational legacies and relationships become, as has been said by many, not just nice but necessary. A sound economy is necessary to support a decent quality of life. A sound economy needs an educated, healthy, productive workforce and must make use of all its resources -- young and old. A sound long-term economy must also be committed to the well-being of the young, invest in and not just talk about positive visions and values, and advance the common good across all ages.

As a society striving to "see a little further and do a little better," we must connect the dots -- individuals with generations with families, which all live in communities.

Legacy and Family

In the words of Vice President Al Gore at the 2000 Family Re-Union Conference on Families and Seniors Across Generations:

Families are where we all turn first for love and fulfillment.... There is no government program that can connect a grandparent to a grandchild. There's no policy proposal that can teach a child discipline, tolerance, and respect. There's no law that can make a mother and father more actively engaged in their child's education. Yet, strengthening families must be a national priority. We cannot have a strong nation if our families are weak.

Strengthening families means restoring some balance -- between raising children based on information and education with raising them with a sense of family history and connectedness. Too often, as we tell parents and grandparents the things they're doing wrong, we put all our faith in "experts." Parents also worry about their diminishing influence on children in the face of pop culture and peer pressure. Children are losing their legacy base and we are losing our belief in the family.

The family, as the oldest and most deeply rooted human institution, has been the primary context through which children have learned who they are, where they have come from, how they fit into society, and what kind of person they might become. Connections across generations in families have been the glue that bonded families, giving information and identity with the past, which created depth and meaning to the present, which in turn again supplied a resource for charting and securing the future.

Social and demographic changes of the past century have profoundly affected families. We face many issues and potential stressors in our lives, both as individuals and as members of families. Sparse economic resources; fewer societal and governmental supports; family members spread across the country; increasingly complex relationships with extended, blended, and single-parent families; greater demands and stresses in the workplace -- these are just a few of the issues that affect the modern family. As well, life expectancy has increased and fertility has decreased around the world. The shape of the family structure has changed as people live longer and have fewer children. For most of human history, the structure of families looked like a pyramid, with few older members at the top and many young members at the bottom. Today, families are shaped more vertically, like a beanpole, with a more equal number of members in each generation. With more generations of family members alive at the same time, people spend more years in family roles and relationships.

The quality of the intergenerational exchanges in families affects the quality of the lives of individual family members across their lifespans. As individuals age, families are carried along with them in the aging process. Aging touches every generation. Let's look at a hypothetical family today, focusing on the maternal links. The 95-year-old great-great-grandmother has outlived her husband, her siblings, and many of her friends. She faces the last stage of life with its losses and physical limitations. Her 75-year-old widowed daughter is dealing with caring for her 95-year-old mother and her own aging. She is worried about finances, about how much longer she will be able to drive her car, and about the burden she is placing on her daughter. Her divorced 50-year-old daughter, in turn, is trying to help her own children establish and support themselves, helping her 75-year-old mother as much as she can, and planning her retirement. The 25-year-old daughter is looking for help to buy a house, as well as caring for her small children. Finally, the young children in the fifth generation watch the intergenerational dynamics and quietly take in the profound life lessons being played out across five generations.

The multigenerational family is in many ways more complex than it has ever been in history, which adds yet another layer to our already complex lives. These multigenerational families must explore new balances in obligations and responsibilities to one another. These families can also add to the richness of our lives. They are an opportunity to reconnect with a legacy base.

Psychologists have identified four universal human needs found in all nations, races, religions, and cultures: 1) the need to live; 2) the need to learn; 3) the need to love; and 4) the need to leave a legacy. For most of us, the need to leave a legacy is at least in part tied to the need to love. We need to feel as though we're making a difference, creating a legacy, in the lives of the people we love, particularly our children and grandchildren. And our children and grandchildren -- in pursuing their needs to grow and learn -- require the confidence and sense of stability that a sense of legacy brings. That's the only way we'll even begin to deal with an often overwhelming, chaotic world.

