Taking the other half for a spin

THE scene is a modest house in the suburbs of an Australian capital city. It is June 1970.

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THE scene is a modest house in the suburbs of an Australian capital city. It is June 1970.

John Gorton is the Australian prime minister. Our troops are in Vietnam. The hippie movement is in full swing in the US and is gaining momentum in Australia. The Beatles have just released Let it Be.

There is an intergenerational tension building between the middle-aged and baby-boomer youth. Hair length for boys and skirt length for girls are flashpoints in cramped three-bedroom households.

This particular household contains four people, including Mum and Dad, born in the 1920s. Dad is a war veteran. They married in 1950 when Mum was 21 and Dad was 23.

Two children followed, Kevin and Julie. By 1970 the kids are 18 and 16. The oldest, Kevin, has been pushing the boundaries of parental tolerance for some time. He has a 17-year-old girlfriend, Tracey, who works as a typist. They have been in a steady relationship for 12 months. They want to take things to a new level.

A difficult conversation takes place that, a generation later, would be handled very differently. Kevin nervously approaches his mother in the kitchen late on a Friday night.

Kevin: "Mum? Mum, do you mind if Tracey stays over tonight? It's getting quite late."

Mum: "Not at all, darling. I'll just pop some new sheets on the spare bed. She can use Julie's spare pyjamas."

K: "Err, actually, Mum, I was thinking that Tracey might, you know, err, stay over in my room tonight."

M: (silence) "But, but darling there's only one bed in your oh, oh, oh my. Oh my goodness!"

K: "Mum. Mum. It's OK. I thought we'd, you know, just muck in together. Do you mind? Tracey's Mum says it's OK with her if it's OK with you. You can ring her if you like."

You can see what I mean about this being a difficult situation. There is no form of words that is ever going to fly for Kevin to negotiate a way forward.

Mind you, there are other ways it could have gone if Dad had entered the room at exactly that time.

Dad: "What's going on, love?"

M: "It's Kevin. He's just asked, he's just asked, oh my."

D: "Settle down, love. Kevin, what have you just asked your mother? Come on, boy, spit it out."

K: "I just asked if she minded if Tracey stayed over tonight."

D: "I know exactly what you mean by 'staying over' and as head of this household I say we'll be having none of that business while you're living under my roof."

K: "But Dad. It's 1970, for god's sake."

D: "Don't you use that language in front of your mother."

K: "Language? What language?"

D: "You blasphemed. You know how that upsets your mother. You've been watching too much television, you have. It's giving you ideas."

K: "Ideas? What ideas? And what television have I been watching?"

D: "You know very well what I mean by ideas. You and Tracey will just have to wait. It's good for you. Builds character. And I blame Laugh-In. Loose American rubbish."

How do you think Kevin and Tracey, now 59 and 58, would have handled their own teenage children traversing this tricky territory around the year 2000?

Not only would they have not minded if Tracey II had have stayed over, they would have encouraged it.

No one in the 21st century would be silly enough to get married without having road-tested a relationship. Yes, road-tested. You know, taken each other for a bit of a spin.

That spin now takes place in the family home under the approving eye of 50-something parents. It's a world away from the lifestyles, the mores and the beliefs of 1970.

"And why don't you get a haircut while you're thinking about it?"

KPMG Partner Bernard Salt's new book is The Big Tilt.

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