These on-screen intergenerational friendships, and the real-life ones I have, prove the same point: Such friendships challenge stereotypes while providing a deeper and more nuanced understanding of each generation.
FRIENDSHIPS ARE STRONGER BECAUSE OF – NOT DESPITE – THE DIFFERENCES
Intergenerational friendships are also special because of the differences.
When someone is in a different life stage, they don’t automatically understand your world. So you each have to explain, translate, meet halfway, or adjust your views to understand each other. These acts deepen the friendship.
I see this in my own life all the time, with friends like Siti, where all of us are open to sharing and stretching our understanding of each other.
I’ve shown older friends how to use social media apps, while they’ve introduced me to the slow, deliberate beauty of a vinyl player. With younger friends, I’ve helped them navigate the grief of leaving secondary school, while they keep me up to date on issues their generation cares about (or the latest lingo I can barely understand, no cap).
It’s in these exchanges, where none of us takes the other’s views for granted, and where we tease each other for playing straight into our stereotypes (me groaning about knee pain, them panicking about turning 20), that the friendship feels most alive.
Take Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 22, who shares friendships with older people like Irish filmmaker and comedian Tadgh Hickey, who is in his 40s.
Their bond began with a shared passion for humanitarian causes, but it’s enriched by their differences: Hickey shows Thunberg how humour can be used effectively in activism, while she reminds him why youth-led movements feel so urgent.
With their different perspectives, they sharpen each other in ways they might not be able to if they’d only stayed among people their own age.