Unfortunately, going back to the start, today our belief in family is shaky. Life isn't always fair or easy, so why have we placed such high expectations on families to be perfect or we discard them? It's not that everyone in every family is wonderful. It's that families give children identity, a foundation, and the good, complicated network you can work with across the course of your lifetime. Buddhists say that families are filled with ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows. Dodie Smith described family as "that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever wish to." Families are complicated. They are not always easy or straightforward. Oddly enough, life is exactly the same.

We all make mistakes. Navajo artisans deliberately weave a flaw somewhere into their tapestries as an acknowledgement that we and our lives, our tapestries, are not perfect. Yet our family tapestry can still be beautiful and keep us warm against life's cold blasts and challenges. Unlike monkeys, who can run around within hours of birth and are self-sufficient in a few months, it takes humans more than a decade to even begin to be independent of their parents. We need families to survive, to become who we will become, and to help us reconnect with our legacy base.

Enter Grandparents and Older Adults

Today, over 13% of the US population is 65 years or older. By the year 2030, 1 in every 5 Americans will be over 65, totaling 70 million. For the first time in history, there will soon be more people of grandparent age than children and youth. These older adults are more educated, active, and healthier than elders of decades past. They can have a tremendous impact on society by choosing to be active grandparents and mentor younger generations.

Our lives are enriched by our connections with people older and younger than ourselves. All it takes is the time and willingness to get to know each other. The grandparent/grandchild relationship is perhaps one of the most important of these relationships. It is, in fact, second in emotional importance only to the parent/child relationship. Grandparents can bring their grandchildren a sense of history, unconditional love, and support and advice. Grandchildren can bring their grandparents a sense of the present, exuberant love, and a meaningful purpose. Grandparents are keepers of our heritage; grandchildren are forgers of our future. And they can be each other's conscience.

There is personal satisfaction in the role of grandparent, as well as satisfaction from a broader, life perspective. It is a role and a stage in life in which we can find significant meaning and a fulfillment of our need for legacy.

The role and importance of grandparents and older adult mentors are discussed in detail later in this kit. In general, grandparents play a part in socializing their grandchildren by serving as role models. They generate and maintain a sense of family connectedness. Simply by being there, grandparents are symbols of family longevity and continuity, and having grandparents available increases feelings of security in younger generations.

Traditionally, elders have served as witnesses to history, preserving the memories and passing on cultural identity and historical values. But geographic distance, technological advances, and changing values make it increasingly more difficult for grandparents to be "keepers of community." Further, the concept of "generation" is as much a set of experiences as it is a range of years. A relative lack of change makes it easier to bring together the lives of grandparent, parent, and child. But when social change is rapid, there are likely to be more separate "generations" created than when the passing years are indistinguishable. Rapid social change fractures children, parents, and grandparents, causing an experience of separateness and loss of continuity that leads to meaninglessness.

Our fast-moving world of planned obsolescence does little to give children a legacy base. Everyone catapults forward to the next "newest" trend. Anything old gets tossed in the trash. Inevitably, we tend to believe that nothing endures, nothing lasts -- thus the crisis of meaning. Without meaning, there can be no hope. Consciously refocusing on and building stronger relationships across generations, especially between grandchildren and grandparents, can restore meaning and hope. It can emphasize the timeless over the transient, which is critical to the fulfillment of legacy.

Getting "Old"

Age, not space, may be the final frontier. Half of all the people who have ever lived to age 65 are currently alive. Today, an American at birth is expected to live 76 years compared to 47 years in 1900 -- an additional 29 years.

This is the Age of Aging -- the first century in which human beings can reasonably expect to live even close to what we presently think of as the entire lifespan. It's the first time in history when any child (in a developed nation) can expect to attain old age. Because of this, we are now challenged to develop new life maps.

Said Walt Whitman, "Youth large, lusty living, youth full of grace, force and fascination. Do you know that old age will come after you with equal grace, force and fascination?"

It took three centuries to transform childhood into a full-fledged stage of life. Previously, children were regarded by society simply as miniature adults. But over time they acquired their own clothing, customs, and roles. Childhood came to be a qualitatively distinct phase. Presently, older adulthood in contemporary society is well described as a "roleless role," a status with no clearly defined purpose or rules of behavior. We're in the middle of re-inventing the third stage of life and reassessing its place in society. In fact, we're on the verge of redeveloping a concept of the whole of life and its possibilities. Everyone's life is pretty much mapped out until late adolescence; after that, it's an open field. What can we expect, hope for, dream of in our older years? We owe it to ourselves and to society to figure it out.

