My wife and I finally got around to seeing Juno this past Saturday night. It was as delightful as promised. Other bloggers have already dealt with the issues of sexual agency and teen pregnancy raised by the film, and the question of whether the picture carries a subtle “pro-life” message has been widely debated. I’m not going to add to the fine commentary already out there. But I was struck by one aspect of the film that dealt with an oft-posted on topic here, older men/younger women relationships.
Warning: mild plot spoiler below the fold.
What I grabbed onto was the complex and, at moments, troubling relationship that briefly develops between the 16 year-old title character (played by Ellen Page) and Mark Loring (Jason Bateman), the prospective adoptive father of her unborn child. Loring is presumably in his mid-to-late thirties (he describes senior prom as being in 1988), yet he’s still very much stuck in emotional adolescence. His wife Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) is desperate to adopt, as the couple has been unable to conceive naturally. Mark is ambivalent at best, as he still has rock-star dreams to pursue.
During their first meeting, a gathering at which legal papers are being drawn up to facilitate the Lorings’ adoption of Juno’s child, it becomes clear that Mark has more in common with a teenage girl than with his professional, aspiration-filled adult wife. While the attorney, Vanessa, and Juno’s father discuss paperwork in the living room, Juno and Mark engage in an impromptu guitar jam session in the latter’s “music space”. It’s obvious the two are united less by a love of music than by a mutual unreadiness to assume adult responsibilities. In Juno’s case, that unreadiness makes sense: she’s 16. In Mark’s case, that unreadiness is symptomatic of the depressingly widespread “Peter Pan” phenomenon, so familiar among twenty, thirty, and even older American men. (I prefer to call it the “waiting to be struck by certainty” problem).
Mark works from home (writing commercial jingles). Twice, Juno visits him while Vanessa is at work. The first time she comes — ostensibly — to show off sonogram pictures of the baby. But she and Mark spend little time studying the image of the child to be; they bond over music and horror movies, the twenty-year age gap between them rapidly disappearing. When he hears the garage door open, signalling that Vanessa is home, Mark leaps up, urging Juno to leave at once — without explaining why. It’s the first sign for some in the audience that something isn’t quite right (though some of us had felt that way about the Bateman character since we first saw him alone with Juno.)
Juno’s stepmother (a sublime Allison Janney) warns her daughter about being alone with a married man, a warning that confuses and exasperates Juno. And why shouldn’t it exasperate her? It’s not the job of a sixteen year-old to set boundaries with an adult, after all. And so she returns to Mark’s house (this time calling first), not with sonogram images this time, but with CDs to share. Mark gives her a comic book. This second private meeting is delicately charged. For much of the film up to this point, the audience has been laughing in virtually every scene. When Mark and Juno start dancing to Mott the Hoople, you could have heard a pin drop in the theater. (We took in the movie with an audience made up almost entirely of adults older than ourselves.) Every filmgoer over 25 sensed a massive boundary violation in progress.
At this point, Mark suddenly confesses that he’s planning on leaving Vanessa. He doesn’t want to be a father, and he doesn’t want to be married. It doesn’t seem he shares this as part of a seduction strategy with Juno; his creepiness doesn’t extend quite that far. Rather, Mark makes the classic mistake that many older men like him make with much younger women: he assumes an emotional maturity on the part of Juno that simply isn’t there yet. Juno, whose own feelings for Mark are indeed ambiguous (probably to herself as well), is shattered. A child of divorce herself, she bursts into tears and runs from the house — but not before encountering a bewildered Vanessa who has just returned home.
The movie theater was packed. Three women in their fifties were seated right behind my wife and me. As Juno ran from the house, I heard one of them whisper to her friend “God, what an asshole” (meaning Mark). I didn’t want to encourage more conversation, but I was tempted to turn around and agree vigorously. I had a real urge to pop the Bateman character in the mouth, and judging from the tension in the theater around me, I wasn’t the only one.
I connected the film to an email I received a couple weeks ago from a young woman named Caitlin. Cait writes that when she was 18, she formed a very close relationship with her fifty-something community college English teacher. She visited him in office hours, and they often went out for coffee. Cait talked to her professor about her academic goals and her personal life, and he took her seriously.
Cait and her teacher stayed in touch as she transferred on to a four-year school. Recently, he wrote to her to say that he was divorcing his wife of many years to date a woman decades younger than himself (presumably close to Cait’s age). Cait felt understandably confused and unsettled:
Over the next couple of days, however, I thought a lot about the power imbalances in our relationship–that we had never really addressed them, that they were still there, and that this news that he was dating a much younger woman was disturbing to me.
She sent her old professor another email, admitting that she had been troubled by his news, and that it raised questions for her about the power imbalances that had existed in her own relationship with him. She had been reassured and comforted by his status as a happily married father-figure, and all of that comfort she had once felt was now called into question — less, apparently, by the divorce than by the age of his new girlfriend. Cait was clear that her prof didn’t owe her an explanation, but she wanted to be frank about the fact that she was unsettled by all of this, and wanted to talk about it. Her prof replied curtly, making it clear that it had been a mistake on his part to discuss his personal life with her. He has, apparently, cut off further contact.
