‘Old People’s Home For Teenagers’ Harnesses The Wholesome Power Of Intergenerational Friendship
Two of Australia's most overlooked groups team up against post-pandemic loneliness in ABC's new series.
The ABC’s new series, Old People’s Home For Teenagers, sees a group of elderly folks spend time with a bunch of teenagers and it’s a wholesome ode to the power of intergenerational friendship.
Coming off the back of their previous season, Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds, the sequel to the popular documentary series attempts to build on the prior’s heartwarming success. However, this season swaps tiny preschool beans for high school teens.
Like the last, the series’ premise is a simple one: over six weeks, half a dozen teenagers and half a dozen elderly citizens will participate in daily activities. Along the way, their mental health and social confidence will be tracked by geriatricians, psychologists, and social workers in the hopes that both parties will improve and ultimately prove the value of intergenerational connections.
Loneliness Has No Age Limit, But Neither Does Friendship
Airing Tuesday nights on ABC, the spin-off begins with a showcase of an all too familiar post-pandemic problem: loneliness. But it’s one that both the young and elderly participants in the program have in common.
“When I came back from the most recent lockdown, I didn’t have anybody. That was kind of the reason I joined the program,” 15-year-old Dora shares.
Cecelia, whose in her 70s, echoes the same sentiment. “I feel empty, hopeless. I feel lonely all the time,” she says, choking up a little.
It’s a testimony to the very real reality that both the elderly and teenagers’ mental well-being were some of the hardest hit during the pandemic. Between lockdowns, school closures, and prohibited visitations for all — both school students and older Aussie citizens did it extremely tough.
Old People’s Home for Teenagers orients itself as a valiant attempt to prove whether the answer to the two groups’ chronic loneliness lies is in bringing them together.
The first 30 minutes may have enough awkward silences to make you wince. However, they only make it all the more uplifting when, on their second day, everyone writes down what they hope to get out of the experiment. Almost everyone’s answer is the same: a friend.
Shared Experiences Build Bridges Across Generational Gaps
On a macro level, the series paints a broad and compassionate picture that everyone, regardless of age, shares fears of loneliness and a desire for companionship and conversation. But the series’ most inspiring, tear-inducing moments lie in the more personal connections between the volunteers.
In the first episode, we meet Lily. At 15, Lily explains that she had to prioritise learning English over making friends after her family moved from China when she was younger. She’s worried she won’t be very good at the “social” part of the experiment.
But 75-year-old Cecelia excitably and immediately connects with Lily as a fellow Chinese immigrant and Mandarin speaker — affectionately remarking how impressed she is by Lily’s height, “especially for Chinese”.
After speaking with Cecelia, Lily says, “usually, a lot of time, I feel out of place. But it was all cool”.
There are other smaller moments that also work to dispel assumptions about either. 81-year-old former actress Maggy accidentally misgenders non-binary contestant teen Charlie, but Charlie quickly corrects her. Maggy then continues the conversation using Charlie’s correct pronouns and, after an awkward start, the two bond over Charlie’s dreams of becoming an actor. I am not crying, you are.
Reality TV rarely garners a reputation for inspiring hope or even inspiring confidence that it’s useful. But Old People’s Home For Teenagers advocates for an idea that is somewhat radical in Australian culture — that two of the country’s most overlooked demographics are invaluable to one another, and that age should not be a barrier to friendship, nor to the ability recognise each other’s humanity.
Old People’s Home For Teenagers airs Tuesday on ABC and is streaming on ABC iview.