But first, we must overcome a huge cultural challenge. We live in a youth-obsessed culture that's both gerontophobic (fearful of aging) and ageist (prejudiced against aging). It's not easy getting old against this cultural backdrop. It makes life, and developing a new life map, a lot harder than it has to be.

Wrestling with our addiction to youth is a big part of developing a new life map. We need a new vision of old age, a vision that can be our legacy to future generations. Older adults and society are ready for more. And old age shouldn't simply be a warmed-over version of midlife. We can do better than that. Ask many 30-year-olds how much fun they're having -- working, paying bills, raising children, finding a moment of peace -- and they'll tell you not much. The "third age" can be a unique stage of life -- not a rerun of midlife, or for that matter a second childhood.

Another part of our new life map can include replacing the linear view of life that equates youth with education, middle age with work, and old age with leisure. A more evolved view should enable people to move in and out of education, work, and leisure throughout their life course. More flexible life pathways provide opportunities for personal fulfillment at every life stage. We need ways to prepare children to deal with a complex world, lessen the burden on people in their middle years, and foster productivity during older adulthood.

The new reality of aging is that we all -- especially today's children -- must plan and prepare to live long, healthy, productive lives. And we must adapt our social structures and public policies not simply to avoid an "aging crisis," but to incorporate into our future the longevity bonus that increased life expectancy has brought us.

It is very true that there are challenges that come with an aging society, like the potential burden on the heath care system. But like everything else in life, there are also benefits. Older people are a growing resource. We not only have the largest and fastest-growing population of older adults in history, but also the most vigorous, best educated, and healthiest. Only 5% of these individuals live in nursing homes, and the vast majority experience no disabilities whatsoever. Older people tend to have more time in general than the young, and more time to care. They also have more time lived. They have practical knowledge -- and, often, wisdom -- gained from experience. Their additional time left to live may give older adults a special reason to become involved in ways that provide both personal meaning and make a significant difference to others.

We have to get past the problem of "too old to work, too young to die." Said Ethel Percy Andrus, the retired California educator who founded AARP:

The stereotype of old age, increasingly costly and troublesome, is contradicted by the host of happy and productive older people participating and serving beyond the call of duty. Second only to the desire to live is the natural yearning to be wanted and needed, to feel that one's contribution to life is essential.

Erik Erikson called us "the teaching species." The drive toward generativity is an essential antidote to the threat of stagnation in the adult years. By providing people with more opportunities to leave a legacy and nurture the future, we can turn the aging of society into our best chance for restoring generativity. It will not only be a revolution in time, but across time.

The number of older adults in our global society will continue to grow. A life of deeper meaning and hope is made possible only by an approach which takes the human experience of aging seriously, and creatively links that experience to something bigger -- legacy. If we can come to terms with aging, old age may bring a liberating awareness that death is closer than birth. This awareness can inspire many to reflect -- and act -- on the legacy they will pass on. We will come to fully understand that, in the words of Erikson, "I am what survives of me."

Through the process of doing all of this, we may also come to terms with the paradox of aging, which is also one of the essential paradoxes of life: infinite ambitions, dreams, and desires on the one hand, versus vulnerable, limited, declining physical existence on the other -- the tension between spirit and body. This paradox cannot be eradicated by the wonders of modern medicine or by positive attitudes toward growing old. It is about understanding and acceptance at the deepest and most difficult level. Acceptance does not mean despair; in fact it means the exact opposite. And I am convinced that the concept of legacy will help us get there.

Wisdom Wanted

We live in a world desperate for wisdom. In a time when we need everything from new life maps and innovative social strategies to a way to keep guns out of schools and the earth's temperature from rising, we are bombarded with frivolous facts and isolated "infobits" at a speed and volume greater than ever before in history. But what we need is wisdom.