Cait is hurt and confused. She wants to maintain a friendship, but one that acknowledges that she is no longer her professor’s very young student. And she wonders if she’s reasonable to be disturbed by her professor’s divorce — and the youth of his new girlfriend.
There’s a lot to unpack there, of course. The relationship between mentor and mentee does change over time, just as does that between parent and child. Most high-school and college-age young people whom I’ve mentored don’t stay in touch. Those who do grow rapidly. And the age gap between, say 35 and 18 is much greater than that between 45 and 28 or 65 and 48. As a result, it’s fair to say that one can move from a mentor-mentee relationship to mutual friendship with a former student, though only once he or she has completed the ever-lengthening transition to adulthood.
What Cait and Juno have in common is a close attachment to an older, safe, married man. For not entirely different reasons, each is thrown and confused when that man announces he’s leaving his wife. Cait relished the attention she got from an older professor; Juno (who feels isolated both by her intelligence and her pregnancy) probably isn’t entirely sure what she wants from Mark other than attention and companionship. As I’ve written before, young women who see themselves as unusually bright and mature often tend to seek out the companionship of older men — and these young women inevitably over-estimate their own maturity. (The film gets this absolutely right: it is only in her relationship with Mark that the precocious, perceptive, and level-headed Juno is completely clueless.)
What Cait and Juno also have in common is that their relationships with these older men never turned sexual (thank goodness). But the fact that no physical boundary violation took place doesn’t mean that these young women (one fictional, one real) aren’t both traumatized by the shattering of the image each has of the older man in her life. Of course, adults are entitled to get divorced. Divorce itself is not a boundary violation; an older man bonding emotionally with a teenage girl as an equal is. Anyone who’s picked up a pop psychology book has heard of “covert incest” (sometimes called “emotional incest”). A similar phenomenon can happen in older men/younger women friendships or mentoring relationships.
As a 40 year-old male who works with high-school age girls and boys, and as a professor who mentors many students, I have an obligation to be acutely aware of the dynamics that can come into play in my relationships with teenagers. In a youth group setting, a key component of responsible intimacy is never, ever forgetting that age is always more than “just a number.” A man who is troubled by his own ageing may imagine that he can return to adolescence by bonding with a much younger woman. He may be scrupulous about not sexualizing a relationship with a teen girl, and congratulate himself for having observed sensible boundaries. Alas, experience tells us that boundaries can be violated and wounds inflicted in relationships that never turn explicitly sexual. I never forget that, because I know that if I do lose sight of that truth, the chances that I will — unintentionally — harm a young person grow dangerously high.
Juno is a marvelous film on many levels, not least for its spot-on portrayal of this issue. What the movie captures are a few basic truths about adolescence: Readiness for sex doesn’t mean readiness for pregnancy; a willingness to carry a child to term doesn’t mean a capacity to parent; great wit and cultural sophistication in a sixteen year-old don’t translate into an ability to engage with adults as emotional equals. There’s much to take away from this film, not least a reminder to older men (particularly those lads still running away from responsibility) that their own immaturity is no justification for emotional boundary violation.
My favorite part of that scene was when the guy says something like, “I thought you would understand,” and Juno says, “But you’re old!”
The important dynamic there to me is that this older guy has kind of borrowed youth from Juno, and thinks they’re being cool and fun together, like peers, when in reality, she sees him as old, not a peer at all, and subject to different rules.
Go Juno.
Right, Tam; thanks for recalling that line!
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2006/10/26/closing-the-doors-men-aging-younger-women-and-ego/
Ever get tired of surveilling and criticizing other people’s emotional and sex lives, Hugo?
Ever get tired of reading blogs you clearly find tiresome, Flippanter?
Hey Hugo,
Long-time ‘lurker’, first-time poster. I am a 24-year-old male, and am currently in a pretty new relationship. I am currently at a Job Corps. campus, and am training to be an electrician. I disagree with you about somethings, but I am a feminist and am not ashamed to admit it.
Enough of the intros. I have been here just over a year, and am fairly well-respected, particularly by the some of the female students. I don’t say this to boast, it’s kind of why I have a dilemma. There was a girl who completed her training and left not to long ago. She and I were pretty good friends, even though we were of different temperment. I am kind of shy and quiet, she is foward and very forthcoming. She and I struck up a friendship venting to each other about how much of a jerk so-and-so is (a common pasttime around here). She is 17 now.
Understand that the age of students here ranges from 16-24. We live together in the same dorms, the rules apply to us all. We socialize in the caffeteria together. Some priveleges come to the 18+ students, but not many. In other words, in terms of policy, there is not a lot of differentiation for age.
On the night I found out she was leaving, we walked and talked for a bit. Her boyfriend had been expelled not to long ago. They were going to get a place together. We both told one another how grateful we were for the others companionship over the past 8 or 9 months. Suddenly, before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “You know, if you and Brandon weren’t going out and if you were a bit older, I would have asked you out in a second.” She just smiled and said how sweet that was. We continued to talk.
I didn’t feel like I had violated a boundry of any kind, I only said it because she seemed to have kind of a low opinion of herself. I meant nothing sexual or even romantic by it. Just saying that if circumstances had been different, I would have had an additional kind of affection for her. After reading those articles of yours, I’m not so sure. Did I do wrong? (Feel free to edit this, I get a little long winded when I talk about this sort of thing.)
