Last week, for once, most of the Washington political/media class spoke in unison condemning the conduct of the 21-year-old airman who somehow acquired and posted some of the nation’s secrets for all to see.

That is, except for Marjorie Taylor Greene and Fox’s Tucker Carlson, both who praised his actions. But that is another story.

On last Sunday’s TV chat shows and major newspapers, we saw talking heads and alleged political pundits wondering how a 21-year-old was given access to the nation’s secrets in the first place. Maybe that is because the photos of the alleged leaker, Jack Teixeira, depict an image that resembles a high school sophomore playing an airman in the school play. He looks like a kid because he is young. But, at 21, he is a man facing a slew of serious criminal charges.

Unlike those of us who have reached the age where we collect from, not contribute to, Social Security, the younger generation grew up with computers, smartphones, and IPads. They understand how and why our devices can find stuff secreted on Google and Facebook.

Airman Teixeira was a computer tech for the Massachusetts Air National Guard. As such, he knew his way, or found his way, into the cyber crypto universe where we store our dark secrets. These were electronic records, unlike the paper copies found in the garage of POTUS 46 behind his vintage Corvette and those of 45 who kept them at his country club villa. That is another story, too.

This Teixeira case is a good time to remind us all, especially those whose collars sport eagles and stars, to remember that anything we put on a computer can be accessed by someone else if they know how to discover it. For the folks in the military, that someone else lives in Iran, Russia, or China. Maybe that is one reason many old dudes and dudettes, who are not computer nerds, nodded in sync when TV pundits parroted strange explanations for the recent election failures of certain candidates.

Maybe we will learn some of the inside details of those election failures as part of a Delaware court case slated to begin this week. If you get your news exclusively from Fox, which has not uttered a word about it, that is where the voting machine company, Dominion, is suing for billions alleging they were defamed by that network. We commit senior citizen malpractice when we ignore and underestimate the talents of those youngsters.

My dad’s generation saw 21-year-olds flying bombers over Europe and leading Marines into the beaches of the Pacific Islands. These were the same young leaders who helped build the economic prosperity of the 50s and 60s. The younger generation led protests of the Vietnam War as those of a similar age led our military through Southeast Asian mud. Recently, we saw young women lead protests for and against government abortion regulations.

Wake up, my senior citizen friends and colleagues. As we gather in book clubs and bridge tables, we can see our generation pass the torch of leadership to our grandchildren. Do we really want to elect presidential candidates who whip past the Big 80?

Somehow we seem to show less and less interest in the juicy details of this current scandal on the right or left. Maybe we are all living in the world that Grandma told us about as she intoned the parable of the boy who cried wolf. You remember that one, don’t you? It was about a boy who caused a ruckus when he faked an alert about a wolf attacking the family livestock. He did it so often that when the wolf decided to visit the family farm, the boy cried wolf, his elders ignored his cry, and the wolf invited himself to dinner.

Maybe we have become more interested in ourselves, our families, and our friends than in the high-octane gaggle of national political wrongs. As we become more and more infected with the fatal disease we all harbor (you know it as O.L.D.), we speak of how we are slowing down. And surprise, we find out that while we still do our chores as usual, it is just easier to do them in the hours between breakfast and lunch. After that meal, sometimes, not always, but sometimes, a quick session on the living room couch is welcome.

The good news is we also discovered that reaching out to our friends who spend most of their time caring for loved ones is not an imposition. We find that a phone call, an email, or a note, via snail mail, can provide a welcome break from heartbreaking family duties.

Maybe, just maybe, we are growing up after all.