What is wisdom? Paul Baltes of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin has spent his life investigating wisdom. He defines wisdom as "a state of knowledge about the human condition, about how it comes about, which factors shape it, how one deals with difficult problems, and how one organizes one's life in such a manner that when we are old, we judge it to be meaningful."

Erikson defined "wisdom" as "the tendency to keep things together," to strengthen the self, its relations with others and the past.

The essence of wisdom is in knowing what you don't know, in the appreciation that knowledge is fallible. It's the balance between knowing and doubting. Wise action involves the way in which you hold knowledge and put it to use. A "wise" decision implies a "best" solution -- a value-laden judgment. It tries to understand the ultimate consequences of events in a holistic, systemic way.

Wisdom brings together your experience, ability to think, and emotional maturity to make good decisions at an individual and societal level. Wisdom enables a person to adapt to the tasks of everyday life. It's about getting pleasure from health, satisfaction from work, and good use out of wealth. But wisdom is also what will enable us to deal with the increasingly complex problems facing humanity. Wisdom isn't simply for wise people, philosophers, and psychologists. It's for all people and for the future of the world.

In one study, the younger people were all pretty well convinced they would get wiser with age. But the older people weren't so sure that they had attained wisdom. In that doubt was their wisdom -- knowing what you don't know, and knowing what is unknowable. In the words of Antonio Machado, "I give you counsel for I am an old man: never follow any counsel."

Most of today's most influential thinkers believe that wisdom accumulates with age. And while research indicates that some mental functioning like memory may decline with advanced age, wisdom can still flourish apart from other mental functions. Research also confirms that most wise individuals don't think of themselves as possessing any special powers of wisdom. The more they learn, the less they know for certain.

But wisdom isn't something that happens automatically as the result of age. Hard-won self-knowledge is an essential source of wisdom. Wisdom grows only through accepting your life as the life that had to be and is the product of resolve -- resolving the issues of the past combined with tolerance toward your own family past and your choices. It combines an emotional integration of the past, a philosophical attitude toward life, and acceptance of your own mortality without despair.

Given that wisdom and advanced age aren't automatically related, there are a few thinkers who have asked whether they are related at all. What if all people are wise to begin with, as children, but as we grow older we lose our wisdom? We are very familiar with the saying, "out of the mouths of babes." Eleanor Roosevelt introduced the diary of Anne Frank, written while Anne was 13-15 years of age, as "one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings." Perhaps wisdom is not a quality that can be achieved or attained by some in older adulthood, but instead a quality that is maintained and preserved by only a few over the course of a life?

However, in general, while the young may have the capacity to be wise, they are too impelled to action to consistently demonstrate this capacity. They tend to act rather than reflect on the consequences of their actions. As we age, there's a changing balance between acting and reflecting. There's little doubt from the literature on criminal behavior and deviance, for example, that a youth is likely to act rashly. The antithesis lies in wise behavior. As well, we cannot confuse the innocence, naivete, and sense of wonder that accompanies youth with hard-won wisdom.

Even if wisdom is accessible at any age, it only becomes truly useful when what is added to it is an age-related accumulation of information, experiences, and insights coupled with an ability to control a purely emotional response and logically assess a situation. Experience and maturity change the quality of the expression of wisdom, from simple to profound. Older adults have a greater capacity (though not an automatic capacity) than younger people to see all of life and how it's connected.

I believe that the higher wisdom needed to address the world's complex problems may well result from the linking of youth and age -- action and reflection. Young and old each bring to the table their own strengths. Reflecting and not acting gets us no further than acting without reflecting. And part of the process necessary for an older person to develop their wisdom may be to engage with those at the other end of the spectrum, with the young. For the young, it is through supportive and sharing relationships with older people within a wisdom environment that they gain the courage and self-knowledge to engage in confident and wise action.

The wisdom possible in this wider vision can't be found by reading books, listening to tapes, or attending seminars. Many young people seek it by searching out Eastern gurus -- when all the while their grandparents are sitting at the kitchen table.

Linking Young and Old

One of our best hopes for the future is to pursue opportunities and programs that bring generations together. There is a morality as well as a practicality in these relationships.