Now, Hugo. Flippanter can’t very well troll on a blog where everyone *agrees* with him.
Re Cait’s professor, did he actually write “I am divorcing my wife to marry a woman decades younger than myself”?
No, not to marry, mythago; to date someone younger; Cait asked me to paraphrase what she had written here rather than quote.
Gray Fox, please know that my writing about “older men, younger women” is generally aimed to be critical of relationships where the man is older than, say, 28. On the other hand, you write:
Understand that the age of students here ranges from 16-24. We live together in the same dorms, the rules apply to us all. We socialize in the caffeteria together. Some priveleges come to the 18+ students, but not many. In other words, in terms of policy, there is not a lot of differentiation for age.
The rules don’t apply to all of you the same way — those under 18 are legally minors, though age of consent rules vary from state to state. No matter how easygoing the inter-age cameraderie may be, no matter how lax the college policy, there is a legal distinction here that ought never be ignored for a second. And I can’t stress enough how common it is for teenagers to appear “older than they really are”, “more mature”, and so forth. 17 is 17 is 17 is 17. Not all 17 year-olds act the same, mind you; not all 17 year-olds have the same sophistication. But no 17 year-old is adequately prepared for a romantic or sexual relationship with a 24 year-old.
Hugo, to be less vague, what I meant is whether the professor was explicitly saying ‘I am dating a younger woman,’ or whether he mentioned that he was now dating so-and-so, where Cait knows so-and-so to be a woman close to her age. The context is very different, especially depending on the nature of their e-mail. If Cait was asking how his life was, or how Mrs. Professor was doing these days, that’s quite a bit different than an out-of-the-blue announcement.
Gray Fox, I wouldn’t say you were “wrong”, but there is no real way to take the statement you made as anything other than a display of romantic/sexual interest.
Myth, Cait wasn’t entirely clear, I’m afraid.
What Cait and Juno have in common is a close attachment to an older, safe, married man. For not entirely different reasons, each is thrown and confused when that man announces he’s leaving his wife.
In addition to what you write, there’s also the fact that if a young woman is not actually crushing on such a man (or even if she is), the chances are fairly high that she doesn’t idealize him in a vaccuum: she probably idealizes his marriage, and quite possibly his wife, as well. Whether she sees the wife as a mother-figure to go with her father-figure, a future version of herself, or just a solid part of his life, it’s pretty clear why the man ditching his wife comes as a personal blow, even if he’s not doing it because he hopes to sleaze on her, but especially if he is. And if she does have a crush on him, it might be that hazy kind of “one day when I’m grown up and successful I’ll have a husband like him,” so finding out that when you’re grown up and successful and have a husband like him, he’ll prefer teenagers to you? Not very pleasant.
Bingo, sophonisba — and that’s the mistake that older men (and teachers) make so often with crushes; teens like this get crushes on men who represent what they want for themselves someday. And gosh, when men confuse that longing with something explicitly romantic or sexual, they usually end up inflicting grave harm.
Hi Hugo, I’m Ultra Magnus long time reader, sometime lurker, first time poster, and I’m popping over from Pandagon.
I like your analogy of that scene in “Juno” between Mark and Juno. In my theater as well everyone went quite and my friend and I pressed back into our seats going, “don’t do it, don’t do it,” generally wincing through the whole scene. When they started dancing I leaned over to my friend and asked, “Does she know what she’s doing?” and my friend went, “Nope.”
What I’d like to know is what you thought of Juno’s friend, Leigh (I believe it was) who also has a “relationship” with her teacher, seemingly one so close that she was getting a pass on all her homework assignments (as was pointed out when Leigh correctly identified Juno’s stomach as convex). I know there wasn’t much to go on but that was another older man/young woman relationship in the film.
There’s also Juno’s friend at the high school, Leah, who obsesses over older men and has an intense crush on her pudgy, gray haired math teacher. In this case, it’s played for laughs, but the boundary crossing is still there.
Two quick things.
First of all, you have no idea how nervous I was today, wondering what your response would be. I’ve never put a personal story like that on a comment section of a website. Indeed, I hardly ever post comments at all. Should you need to know why, check out some of the enlightened discourse on Huffington Post sometime (Great writing by the bloggers themselves, but divisive, bigoted, vile, and downright redundant in the comments section IMHO). Take this as a compliment to your writing that you were able to bring me out of my internet ’shell’ (best term I can think of) in a way that no else really has.
Secondly, I would like to make one thing clear: I NEVER saw her in the same way that I do certain women my own age. I did not have a romantic ‘crush’ on her, in the sense that, were she ever to be single, I would pursue a relationship. And I NEVER, EVER had thoughts about her of the erotic variety. What I did have was a friendship with her that I held in such high value, that I often wondered about the possibilities if she had been older (or I younger) when we had met. Whenever these thoughts lingered there for to long, I just thought “Yeah, I also wonder what would have happened if the Mariners had managed to hang on to Randy Johnson and A-Rod…” In other words, I acknowledge both are purely speculation. This girl had a reputation on campus for being a bit bitter and depressed, which was true though blown out of porportion. What I wanted to do was assure her not everyone saw her that way. I never took an ‘active’ romantic interest, only an occasional (and brief) wonder at what could have been had circumstances been slightly different. I assure you, Hugo, and everyone else who has the kindness and patience to sort through this mess (”Two quick things”. Yeah, right) that this is not an attempt to backpedal only to clarify what I was trying to get across. In closing, I realize now (hindsight being 20/20, etc., etc.) that it was a foolish thing to do no matter what my intention was. Luckily, she still, I think, sees me as she always has: a cool guy to talk to.
