I’m father to a teenage son. Sometimes, when I’m not inquiring about his life (or attempting ineffectually to run it), I wonder about my son’s potential to contribute, and what other parents and I are capable of offering his generation. I suspect that he has a lot to offer as do I, but I’m doubtful about modern societies’ commitment to help the young become fully mature.

Over the years, the sacred compact of mutual support between generations has been supplanted by a detached efficiency that boosts earnings, while rapidly eroding our friendships, communities, workplaces and the natural environment. To compound this, some of us in the 36- to 49-year-old, middle-income, male consumer segment—I’m a human being, I protest, not a male segment—have grown up somewhat slowly (which I imagine is just a tad disconcerting to those young people who look to us for leadership).

Pressures to work quickly and avoid reflection are taking their toll on areas of human relations, such as mentoring (and parenting), that require time, thought, patience, reflection and respect. It may be that mentoring the young doesn’t fit into the five-year plan when time and money are such numinous obsessions. After all, there are businesses to run, clients to serve, overhead to manage. Fend for yourselves, kiddies.

What does this have to do with graphic design? Well, everything...and nothing. It’s about bigger things, too, including our social values and the business, economic and political decisions that affect our sense of belonging in our families, communities and nations. It’s about the competitive nature of survival and the territoriality of survivors. Finally, it’s about setting all that aside and harnessing our creative powers to invite the young to assume a meaningful place in life’s cycle so that they, in turn, can help others.

The lifecycle isn’t an exercise bike
My word, I’m sounding as if I just watched The Lion King for the first time, but I find it difficult to consider myself part of a cycle. Do you? I attempt to be youthful in my middle age and yet I’ve made the transitions from birth to mature adulthood. Ten years into my career as a marketing and corporate writer and strategist, it’s becoming clear that the meaning of my life will be measured by what I contribute. What do I have to offer the generations that have come before, and those yet to be born? And those I might mentor?

Graphic design requires experienced people to help younger people see the world with fresh eyes—not just master white space and page layouts—and to express ideas with respect for the social fabric. I began to reflect on mentoring while attending the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) 2003 Conference held in Vancouver, Canada, where I spent some time speaking with students who were presenting their work at the student exhibition.

One of these students asked a speaker what she could do in this tough economic environment. The speaker said (and I’m paraphrasing) that the young designer should look for a job because there would be a need for more designers as the people in the room retired. I couldn’t believe he was serious. In my view, looking for—and finding—a job is only part of the equation. There isn’t a one-to-one relationship between retirees and job seekers. Instead, there’s an oversupply of designers caused by an orchestrated boom in design education. And, despite this, young designers need encouragement: It needs to be reinforced that as young people they have a unique way of seeing and that they carry the images, hopes and fears of their generation within them. They are intrinsically important and their vision requires a good measure of support from their elders (us).

The student designers were excited by the design craft, discouraged by the state of the economy and dismayed by insular thinking in business, politics and education. In fact, unless they had a beeline on a new job, they questioned their opportunities and self-worth. They feared they might not have a place.

A grass patch of one’s own
It seems strange to think that young people fear not having a place in their society or profession. It’s one thing to be terrible at doing what one does, to have no talent, or to be incapable of mastering one’s craft—and, in that bumbling way, to be forced to look elsewhere for work suited to one’s needs and abilities. But to have enough talent to be competent should be an opportunity to support oneself with meaningful work.

Young people have an important role in societies that honor them. In the peak of health, their senses are more acute than ours and their stores of energy deeper. That’s why young people are here: To offer their innate vitality, fertility and imagination. That they doubt for an instant their place, or we ours, means something is amiss.

Am I crazy for thinking such thoughts? I want to do the best work I can and hire good people. I want to have a thriving business where employees would find a solid career, supporting themselves while contributing to their families or communities. But in this I find myself wanting. Sometimes it’s difficult to predict my income, let alone plan for overhead. And, as I write this, it’s clear that this essay is as much for myself as you, and that I want to step up to the plate myself, and build a prosperous business that can support talented young people and help them make their mark.

Creating a place in one’s society is one of the true functions of work and is the real reason to find a job. What’s new is the pressure on design firms and agencies to get young designers up and running on paid assignments by harvesting talent without providing the knowledge or insight for living and working well.