As the population ages, some argue that the stage is being set for intergenerational warfare over who deserves what piece of the pie. Too many people see the aging of society as a problem to be solved rather than an opportunity to be seized. The role of older adults as conveyors of culture, holders of wisdom, nurturers of children and families is not widely recognized. Young people, too, are often seen as burdens to communities rather than assets. The age-old social compact is also being threatened -- the process through which every generation receives resources from its predecessors and passes on material wealth, care, and knowledge to its successors. This social compact gives expression to and is based on the reciprocal ties that hold families, government, and society together over time. In this "modern" age, we ask: what do we really "owe" the old, or the young? What responsibilities do we as individuals and we as citizens have?

Part of the problem is that we don't look at things from a multigenerational, life course perspective. If we did, all kinds of things would be possible -- from nursing homes with daycare centers to schools which integrate learning opportunities for seniors and mentoring for students. When the national organization Generations United was formed in 1986, one of its creators Jack Ossofsky said:

We believe that the time is long past when advocates for children, families, and the elderly can afford separate agendas. We foresee a new and brighter America when organizations like the Boy Scouts and the Older Women's League can join forces to strengthen our communities.

At the level of the individual, if we go back to Erik Erikson's eight stages of life and compare the psycho-emotional tasks of the young with those of the old, we see that they can help each other fulfill their life tasks. As a person gets older, the stages move from childhood issues of trust, autonomy, initiative, and industry to adult issues of identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity. The tasks of each life stage are never fully resolved but reoccur throughout life in increasingly mature and complex forms. The repetitive and parallel structure of an individual's life stages reinforces the argument for intergenerational exchange. For example, while children have a need to be nurtured and learn, older adults have a need to nurture and to teach. While the young have a need to learn about and from the past, older adults have a need to share and review their lives. While the young have a need for positive role models, older adults have a need to communicate cultural and historical values.

There is significant reciprocity in intergenerational relationships. For example:

• Young people receive validation and advice; older people remain creatively in contact with the ideas and energy of the young. Scientists refer to "robust" aging as a description of the way we all want to be as we get older: physically healthy, productive, and cognitively intact. Staying in contact with younger people is one of the key pieces of advice from researchers for people who wish to age well.
  
  
• Older adults serve as mentors and role models, as the young remind their mentors that there are unfinished tasks for them to complete.
  
  
• The young come to understand that aging is a process of loss and yet accrual, of decline as well as advancement. Said one girl who was involved in an intergenerational program, "The seniors look younger to me now that I know some." Commented a senior: "I feel young with them."
  
  
• As a society, we often tend not to value the very young and the very old. Both find in each other things they may not find in society at large -- a feeling of security, a place or role, a sense of value, and a sense of acceptance.

Through mutual interaction, people at different stages in the life course can contribute to each other's growth and development. There is a unique synergy between young and old that facilitates growth and provides the kind of purposeful existence that's important to human development. Intergenerational relationships give us what we are missing in today's world. They bring together what technology, mobility, and age segregation have pulled apart. At their best, they answer the needs of each generation while replacing isolation and fragmentation with reciprocity and coherence. Children come to understand the world better, older adults have a sense of purpose in the world, and the world itself is made whole.

What Does It All Mean?

There are two basic kinds of problems in life: 1) What are we going to do about it? and 2) What does it mean?

Meaning is a notoriously vague concept. Yet the very nature of being human means we venture into the web of what meaning is to try to understand ourselves and our life. We want it all to "make sense." Some may say that these "big" questions are just too heavy. It's better to just forget about them and live your life. The problem with that is that we all eventually face moments of desperation in which we must deal with the big questions and extreme emotional pain -- moments when we look into the mirror and don't recognize ourselves, times of personal loss, or horrible world events that seem incomprehensible. Communication scholar W. Barnett Pearce puts it this way:

Human beings are confronted with certain "facts of life." We are born, we mature, and then we die. While alive, we eat, excrete, and interact with our fellows. And we invest all of these "facts" with meaning by placing them within stories. Making "meaning" is not an optional activity in which persons sometimes engage; it is part of what it means to be a human being.