Again, my sincere apologies for the length of this post.
Of course, this age difference between men and women (at least in certain social classes) was considered normal and respectable back in Ye Good Old Days, throughout most of history. The pairing of the older, sexually-experienced worldly man with the just-come-out debutante wasn’t just a trope of Victorian novels, after all. Even on the frontier, marrying off the teenage daughter to the older widower wasn’t unheard of - and it didn’t (always? ever? I’m sure there could be found examples all over the map) make for happy marriages, going by my family history.
I think part of the problem is that our culture doesn’t have very good mechanisms for people to emotionally negotiate their own aging.
Sure, most of us muddle through more or less intact, but as I’ve gotten older (I’m in my mid-30s now), I’ve noticed more and more that, despite the ways in which youth get marginalized, there are many ways in which we worship youth. I don’t consider myself “old” by any means (and think about how that is often used as a pejorative), but I realize that there are certain expectations of me that I was not subjected to before.
Now, to a large degree, these expectations are appropriate. Yet, I still get a sense that “maturity” means get married, have 2.5 kids, a job to support myself and my family (with my spouse doing the same, of course) and…that’s it. Doing, fun, adventurous things, or even living a life one deems a little less in line with societal expectations is ipso facto “immature”. One’s vigor is expected to be cast away no later than age 40.
Or so it seems that way to me.
I was one of those young women with older male friends and mentors. Most were platonic, and mostly the boundaries were clearly defined. But I’ve been shocked more than once by scenarios where I think of the person as a mentor and a father figure, and he’s thinking of me as a romantic interest. This discrepancy has ended a few friendships, unfortunately.
Sophonisba hits the nail on the head. In at least one case, I was hurt when my older friend and his girlfriend split up; to me, they represented a sort of relationship to which I’d aspired. That he hit on me almost immediately after (they were still living together!) was devastating.
I must be pretty naive, but my first reaction to Juno and Mark playing “air guitar” together was “Wow, this is a person who managed to grow up without having forgotten how to have fun, unlike my own parents. I like him.” I heard some spoilers so I knew what was coming, but I didn’t see any more in Mark’s actions than Juno herself did until the scene in which he reveals that he has decided to divorce his wife.
(For the record, I’m a 25 year old male college graduate, job-free by choice, who lives with his parents. I still feel like I’m a child.)
Thanks for this post… I was cringing through the first half of the movie because I thought that the script was idealizing the character of Mark — a cool contrast to his uptight wife. The scene you describe was creepy, but it was amazing in the way it was able to completely flip the perceptions of the two adoptive parents. Suddenly, Mark was the one that seemed pathetic, and the wife (whose name I forget) seemed completely sympathetic. A great feminist message, I thought, to counter all of those movies out there in which fun-loving guys help uptight women to loosen up.
People who seek out much younger relationships are pretty much holding up blinking neon signs that say “I’m an emotional cripple and I can’t handle relationships where both partners are on an equal footing”. Actually, that’s kinda long for a sign but oh well.
Don’t worry guys, there are immature women out there that are your own age you can hook up with, too! I know this because I am one. Our boobs may not be quite as perky, but we’ll play video games with you till 2 am AND we’re old enough to drink legally :P
I think you’ve hit on a really interesting aspect of the movie that I hadn’t really thought about before. I also think it’s interesting to read how people’s responses and expectations of what would happen were different depending on their age and experience.
I am 28, and I was nervous about the Bateman character, but not so sure that the relationship was inappropriate until he tells her he’s leaving his wife. What first alerted me that he was not a totally “good” character was that he clearly wasn’t into having the baby. But I also thought the friendship between them was kind of nice. That she would like to see that her baby would have someone “cool” to parent it. When Juno came over the time they watched the horror movies, and she asks if the wife is home, and he says no, and she says good, I thought maybe sometime during that scene he would say something to Juno to humanize the wife. To try to convince Juno that the wife is not really they way Juno sees her. To say, she’s just acting this way because she had such a crushing experience the last time we tried to adopt, and she’s really a good person and will be a good mother to the child. At that point I still thought maybe he was actually an adult, who understood and loved his wife, even as he was conflicted about his lost youth/having a baby, and who understood his relationship with Juno as an adult/child relationship - maybe like a much younger sibling or cousin or neice.
I also thought the movie was surprisingly skillful at making viewers understand that Juno’s initial impression of both the adoptive parents was not really who they were, and that Juno’s solidarity with the wife at the end was a kind of feminist statement.
Bateman’s cluelessness was brought home to me by the line Tam quoted - after he tells Juno he’s leaving the wife (and thereby tells her her baby won’t have the family structure she thought it would, or maybe even that her baby who she thought was going to have a great home now has no home) he says he thought she’d be HAPPY about it? Can you get any more clueless? He shows absolutely no recognition that his decision affects HER, and what she’d chosen for her baby. So yeah, by the end he’s obviously an asshole, but I didn’t know he was based on just his early interactions with Juno.
