A study in contrasts: how two grandparents responded to young climate change activists

Shirley Bradley, special to CBC Radio

You should know that I am old by most definitions. We — my slightly older husband and I — have marched through years of demonstrations: anti-nuclear, antiwar, anti-pipeline, pro clean water, pro social housing.   

Our children and grandchildren are quite different. They haven't often joined causes. They've been busy with careers, travel, and student debt. To them, we activist elders are almost harmless eccentrics. Thank god we have all our marbles, but isn't it time to knit? 

In the late fall I watched an astounding number of young people demonstrate outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Greta Thunberg was flanked by Indigenous youth, kids from all over the city. The young ones spoke passionately, issuing strong simple warnings about climate. Some of us were in awe.

My kind, brilliant husband ... said, 'I am so tired being told how to live my life by teenagers.'- Shirley Bradley

"It was amazing," I reported to my husband, Rob. "No music, no yelling."

I should have been warned by his silence.

In November, when I'd come home after an Extinction Rebellion march of young — very young — people, I found Rob watching a climate rally on television. My kind, brilliant husband, who had been in so many protests, had such high principles he'd even risked a career for them, turned to me suddenly and said, "I am so tired of being told how to live my life by teenagers."

I didn't know how to reply. Suddenly I didn't recognize my husband. 

Rob was not proud. He didn't resent children who fixed our computers. He grew restive when they made soulful political speeches. But he was more agitated when people of our own age made them. This wasn't annoyance with youth from a hoary man. This was an anguished cry I heard.

He had encouraged all the generations in our family to pay attention to the facts, to read  everyone from Rachel Carson to Tim Flannery to Bill McKibben to David Suzuki. But he was speaking now, I thought, with sheer emotion. 

An old friend who was with us and, like Rob, facing a tenth decade, grumbled about the youth assuming they had answers.

I chipped in finally, "As opposed to Jane Fonda?" 

We looked at each other, knowing that he was despairing of the future, for our children and theirs.- Shirley Bradley

"Why rely on either — an aging film star or a fierce child?" Rob countered, "To tell us what we should have known all along and done something about?"

He was almost shouting! The old friend and I glanced at each other, discomfited. This was not the reasonable, logical response I expected when we had rare disagreements. Surely I had the monopoly on the preliminary emotional outburst.

Our friend mumbled about Thunberg being untutored, whatever that meant. I could not resist a last shot, "Like the U.S. president." 

We all retired to separate corners and then wanly said goodbye.

Of course I could not leave this dilemma between us.

"I know we don't always need to agree," I started out carefully, and Rob rewarded me with a thin grin. "But we're not going to do any good for the climate or ourselves if we can't make sense to each other. I don't know why you are so put off by the kids," I ended lamely.

After a too-long pause Rob said, "We aren't going to do any good for the climate, period." He looked infinitely sad. "For one thing we don't have time," he added.

I knew that he was talking about our age, but sometime in the middle of a sleepless night, I realized he was probably saying that none of us had time. 

Our daughter who was visiting was immediately sensitive to a change in her dad.

"He's not ill, is he?" she asked. 

I explained hastily that he was healthier than any of us, but that he had this —

"Depression?" she asked. I could only reply, "Uh, maybe."

I knew she would see through the ridiculousness of two old people being unhappy because they, personally, couldn't affect a change in the worst threat to our existence since she was born.

"Dad isn't afraid, is he?" she asked. 

"Not for us," I said with hesitation.

We looked at each other, knowing that he was despairing of the future, for our children and theirs. Rob had never been afraid of anything. 

He disapproved of my occasional sorties to rallies, and — because of my arthritis — urged me to keep off my feet. We avoided the subjects of climate change and youth and age. For the first time in over 60 years we were cautious of exposing our feelings to each other.

For the first time in over 60 years we were cautious of exposing our feelings to each other.- Shirley Bradley

One young granddaughter insisted on trekking out with me to the odd demonstration.  

"I'm growing my hair out for a braid, Grandpa," she boasted to Rob. His apostasy over Greta Thunberg's return home was well-documented in the family. 

"Good thing," he'd said. "She didn't have to come in the first place."

And then last week, I found the two of them poring over a street map of Toronto.

"Are you two going to Ontario?" I asked.

"We're figuring out where the climate conference is being held in the spring. I'm saving up. Gramp's going to help," explained my granddaughter.

"Teenagers by the thousands probably," I dared to chide Rob when she had gone. "Talking about climate change science."

He shrugged and said, "Keeps them off the street."

"She is so young. She's a true believer," I said. "I see all the signs when we go to meetings."

"Then she should learn whatever she can," said Rob.

"She's going to be with some fiendish people," I said. "I don't know if they have all the right information. Some of them are a bit hairy."

"Then she'll figure it out. She's a smart kid," Rob replied. "And if she is disillusioned and learns how hard it is — well, she'll have a great plait of hair down her back and come home wiser."

He looked at me with a bit of wistfulness and added, "Or she just might save the world."

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