Lynn Ruth Miller on gaining a little perspective

The boring generation

It seems that people born after 1980 don’t like to party. Radio 4 has labeled them ‘Generation Right’ because they are not interested in bar-hopping, binge-drinking and cocaine. Instead, they prefer to stay at home and knit. I can hardly blame them.

I am from the ‘Silent Generation’. We endured The Depression, World War II, Korea, the atom bomb, the Cold War, and held tight to our own values and comfortable lifestyles. ‘Generation Y’ has observed the things we thought were holy and asked, ”Really? Is marriage that great? Do we need to believe in God? Is your work your whole life? Is it all about sex? What is really important?”

I think that is a very good thing. The truth is that the outside world puzzled me, too. It was knitting that gave me perspective. A ball of yarn and two needles was all it took to lower my blood pressure and absorb me in something besides what everyone thought of me, and what we were having for dinner.

I am going to teach you to knit …

I was ten years old. My Aunt Hazel and my mother were arguing about me. “She sits in the closet reading a book a day,” said my mother. “Her room is a mess and I cannot get her to set the table.”

My aunt, who adored me because when she fed me dinner she never had leftovers, rushed to my defense. “She needs a hobby,” she told my mother. She opened the closet door and closed my book. “You have a disgusting pallor from sitting in here all day reading about other people’s lives. I am going to teach you how to live your own; I am going to teach you to knit.”

“What does that have to do with life?” I asked. “Everything,” said Aunt Hazel, and took me to the yarn shop. My first project was a green scarf. Endless scarves, mittens, hats, argyle socks, suits, skirts, dresses and coats followed as the world bucked and bolted, climates changed, morals were destroyed, the definitions of male and female blurred, test tubes created babies and modified vegetables, single was not a death sentence and marriage was not forever. I believe it was the click of the needles and the transformation of yarn into garments that kept me sane through all that chaos.

Generations that followed turned to medication to help them cope, but ‘Generation Y’ got smart. It has seen the world fight for women’s rights, gay rights, diversity, environmental preservation, and abolition of war and thought; ‘What a waste of energy!’ And that’s why it stays home and knits. Just like me.

“Virtually everything people believe in can be exposed as possessing laughable inconsistencies. And so they laugh. And stand still.”
– Scott Turow