Gray Fox: For what it is worth I don’t think you crossed a line, because you were clear with her in saying that if she wasn’t going out with her present boyfriend and if she were a bit older demonstrates to me that you were aware of two boundaries 1. That she had a boyfriend and, 2. That she was not the right age to consider romantic involvement (A lot of men ignore this). If you said what you did and then ignored it and pursued involvement with her (which would be also ignoring what you feel) then you would have been crossing a boundary, both hers and yours. Letting someone know if a circumstance had been different is speculation (in some circumstances one could be crossing a boundary too). There’s nothing wrong in letting someone know that you respect them or recognize something about them that you like. It is often how it is done that often cross lines.
I think sophonisba’s post really nails something important in the dynamic that the Original poster describes for his friend “Cait” and her “professor” and something that is implicit in the Juno/Mark relationship. The issue is not just a problem of older males crossing boundaries and disillusioning, dissapointing, or using younger females for companionship or sex or youth or whatever. The issue is also the egotism and confusion of young people (male or female) in seeking out mentoring or friendship relationships with older authority figures and then mistaking mentoring, tutoring, or friendship for *parenting.* Cait’s response to her professor divorcing his own wife and taking up with a new woman is as wrong as anything hypothesized for her professor. As far as I can see they had a mutually satisfying teacher/mentee relationship which included, on her part, emotional or passionate attachment to the idea of her teacher as somehow above or beyond having a personal life. She’s dissapointed because he not only had a personal life but it didn’t match up with her platonic ideal for that life and because in going out with a “younger woman” Cait feels that his relationship with her is called into question. But it isn’t. She took a friend, turned him into some kind of idealization of a father figure, and then is angered or hurt or puzzled by the fact that *like actual fathers* he continued to have an active, complicated, personal and sexual life. Juno too walks into a complicated adult relationship, one which any adult could see was troubled, and assumes that it follows a storybook line which it doesn’t. She’s blindsided by that because her own childish egotism prevented her from predicting what would happen. She feels betrayed by Mark because, to her, the life he appeared to be living was taken for a pledge that he would always be living that way.
I’m not pro older male/younger female relationships or relationships that violate or abuse the boundaries between authority figures and people in a subordinate, junior or other vulnerable role. But I think we have to be careful ascribing to the child’s point of view a “correct” view of the situation. Cait’s story, to me, shows that people can feel that their rights/trust/innocence or whatever have been violated by actions that are perfectly legitimate. The idea of writing to your “friend” that you are rendered uncomfortable because he didn’t live up to your idealized view of his marriage, strikes me as just bizarre. The feelings are fine but the indulgence of them, and the throwing of the emotional burden onto a friend who (as far as the story has been retold to us) has done nothing unprofessional or amatory in the interactions over a number of years, is just bizarre to me. The hyped up or illusory expectations of young people are not the only way we should understand the rights and wrongs of these situations.
aimai
“Now, to a large degree, these expectations are appropriate. Yet, I still get a sense that “maturity” means get married, have 2.5 kids, a job to support myself and my family (with my spouse doing the same, of course) and…that’s it. Doing, fun, adventurous things, or even living a life one deems a little less in line with societal expectations is ipso facto “immature”. One’s vigor is expected to be cast away no later than age 40.”
This.
Most of the time when I hear people complain about someone else’s “immaturity” or “shallowness”, I find that it really means “they don’t have the same neuroses I do”.
Our youth erodes gradually. Sometimes the things you lose are things you can never get back, sometimes they’re things you don’t need anymore… and sometimes, they’re things you left because they didn’t have a place in your new life, but you would’ve liked to have them along.
Is it so weird that a person could be reminded of that third category and realize that it’s incompatible with their new life, and decide that happiness is more important than marriage?
I was once on the flip side of this. I had what I thought of as an avuncular relationship with a young woman at work. I was recently divorced and dating again, she was newly married, but having trouble adapting. I was completely befuddled when she made a pass at me.
Hugo–Great blog entry. Your analysis of the relationship between Juno and Mark was spot on. I’m a little unsettled by your lack of acceptance for men who won’t “grow up,” since I actually fit that description (but I’m female). I’m happily married, 38, and childfree by choice. I’m a teacher and adore my students. I love my husband more than I did when we first kissed as 19 year olds. But he still loves to play video games, and I love to surf. We want to see every corner of the world before we die. Should we be guilty for not “growing up”?
Amai, you always make so much sense; i love reading your responses.
i befriended an 18yr old boy, half my age, online & weve had a very rewarding correspondance. it’s crossed some lines, but nothing interactively sexual in an emotional way. I helped him with some severe emotional & behavioral issues & he is thankful & im relieved & happy to have helped him, for his sake. Both of us have been very careful not to use, or otherwise hurt each other: we are friends & we both respect the age/maturity difference. It can be done. I dont know if it could have been done in person, & if we were in close proximity to one another all the time, though. But i also dont rule it out for everyone– life is bittersweet, there’s no getting around it, & loving someone has it’s good & bad sides, regardless of age differences, amongstall the other differences (maturity,power issues, etc) that play out in =any= relationship.