In other words, we are fundamentally meaning-making creatures, meaning is what you make it, and meaning takes shape in the stories you create about life, yours in particular. Meaning also involves a paradox: at one and the same time it involves living and thinking about living.

In an age when there is growing dissatisfaction with the alienation, complexity, and discontinuities of modern, industrial societies, we wonder where we can find meaning. The idea that life derives meaning from the connections between generations, and a grounding in legacy, is an attractive alternative.

For the young, if we as human beings make meaning by creating stories, our family and the contact we have with other adults when we're children is one of the first ways we start creating our life story. It is the foundation for the rest of our story. Family relationships can be difficult, even painful. But these are the complex relationships that help us learn about ourselves and life. To deny memories or label them negatively takes away our ability to choose to use them as something to learn from and build on. Nothing worthwhile in life is easy. You have to go through the hard stuff to get to the good stuff. Family provides our legacy base.

For older adults, and as a culture, we are putting increasing emphasis on searching for meaning over a longer lifespan. There is more and more evidence to suggest that the crisis of aging and being "old" is a crisis of meaning. Gains in longevity as the result of medical and technological progress have been accompanied by widespread spiritual malaise and confusion over the meaning and purpose of life, particularly in old age. We are searching for an ending for our story. Increasingly more people today have the means to live, but no meaning for which to live. For many older adults freed from poverty and health restraints, living a fulfilling, meaningful life has become more important. Meaning is essential to maintaining vitality in your life. This is especially true in the second half of life.

The search for value and meaning in later life is a very practical as well as philosophical endeavor. What changes and what endures? What story should we be creating? We all have a deeply vested interest in this issue, both from a personal and social standpoint. The crisis of meaning reflected in our older population is a mirror of widespread uncertainty shared equally by those of other generations. The coming of old age is irrefutable evidence that we will not live forever and that change is inevitable. Without awareness of the finite limitations of life -- what philosophers call "temporality" -- the search for meaning might become less urgent. Perhaps the current crisis of meaning is a gift, an invitation to legacy.

Finding a level of contentment and meaning in life takes place when people -- young and old -- connect past experiences with current circumstances and future possibilities. There are various sources of meaning and significance available for older adults, but it is their particular obligation to the future that's key -- for them and younger generations. Meaning emerges through a purpose to aging combined with an identity for the self that involves a critical function in the lives of others -- that of linking the past, present, and future. Even if we don't know it yet, this is something we all -- no matter what age -- cannot do without. If, as a society, we recognize and encourage the duties of the old to the young, it gives them a clear and important role, one that is both necessary for the common good and that only they can play.

I believe one of the best places to begin doing this is in the schools. Schools can become a place of learning and renewal for both young and old, which in turn can help deal with the educational crises we face. This is also a chance to reduce the age segregation we've built into society -- where we put children in school and older people in retirement communities. Schools need help, and older people may be just the ones to provide it, at the same time fulfilling both a personal and societal legacy. The school building, historically an age-segregated enclave, can be transformed into a new institution for intergenerational growth. And, it can become a place that truly prepares young people to LIVE their complete lives, planning for and working to understand their entire life course.

The Bigger Picture

We are all bound by the life course. It is the human condition. Looking from the very start of your life at your entire life course is not an easy thing, but it is increasing critical. The young have choices to make that have lifelong implications. Today's children have more choices, and more difficult choices, to make than their parents when they were young. Decisions are thrust upon them at earlier and earlier ages, and have serious and long-lasting consequences. Older people have experienced something that younger people cannot: a personal sense of the entire life course. They can offer the young a glimpse of that life course.

At the beginning, we are what we are given. By mid-life, as we make our way in the world, we come to understand that we can be what we have been given and what we can create. Toward the end of life, we must understand that we must give to others, so that when we leave this world we are what we have been given, have created, and have passed on.

Historically, the day of a person's death has been seen as the most important day of their life, the day against which their entire life is measured. "Our critical day," elaborated John Donne, "is not so much the very day of our death but the whole course of our life."

