People Under 65 Want Dance Lessons, Too
Feb. 5th, 2025 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerLast week the program Marketplace on NPR ran a series of stories entitled "The Age of Work". Tuesday night I tuned in during a long car trip and listened to the episode In Tennessee county, an aging population means business opportunity.
"We start today in the middle of a line dancing class," host Kai Ryssdal started, "Because, silly as it might seem, the people in this class are the driving force behind a changing economy."
"You're talking about Boomers," I said back to the radio. "Boomers are the driving force behind a changing economy. And that's not news because Boomers have been the driving force behind pretty much every change in society, politics, and the economy for the past 60 years!!"
Indeed that's the whole gist of not just this episode but the whole series. A social trend is stretching and shifting to accommodate the needs of the Baby Boomer generation. Gosh, where have I heard that before? How about "Everywhere" and "For my entire life."
In this episode the story is about clubs and businesses in small, remote Cumberland County, Tennessee, that are thriving as they serve the needs of a burgeoning retiree population. The program's host and writers picked Cumberland in conjunction with payroll company ADP because ADP's data show it has the highest average age workforce in the US. What's happening today in Cumberland is coming soon to your community, the hosts tell us, like never before in the world has anyone seen things shift to favor the needs of Boomers.
The first business the show spotlights is the one Ryssdal quips about in the opening: a dancing class. It's full of seniors. It's pretty much all seniors. And it's totally crazy how it's so busy... at 9:30am on a Tuesday. Who could possibly want to take a dance lesson at 9:30am on a weekday? the host says in so many words.
"Because they're retired," I said back to the radio. Retirees can take dance lessons at 9:30am on a Tuesday. Especially when they're cheap, like $5 for a full hour if not longer.
"And do you know why it's only retirees there?" I continued. Well, aside from the fact that younger people might be literally barred from attending. Age discrimination is illegal in the US... but only when it discriminates against older people. Telling the young to kick rocks is socially and legally acceptable.
So, aside from having the police called on them and possibly being arrested for disturbing the peace if they make a fuss about wanting to dance, too, why aren't more younger people at this just-$5, 9:30am-on-a-Tuesday dance lesson?
How about, because a) School, and b) Work?
Seriously, how is this considered news. People under 65 are mostly busy with school or work on a Tuesday morning. And of those not in school or paid work, many of the rest are busy with the unpaid work of raising children at home. My mom was a stay-home parent for several years during my childhood, and never once during that period did she have time on a Tuesday morning to join an adult dance lesson at the town's rec center.
Speaking for myself now, as a child-free adult, I would've loved to have an opportunity like inexpensive dance lessons anytime the past 30 years... but again, not on a weekday morning. Dance lessons at 8pm? Sure! But those are rare. And even more rarely just $5.
The cheap classes on everything at the community center are at... drum roll, please... weekday mornings. Nights and weekends the community center is generally closed, locked, and dark. Programs like these have always been offered during the day, because people who teach them and support them by operating the facility only work during the day, making them implicitly only for people who don't have to work during the day. So they've always been implicitly, if not also explicitly, for retirees. And now because Boomers are retirees it's news!
"We start today in the middle of a line dancing class," host Kai Ryssdal started, "Because, silly as it might seem, the people in this class are the driving force behind a changing economy."
"You're talking about Boomers," I said back to the radio. "Boomers are the driving force behind a changing economy. And that's not news because Boomers have been the driving force behind pretty much every change in society, politics, and the economy for the past 60 years!!"
Indeed that's the whole gist of not just this episode but the whole series. A social trend is stretching and shifting to accommodate the needs of the Baby Boomer generation. Gosh, where have I heard that before? How about "Everywhere" and "For my entire life."
In this episode the story is about clubs and businesses in small, remote Cumberland County, Tennessee, that are thriving as they serve the needs of a burgeoning retiree population. The program's host and writers picked Cumberland in conjunction with payroll company ADP because ADP's data show it has the highest average age workforce in the US. What's happening today in Cumberland is coming soon to your community, the hosts tell us, like never before in the world has anyone seen things shift to favor the needs of Boomers.
The first business the show spotlights is the one Ryssdal quips about in the opening: a dancing class. It's full of seniors. It's pretty much all seniors. And it's totally crazy how it's so busy... at 9:30am on a Tuesday. Who could possibly want to take a dance lesson at 9:30am on a weekday? the host says in so many words.
"Because they're retired," I said back to the radio. Retirees can take dance lessons at 9:30am on a Tuesday. Especially when they're cheap, like $5 for a full hour if not longer.
"And do you know why it's only retirees there?" I continued. Well, aside from the fact that younger people might be literally barred from attending. Age discrimination is illegal in the US... but only when it discriminates against older people. Telling the young to kick rocks is socially and legally acceptable.
So, aside from having the police called on them and possibly being arrested for disturbing the peace if they make a fuss about wanting to dance, too, why aren't more younger people at this just-$5, 9:30am-on-a-Tuesday dance lesson?
How about, because a) School, and b) Work?
Seriously, how is this considered news. People under 65 are mostly busy with school or work on a Tuesday morning. And of those not in school or paid work, many of the rest are busy with the unpaid work of raising children at home. My mom was a stay-home parent for several years during my childhood, and never once during that period did she have time on a Tuesday morning to join an adult dance lesson at the town's rec center.
Speaking for myself now, as a child-free adult, I would've loved to have an opportunity like inexpensive dance lessons anytime the past 30 years... but again, not on a weekday morning. Dance lessons at 8pm? Sure! But those are rare. And even more rarely just $5.
The cheap classes on everything at the community center are at... drum roll, please... weekday mornings. Nights and weekends the community center is generally closed, locked, and dark. Programs like these have always been offered during the day, because people who teach them and support them by operating the facility only work during the day, making them implicitly only for people who don't have to work during the day. So they've always been implicitly, if not also explicitly, for retirees. And now because Boomers are retirees it's news!
no subject
Date: 2025-04-06 08:42 am (UTC)The regular Monday dance (biggest Boston branch class) is $10, but you do get two hours of dancing (hour instruction, hour social dance) and live music for your troubles. My little class is a "$5-20 sliding scale" and doesn't come with live music, but in exchange I really don't chase people for the money. Meanwhile, my friend Alex is able to go to the Bedford class, which I've never once visited, because it's at 2pm on Tuesdays. He's not a retiree (we went to high school together, in fact) but he works as a bus driver on night shifts, so frequently has weird schedules and free time in the day.
~Sor
MOOP!
no subject
Date: 2025-04-26 12:36 am (UTC)Is the older age of bridge players because bridge is an "old people" thing? Sure, it kinda is. Older people are more likely to associate "Play a game with adult friends" with sitting down at a table with cards or a board game, while younger people are more likely to think console/online game. But it's also a matter of who has time to go somewhere and play a serious, sit-down game for 4 or 8 hours. When you're working and/or have kids to care for, the opportunities to carve out that much time are few. Indeed, as much as I loved playing bridge, once I was back to work my time to play dried up fast.