How much, is much younger?? There’s a nine year age gap between me( and my girlfriend.
I think that the issue of maturity has to do with who we expect to be able to understand the other person’s perspective. When Juno expects Bateman to live up to a particular ideal, she may be naive, but that is because she is young and inexperienced. When Bateman expects Juno to be supportive of his decision to pursue personal happiness at the expense of his wife, and at the expense of Juno’s own biological child’s future, he is not young and inexperienced, he’s just an asshole.
Most people feel compassion for young people whose perceptions of situations are incomplete because of their naivete, and who unwittingly misperceive how a relationship is being understood by the other party. And Hugo’s point (I think) is that adults who mentor young people should be aware of how young people may perceive the relationship differently - because the adult’s goal is to HELP THE YOUNG PERSON. Hugo presumes a relationship in which the adult should be trying to help/care for the young person, and not an “equal” relationship where your misperceptions are your own damn problem.*
*Although, I would suggest that in any relationship, a kind person would try to understand the other person’s expectations and minimize misunderstanding/misperceptions.
Very well said Emily and I’m in agreement with you. What I tend to find are adults with unreasonable expectations of younger people. It becomes all about their needs at the expense of the other human being with little thought of the consequences. I also agree with your sentiments regarding kindness, although in my own life I see very few people demonstrating kindness or empathy towards others, yet they want others to demonstrate it towards them–the sheer numbers of people who go through life numb and oblivious to the feelings of others is staggering. As for the movie Juno, I thought it a very good movie, but it didn’t have the same kind of impact on me. Perhaps this had more to do with that I saw it very soon after seeing “Sweeny Todd”, and I was a bit emotionally numb after viewing that musical blood and gore fest. I recognized from the first Bateman’s boundary issues and wondered how it would all play out. His character would naturally seem charming and more cool to an intelligent, but emotionally naieve teenager than the wife, who appeared uptight. I didn’t know how this was going to go, because usually Hollywood gravitates to the most dysfunctional and desparate and likes to play out jealousy issues between teens (younger women vs. older women) and mother type or older sister figures. The conclusions usually never favor healthy outcomes for older women. Good post Hugo.
Why am I being censored?
Cathy, for what it is worth I don’t see your being childfree by choice or desiring to travel as not growing up. I personally have never equated childfree as immature, etc. I also didn’t feel that Hugo’s blog was inferring this either. It’s really no one’s business but yours, but I do know that doesn’t keep some people from butting into one’s business. I would also agree that this narrow viewpoint seems to be expressed more freely by some and I too sense it is a societal pressure. Maybe it’s the people who have children that are the one’s who are the most critical and judgemental towards people who are childfree by choice labeling them as immature. It could be due to jealousy and envy, especially if having children didn’t make them happy as they thought it would. As far as the blog goes about the movie, I believe that maturity factors in more to emotional behaviors and how people treat others.
I feel for Cait–I had a similar experience with a mentor when I was in high school (I’m 23 now), who a few years back began dating a student (he wasn’t a school teacher–a sports teacher, who owned a school attended by children through adults–and not only her teacher but her employer and father-figure) pretty much the moment she turned 18 (officially, anyway–there may have been something going on before then, and certainly the tension was there). She’s a few years younger than I am, and they’re now married with a baby. The whole thing was very disillusioning and disturbing for me and many other people (he lost a lot of students over it). And while he’s generally been polite to people who have expressed concerns about power imbalance, he just doesn’t seem to get it. He is also quite a bit older than his first wife, whom he also started dating when she was about 18.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable or “childlike” to be disturbed by abuse of power.
Now I really have to see this movie.
Having been, several times, on the younger end of an older/younger relationship like this (with people of both genders), it’s really neat to see some discussion of the emotional dynamics. I have had mad crazy crushes on people, and only after letting myself admit to the crush did I realize that what I wanted wasn’t necessarily a romantic or sexual relationship with them–but what I did want was no less important or intense. I have been lucky in that my mentors have all been very careful about the boundary issues, and even when they’ve realized I had a crush, have never taken advantage of that. The one who I felt “led me on” messed me up for a number of years, and he had no idea, I’m sure, how much his emotional confidences had affected me.
We get a lot of stories in the media about younger woman/older man relationships (like the student/teacher cliche) but so very rarely is it actually treated in depth, or any reasons other than “he wants to feel young and sexy again” ever given. I wish more people would talk about things like this–because a healthy friendship with older adults can be a wonderful thing for a teenager/young adult, and to have that either avoided totally or to have it abused both shortchange people who could benefit from such friendships.
Also–wow, non-combative blog posts! So rare on the Intertubes!
Heh. Why am I not surprised my comment got moderated away?
There’s a reason the posts here are non-combative, Nenya. Hugo doesn’t allow any dissenting opinions to appear here.
Of course, you won’t get to read this one either.
Ah, yes, the modern version of “Dear Editor: I am sure you shall not have the courage to print this letter in your so-called news-paper…..”
cathy, you may be getting eaten by the spam filter; it’s happened to me before. Drop Hugo a line and he’ll probably figure it out when he gets back.