We have an awareness of chronological age because it's very much a structural feature of the way we've organized our society -- from education to the workplace to nursing homes. But a person's activities throughout their life are, to a significant degree, ordered according to a series of cultural norms, patterns, expectations, and rules. There are actually four dimensions of time that influence the flow of individuals through the life course: life time (chronological age); family time (events and roles within the family); social time (cultural expectations); and historical time (socio-cultural era).

A life course perspective takes into consideration all four dimensions of time and highlights the ways that events and decisions that occur early in life can have persistent effects on the structure and quality of our life at later points in time. There is an intersection of social and historical factors with personal biography. A life course perspective also emphasizes the lifelong nature of development and asserts that our understanding of any point in the life course is enhanced by taking into account an individual's past history and future expectations.

In practical terms, a life course perspective is about helping children learn to make critical, life-determining decisions. It is about helping the young extend and enhance their own lives. It is also about developing a sensitivity to the needs and concerns of the aging population. It involves recognizing that people now have many more choices across the various phases or turning points of their life than they did at the turn of the century. As discussed earlier, this must lead to fundamental changes in the way we, as a society, conceptualize middle and old age.

A life course perspective is the big picture. But there is an even bigger picture: looking not only at individual life courses but at life courses across generations. We need to see, understand, and respect this bigger picture. We need to extend the self beyond the individual. The illusion of the individual as omnipotent -- able to "take care of myself," live in a secured care-free condo, purchase home-delivered meals, buy any service, conduct work on a personal computer, and find distraction in a home entertainment center -- leads to the rupture of generations. Family units are separated into individuals in households (spatially) and into generations (temporally). So the sense of responsibility is limited. But if you view life in terms of a bigger picture, responsibility is extended beyond self to include people who may not be in your immediate household as well as future and historic people. We need to motivate young and old to connect with each other, to ensure that the young provide assistance for the old and the old conserve resources for the young, and reinvigorate the social compact. Such action is critical in an aging society.

Generation is a measure of time important to human memory. Other cultures have looked to a connection with ancestors as positive and life-sustaining. In our high-tech culture, we look at ancestors as "outdated" and at relationships with them as requiring psychoanalysis to undo damage. Need I point out that we are throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater? I am not advocating a nostalgic view of elder worship. But surely we can come up with something better than what we have. There is value and meaning in a connection to our past based on respect and honor. The Apache have long recognized the importance of the connection between elders and youngsters in families and communities; indeed, they use the same word to denote grandfather and grandson. Moreover, the continuity between ancestors, elders, youth, and descendents is emphasized, as indicated in the saying, "We do not simply inherit land from our ancestors; we lease the land from our children."

One of the most important ways to achieve meaning and fullness in life is to use the order achieved by past generations to help avoid disorder in your own mind. There is so much knowledge that has been accumulated, ready to use. Great music, art, poetry, books, drama, dance, philosophy, and science are timeless and are there for anyone to see how harmony can be imposed on chaos. Yet so many people ignore them, trying to create meaning in their lives by their own devices. To do so is like trying to build up material culture from scratch in each generation. No one in his right mind would want to start reinventing the wheel, fire, electricity, and the millions of objects and processes that we now take for granted. Instead we accept these as gifts from those who came before us, benefit from the knowledge and hopefully try to add to it. Why can't we extend this concept to the more fundamental issues of life and living?

Human development has been defined as the process by which an individual constructs a story of the world and acquires the tools to live in and with that story. But to develop that story and those tools, a child needs a support system that provides constant and mature feedback. We can learn from past generations through teachers, books, parents, grandparents, and mentors. To discard the hard-won information on how to live accumulated by those who have come before us, or to expect to discover a viable story all by yourself, is misguided.

Most people who discover complex life themes remember either an older person or a historical figure they greatly admired and who served as a model, or they recall having read a book that revealed new possibilities. Many people confronted with the randomness of existence have drawn hope from the knowledge that others before them have faced similar problems, and have been able to prevail. Older adults give us a first-hand look at the whole life cycle -- what it means to grow up, to struggle with life's challenges, to complete life's major tasks, and to grow old.

Through a grandparent, a grandchild can know the end of life at the beginning. At the most basic level, when a grandchild knows that their parent or grandparent has done silly things or made mistakes, there's a sense of relief. Children feel less "strange." At a more complex level, grandparents can give grandchildren some understanding of the ways of the world before they, and even their parents, were born. Learning to picture things as they were long ago gives children the ability to dream and try to imagine what it could be like in the future.

