On a recent morning train ride, a young man sat in the middle of a bench seat and spread his bags on either side of him so no one else could sit. Later, on an inter-city train, another had his chair reclined to its limit so the elderly person behind him had to squeeze past for her seat.
Bloody entitled Gen-Xers and Millennials! But I had a sneaking admiration for them too. Because a strong sense of entitlement can bring rewards far, far greater than a train seat to yourself or a nice snooze on a long journey, although that’s a good start.
Bloody entitled Millennials. But I have a sneaking admiration for them too.
Just look at the opposite: an excessive dose of humility. The meek don’t inherit the earth; only a place on society’s bottom rung. You see it in older people all the time. My parents used to visit Sydney regularly and stay at the same hotel. Every time, they’d be given the same room on the ground floor with a bathroom so small they could barely sit down on the toilet without dislocating both knees. But would they ask for another? Never!
Since they never complained, the hotel obviously thought they were doing them a favour.
Perhaps it was handy, then, when they’d be given the worst seat in a restaurant next to the toilets. While younger diners might switch tables two or three times to grab the best possible location, the oldies would never dream of asking for a move – but at least they had the convenience of a nearby, bigger, bathroom than the one in their room.
They, and many of their elderly friends, also attended the same doctor’s surgery, an appointment-less chaos of a place where a two-hour wait was routine. Would they ever consider transferring to a rival surgery just up the street where you could make an appointment, turn up and be seen before another birthday rolled around? No, thank you. This was their lot: to sit and obediently wait their turn.
That kind of corrosive servility is heartbreaking to see, and even worse to endure. It used to be a common trait in the British working classes in the 18th and 19th centuries but when the convicts were shipped over here, most, thankfully, assumed a healthy dose of counter-bolshieness.
A youthful sense of entitlement can be no match for an older person’s finely tuned and well-practised passive aggression.Credit: iStock
Really, the elderly should sometimes have a stronger sense of entitlement than the young, the Grattan Institute’s John Daley and Brendan Coates reported in their paper, The Age of Entitlement.