Doug, maybe this is an old-person perspective: but some people ’stay young’ in their marriages because they’re part of a dynamic where their spouse is the mature, responsible, “boring” one. It’s not that they still remember how to have fun, exactly, it’s that they displace their resentment at being old and uncool onto their spouse. (It’s a lot easier to have fun and not worry about money if your spouse is the one who has to do all the budgeting and long-term planning, etc.) That seems to be part of what’s going in on Juno; it’s not merely that the wife is uptight, but that she has to be an adult for two.
Hugo,
While I agree with you that by the end of the film the guy made a gross error in judgement I had no problem with him up to that point. In fact I think you fail to see ways in his presence was a helpful one. Giving Juno the comic with the pregnant super heroine was a wonderfully empowering gesture and one that wouldn’t have occurred to straighter types of adults. It was actions like this that made his final action all the more disappointing. Also, their initial bonding over music et. al made the prospect of giving up her baby a lot less daunting and scary. Presumably, she felt that a kindred spirit was about to watch over her child, which again made his last gesture all the more tragic. The fact that his tastes were what they were does not, per se, make him a problematic adult, other things that later became evident did.
But moreover, and perhaps the lady doth protest too much, I wish you wrote about men who have had trouble growing up with a little more empathy, particularly those, like Mark, who had dreams with expiration dates and who did not see them come true and now must figure out where to go from there. I think you actually feel such empathy but it doesn’t come through here.
P.S.
The movie was great.
Hugo, we could talk a lot about adulthood, relationships, young people, the edges of adulthood, what we gain, and what (if anything) we lose by maintaining the emotional boundaries you describe. But I do not consider the urge to “pop someone in the mouth”, as you claim to have felt for Justin Bateman’s character as an appropriate response to a complex and painful issue. Vehemence, even anger, I affirm, but going beyond that to unleashing an urge to punish kills discussion, and I regret that because I consider this an important issue.
Martin
Jan 19th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Heh. Why am I not surprised my comment got moderated away?
There’s a reason the posts here are non-combative, Nenya. Hugo doesn’t allow any dissenting opinions to appear here.
Of course, you won’t get to read this one either.
So Martin, if this was true, then why is evidence of your dissenting opinions and those of others left on his blog?
Mythago,
Very well said and I agree. Having to be “an adult for two”–assuming the roll of the mature, responsible and boring one, rather than the charming one takes a huge toll on one over time. I’ve watched this same dynamic take place with a good friend of mine and his younger wife–she’s eroded the relationship with her childish tantrums and chronic destructive fiscal irresponsibility. Charming and cool gets old quick with those destructive dynamics.
The comments about younger woman/older man all seem to revolve around a woman being between 18-24 and the man around 40. What do you think of a woman student 40 yrs old, and having a crush on a man, maybe 60 years old (and perhaps her teacher or employer)? Do you think the dynamics change? Are the issues in Juno just for the age group represented in Juno?
Cathy,
I think the age difference in Juno between the man and teenager was about 20 years. As far as crushes go (I’m uncertain of your definition)….I think it normal to form attachments (crushes) on the opposite sex, especially towards people who are in positions that we respect and admire. I also feel that some people in different stages of their lives are more prone to developing crushes and even sometimes confusing a crush with feelings of respect and admiration, depending on what these people represent in our current lives and circumstances (and sometimes what people think they are missing). There are always exceptions, however I think that large age differences can create unforeseen difficulties and issues. Of course the dynamics between a 40 and 60 year-olds will be different than a teen and mid 30’s, however in general I think age disparity can create a whole host of issues unlike similar age relationships. I also tend to feel that most people just act on impulse rather than thinking situations through or considering consequences of their actions. Few people I know think of what it will be like having to take care of an aging partner who is many years older than them, because when they “fell in love” that person seemed healthy. And if that person has money or appears established then they think it will all be okay and that if difficulties and health issues happen that it will be taken care of. The reality is much different. The healthy young women I know can age very quickly with the burden of stress and having to take care of many people, including their children. The choices women make, eventually takes a huge emotional toll.
Hugo says:
Juno’s stepmother (a sublime Allison Janney) warns her daughter about being alone with a married man, a warning that confuses and exasperates Juno. And why shouldn’t it exasperate her? It’s not the job of a sixteen year-old to set boundaries with an adult, after all.
No, it may not be the job of a sixteen year-old to have to set boundaries with an adult (in an ideal world), however I believe it’s crucial to self-survival and the wisest choice to make to provide them with the emotional tools necessary to deal with all the adults who ignore boundaries, like the massive boundary violator in the film. In order to accomplish this, parents need to be emotionally aware and available and invested in their children’s life. One always hears about the difficult teen years and that parents are happiest prior to and after the birth of their children and when they are young and still toddlers.
cathy, “perhaps her teacher or employer” is really a big red flag whatever the ages are.
