NOVEMBER 13 — Every generation believes the one after it has it easier, and the one before it simply does not understand. Older Malaysians complain that the young are fragile, impatient and glued to their phones. Younger Malaysians roll their eyes at “boomers” who lecture them about hard work while owning homes they bought decades ago. Both caricatures contain a grain of truth. Both are also, in the end, unfair.

I am 62, a senior citizen and a person with disability. I have lived long enough to see the world change several times over, and I have learned that most of what we call a generation gap is really a gap in circumstances.

I grew up in Kuala Rompin, Pahang, where I learned Jawi from my late father and read Utusan Melayu in Jawi script from the age of four. Libraries were my second home. After an intensive English course at ITM, I was sent to New Zealand, where I studied at the University of Waikato and followed the 1984 general election closely as a student. 

My first job was in information technology at TV3. In 1993, I began writing a newspaper column titled “Sebuah Komputer Setiap Rumah”, arguing that every Malaysian home should have a computer, at a time when few Malaysian homes had one. I later spent nearly two decades working in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including at Dubai Internet City in its early years.

I say all this not to boast, but to make a point: my generation was not more virtuous than today’s young people. We were luckier in certain ways. We came of age when a degree, a stable job, marriage and a home could reasonably be expected to follow one another in sequence. For many young Malaysians today, that sequence has broken down.

The numbers tell the story. Malaysia recorded 396,175 live births in 2025, and the total fertility rate fell to just 1.5 children per woman. The Khazanah Research Institute has described the housing market as seriously unaffordable, with home prices growing at more than double the rate of median household income. When young people delay marriage, postpone children or rent indefinitely, it is too easy for my generation to call it selfishness. More often, it is arithmetic.

At the same time, the country is growing old. About 4.2 million Malaysians are now aged 60 and above, and Malaysia is expected to become an aged nation by 2036. My generation will need more care, more health services and more patience from the young, just as the young are struggling to build their own lives. If we approach this with mutual suspicion, both sides will lose.

So what should older Malaysians learn from the young?

First, humility about technology. The young did not invent the smartphone to annoy us. Today, I depend on a ride-hailing app to move around, and I make short daily videos on TikTok about life after 60. Neither would have been possible without tools built and popularised largely by younger people. Older Malaysians who refuse to learn a new app on principle should remember that, not so long ago, it was our generation telling our own elders to embrace the computer.

Second, respect for their values, even when they differ from ours. Many young Malaysians care deeply about mental health, work-life balance, the environment and fairness. These are not signs of weakness. They are often signs of a generation that watched its parents sacrifice health and family for careers that did not always reward them.

And what can the young learn from us?

Perspective, mostly. Many of us lived through recessions, political upheavals and the long, slow building of a nation. We know that difficult periods pass, that institutions can be reformed, and that patience is not the same as passivity. We also carry memories that no search engine can provide: of kampung life, of languages and scripts that are fading, of how communities looked after one another before welfare agencies existed. When an older person dies, a library of lived experience closes with them.

Bridging the gap requires more than goodwill. It requires deliberate design. Senior activity centres could invite university students to teach digital skills, while seniors mentor young people in crafts, languages, local history and career experience. Housing policy could encourage multigenerational living rather than penalise it. Workplaces could pair older and younger employees in reverse mentoring, so that each learns from the other. Schools could record oral histories from grandparents before those stories are lost.

Families matter most of all. My three sons studied abroad and now work as managers. Their world is very different from the one I grew up in, and I have had to learn to listen more and advise less. I have also had to face honest questions about my own old age, including visiting elderly care centres and realising how costly such care can be. These are conversations that every family will need to have, and they go better when both generations come to the table with respect rather than resentment.

The generation gap will never disappear, and perhaps it should not. Each generation must answer the questions of its own time. But a gap is not the same as a divide. A gap can be bridged by curiosity, listening and shared purpose. A divide is what we create when we stop trying.

In a Malaysia that is ageing fast and having fewer children, can we really afford for the old and the young to stop listening to each other?

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.