Current period ordinary citizen avoids initially (6,3)
I believe the answer is:
common era
'current period' is the definition.
(current period of history)
'ordinary citizen avoids initially' is the wordplay.
'ordinary citizen' becomes 'commoner'.
'initially' says to take the initial letters.
The first letter of 'avoids' is 'a'.
'commoner'+'a'='COMMON ERA'
(Other definitions for common era that I've seen before include "these days" , "In Christian times" , "this time" .)