Karen,
Very insightful response! You are so right when you say that women age quickly when taking care of an aging partner. I look at the movie Juno and wonder of the two characters did get together, their age difference would always be with them. So, when she is 40, he would be 60. She most likely would be taking care of him. Age disparity does bring up so many issues that other like-age couples never deal with. Yet, to everyone site: what is it about attraction that sometimes seems to obliterate concerns about age difference? Karen, I thought it was interesting when you wrote that people are prone to developing crushes at different points in their lives and for different reasons. Yet, again, what if two people connect to such a degree that they are only slightly aware that there is an age difference?
i’m 22 now, but when i was 18 i began working as a secretary at a hospital and bonded with the older man who trained me for the job. we became close friends and i grew feelings for this guy, who was 54 at the time. this guy lived in a spiritual commune and i began to spend lots of time there to get to know him. we were friends for almost a year (and i was 19) before a physical relationship started. our physical relationship ended about a year ago but we’re still very close friends.
i don’t think of him as having necessarily taken advantage of me for two reasons: 1) i pursued him despite many obstacles, not relenting when he said no, and 2) i don’t think he is a normally emotionally developed person. he has always been a social outsider and despite his age i believe he is truly naive to the boundaries that society recognizes.
however, i’m concerned for what implications the affair might mean for me emotionally and sexually. i’ve had plenty of opportunities to begin relationships with guys my age but i can’t seem to make myself interested. i also feel concerned that i only feel turned on by somewhat taboo subjects. the jason bateman/ellen page scenario in juno made me weak in the knees, especially because i already have a thing for bateman.
now tell me i need therapy…
Kellydee,
You, too raise so many good questions about the whole age difference thing. Are you just exceptionally mature and find guys your own age immature?
Hey in juno language, plain english. did juno have a crush on this guy? Or was it just the guy misinterpreting things? or was it the guy that had a crush on her and she threw out the wrong signals? So juno just didn’t realize that the guy was getting to emotionally attached to her?
Lex,
I think the guy (jason bateman) didn’t know how to interpret HIMSELF.
Are you just exceptionally mature and find guys your own age immature?
There is nothing mature about “not relenting when he said no.” In fact, immaturity is the only possible excuse for that kind of behavior.
now tell me i need therapy
You’re probably fine. But “no means no” isn’t just for girls.
cathy says
“Yet, to everyone site: what is it about attraction that sometimes seems to obliterate concerns about age difference? Yet, again, what if two people connect to such a degree that they are only slightly aware that there is an age difference?”
In general during the beginning of all romantic relationships people focus on similarities rather than differences, because people are more fully present emotionally and focused on each other. It’s only later that issues start to emerge, so it would make sense then that age difference would not be focused on. I think many people are aware of differences, but choose to overlook them. It all comes back to the relationship that you have with yourself and what needs are being met.
Good point, Karen. One of the things that happens over and over again in age disparate relationships is that in the initial excitement, both partners have the illusion that the gap doesn’t matter, that their “connection” is so intense it transcends the chronological gulf. Invariably, with the passage of time and the gradual diminishing of that initial intensity, one or both becomes acutely aware of just how problematic the disparity is.
Thank you Hugo and I appreciate your writings on these subjects…I’d also like to say that with the passage of time too comes greater emotional investment and then one is faced with a most difficult dilemma. If one is tempted to leave due to the illusion of connection, they will leave behind a substantial investment and a huge chunk of themselves. To disengage with nothing to show for your time and energy but a broken spirit is hard to do. One may be tempted to delude themselves…Over the course of time; one may invest so much of themselves that it will be very difficult to realistically consider walking away. And if one does leave and admits that they’ve made a mistake for several years, one will likely feel ashamed. Shame and guilt are very big issues for some people and will make it even more difficult for them to leave.
Thank you for all the comments guy. its really helped me sort a few things out in this film regarding this juno/batement stuff.
Thank you for this wonderful summation. I found myself fruitlessly trying to deal with this since I watched this movie last night. I couldn’t understand why this seemed so much like a sexual assault and why I felt so uncomfortable with the issue. I kept trying to figure out why the author would make this seem like some sort of violation would occur and even after it still seemed like a violation did occur. Now I understand. I think that this was an excellent movie and now I feel even more justified in thinking so after reading your analsis. Thanks again!
Yay! Glad you liked it and that it resonated with you.
So… what does sexually active mean anyway? I’m afraid I didn’t see anything flirtatious about that scene, they didn’t act that way at all. To me the movie was about unconditional love, and it was portrayed here and throughout. Romantic love didn’t arise at all in this movie, Juno was even pregnant outside of any romantic relationship.
That belly and Juno’s discomfort was obvious, not quite as obvious as outside the elevator when we saw another bonding incident with Vanessa. I can only reflect on how a virile man feels holding his pregnant young wife. Assuming our character here is virile of course, it would be a very big decision to sacrifice having children, so how about giving this guy some thought? Men’s issues where also represented throughout the movie in regards to the biological father and the plot was about adoption as well as adolescent sex.
After all, isn’t it supposed to be every young heterosexual man’s dream to waltz like that and how society functions to create families? Juno was puzzled about this in a following scene with her father “why don’t people stay together?” she asked.
It is interesting though, the comments on this page and the cinema audience reaction. Where did this old man young girl thing come into this movie again? I look forward to the “Golden Age” when love and understanding will be looked at more a maturely.
Also the scene in which she calls before going to Mark’s house, after letting her enter, Juno asks: “Is Vanessa home?” Right after, Mark replies: “No, we’re safe.”, and smiles.
That got me so confused! I didn’t know what he meant, I didn’t know what were his intentions. They were surely talking about watching horror movies and talking about music endlessly, and freely. But then again, knowing how he was reacting towards Juno, I just became very confused.