People tell stories as they reach back into their common history and individual experience for knowledge about truth and direction for the future. Adults who develop coherent life themes often recall that when they were very young, their parents and grandparents told them stories and read from books. When told by a loving adult whom one trusts, fairy tales, biblical stories, heroic historical epics, and poignant family stories are often the first hint at a meaningful order a child gleans from the experience of the past. Saturday morning cartoons, with their pointless sensationalism, are unlikely to achieve the same purpose. They do not even come close to capturing the bigger picture, and they certainly do nothing to establish a legacy base.

What Legacy Means to Children and to Adults

Relationships across generations make us feel connected. They make us feel connected not only to each other, but to something bigger -- to the flow of life, to the past and to the future. In this hectic, high-tech world, we need this sense of connection. In fact, we crave it. It helps us understand where we've come from, who we are, where we're going, and why we're going there. In connection there is contentment, purpose, and meaning. The world isn't connected by molecules. It is connected by love, stories, traditions, memories, hope, and dreams. We are connected by the legacies passed down from those who came before us and the legacies we pass down to those who come after us.

Said English writer Dorothy Sayers, "Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward, we must believe in age."

For children, legacy means learning from the past. It separates the timeless from the transient. Children have a feeling of security and continuity that comes from knowing that there are adults who care about them. They come to realize that we all face choices in our lives, often difficult ones, which helps them prepare for whatever may come. They start developing a life plan as they see their life as a whole. Learning about the whole of life as well as its end also helps them establish their values and priorities. And instead of directly telling children all of this, we need to tell them our life stories and our choices and how we made our decisions. That's the way you get children to learn from you and about you.

For adults, legacy means hoping for the future. It means developing and passing on a timeless part of yourself. We feel valued and useful no matter how old we get. We remember our priorities and make life choices based on them. We come to terms with our accomplishments and our disappointments. We create personal meaning and purpose. We realize that as we do our bit in the grand scheme of things, our tiny gestures multiply in significance. We understand that the world we leave behind is the world our children and children's children inherit. We know that we have an obligation to help make the future a little bit better than the past.

For both young and old, the power of legacy enables us to live fully in the present. You understand that you are part of a larger community, a community that must remember its history to build its future. There is caring combined with conscience. There is also wisdom to be found in each other -- linking action and reflection to deal with complex problems.

Big stuff all of this. But on a day-to-day basis, it's nurtured in the seemingly simplest things. One man told the story of visits to his grandmother's house when he was little and the cut crystal handles she had on the French doors into her dining room. His grandmother would take the door handles off, hang them on a string, and put them in the window so that the sunlight would catch them and there would be a rainbow in the room. When his grandmother died, his aunt gave him the door handles as a keepsake. After that, as he lived in different apartments and town houses across the country, he put those handles on either his bedroom door or the front closet door. Today, he owns his own house and the handles are on a prominent door. Sometimes, he and his six-year-old daughter take the handles off to "make a rainbow in the room." And that's the philosophy to life he's teaching his daughter, a philosophy he got from his grandmother: you can always find a rainbow when you need one.

The Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project Revisited

The Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project is about the legacies passed down from generation to generation. This is not a simple thing. It is a complicated thing. But if we choose to mine it, it's a gold mine.

I have very briefly introduced the issues at the core of the Legacy Project -- self, society, aging, family, intergenerational relationships, wisdom, meaning, social policy, community building, and just plain everyday living. This project is about bringing all generations together to explore these issues. It's about bringing together diverse groups -- families, schools, community groups, corporations, local and national organizations -- in a way they haven't been brought together before. It's about establishing a connection to the bigger picture. It's about uniting research and grassroots concerns. It's about synthesizing information into a useful knowledge base. It's about creating momentum in an area that affects all our lives at the most fundamental level possible.

The Something to Remember Me By Legacy Project is about ongoing dialogue and local-to-global action. It is about learning from the past, living in the present, and hoping for the future. Please join us.