I’ve been thinking about people “of a certain age” lately (the first wave of the Baby Boomer decades). It started with the reactions of this age bracket to my lobby to implement yearly driver testing at the young age of 60, mentioned in several posts here on the hazards of having people still driving around who should be stopped. I am continually surprised at how many people are so hell bent on keeping their illusion of youth that they are willing to put others at risk for it.
If anything, I would have thought the generation that brought about so much social change in the 60s and 70s, from war protests to feminism, reproductive rights, gender and racial equality and more would have been willing to keep going. I would have thought they would be making social changes for the better well into their aging years, continuing to inspire us to do better as well. Instead, they seem to be making decisions that are selfish, one after the other, trashing a variety of things for the coming generations.
I know this post is hyper-generalized, and that not every person in this age bracket is like this. But enough boomers are like this that the generalization seems warranted. After all, if you are one of those people “not like that” and are in the generation of boomers, and you aren’t fighting the wave of selfishness coming from that direction, that makes you part of the problem as well, doesn’t it?
I’ll be fair – the baby boomers didn’t ask to part of the largest generation born in a certain time frame. It isn’t their fault that their parents chose to overpopulate the country in a few short years. What is their fault is the toll their sheer numbers, their entitled attitude and their refusal to see their own mortality is taking on the next generation.
Baby boomers born in the first half of the Boomer years** seem to have an odd sense of entitlement overall. When they were young, in the 60s, they fought The Establishment in attitude, clothes, music and resistance. Now that they have become The Establishment themselves, they refuse to see that in making the transformation they lost their “cool” factor. They don’t get that they became the very thing they fought so hard against. One example is how the boomer representatives voted in the vote to enter into war with Iraq.
Representatives in the age bracket to possibly have protested the Vietnam war and been incensed it was dubbed a “police action”, preventing soldiers from receiving some benefits related to war, were all over voting for a war in Iraq years later. They did this without even requiring more justification than one irate President’s ravings. Had they waited until the proof that there were no WMDs and that Iraq wasn’t even the cause of the attack on 9/11, we may have saved billions of dollars. Those billions would have done much to help offset the cost of the housing bubble popping in this looming recession.
Baby boomers have a sense of entitlement about growing older and death as well. By their refusal to adopt an attitude of death with dignity and overall wellness in life, our health care system is now focused on keeping people alive well past a time when it is cost effective or beneficial to do so. This takes focus away from prevention, wellness and educating the younger generation about ways to stay healthy. Worse, it has bred a mind set that you don’t have to be responsible for your own health in a proactive way, because people now expect the medical establishment to work miracles on them at great cost to the younger generations as they age. It also does nothing to further the cause of dying with dignity.
Many people complain about the burden on the social security system as baby boomers age. Frankly, I think this is a problem created by more than just the baby boomer generation alone. The generation before them stopped saving for their own retirement in the age of a solid social security system and company pensions. Then, in the quest to “rock the establishment”, baby boomers made changes to the way business was done that made inroads on a pension system already straining under the pressure of so many boomers in the work force.
By the time baby boomers started borrowing against pensions and voting to borrow against social security to fund political agendas as if it were their own giant piggy bank instead of money earmarked for their kids as well, it was too late to save either system. Now the baby boomers are exacerbating the problem as their lobby, the AARP (that’s right, boomers, you are getting older now, whether you want to acknowledge it or not), refuses to allow congress to change the system to handle the load.
This means that my generation must rely on our own savings to retire. But wait, we won’t be able to retire. Baby boomers’ refusal to see their own mortality won’t let us. Because many baby boomers refuse to admit that you can’t put death or aging off forever, many of them haven’t really planned for their care. That means that when we get time to retire we will be working still, to support our parents and our kids, because the job market couldn’t grow as fast as the population did in the 50s, and the people born then refuse to change the way companies work now to accommodate an increased population and a need for more jobs kept here at home.
It is the baby boomer set that first began to “outsource” American jobs to better line the corporate coffers back in the 80s. I’m sure this seemed innovative at the time, and I certainly hope that the people who started the trend simply weren’t forward thinking enough to know how it would harm our economy. Mainly because if they did foresee this damage that would mean they inflicted it on purpose, and that would mean that there was no hope of ever rekindling that flame of change that used to burn in their hearts.
For in the end that is what this post is about – rekindling a flame of change. Am I angry at the way the generation that so inspired me lost its way? Absolutely. For whatever they fought for, even when it was directly opposing (one side protesting Vietnam, one side fighting there; one side burning bras, one side pushing for a return to family values; one side protesting segregation, one side fighting integration), they fought for it with passion. The baby boomers we studied in school believed in change, and now they have allowed themselves to be ruled by fear.
Fear of what? Danger, change, aging, illness, death. Fear of the lies being told us by the very government they resisted way back when. Fear of becoming obsolete. Fear of abandonment by their children. Fear of the innovation they wanted so much to inspire when they were young. So much fear it cripples them. I’d give an inspirational speech now about how my generation can be the next generation of change, and that is true, to a point.
We will be the next generation of change. But in order to do that, we need the help of the baby boomers. They are going to be around and in positions of power for a long time to come. We need them to reach back to their past to help ensure our future. We need them to spend their final years in power fighting once again for what is right. There is still time to undo at least some of the damage done to society – health care, social security, the economy, jobs, the government. There is time to repeal mistakes like the Patriot Act, get rid of problems like health insurance companies mucking up the works, set new examples for the younger set by making responsible decisions about how driving should be handled as you age, and more.
Can the baby boomers once again answer the call? And if not, is my generation, Generation X, and the one coming after us ready to answer the call and take their place? I hope so. It is too sad watching every backwards step we’ve taken over the years, and never more so than now.
–
**# Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from 1946 to 1954)
* Memorable events: assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, political unrest, walk on the moon, Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women’s movement, protests and riots, experimentation with various intoxicating recreational substances
* Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented (from Wikipedia)Baby Boomer cohort #2 or Generation Jones (born from circa 1956–1964)
Memorable events: Watergate, Nixon resigns, the Cold War, lowered drinking age in many states 1970-1976 (followed by raising), the oil embargo, raging inflation, gasoline shortages, Jimmy Carter’s imposition of registration for the draft, punk or new wave from Deborah Harry and techno pop to Annie Lennox and MTV
Key characteristics: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism
Key members: Douglas Coupland who initially was called a Gen Xer but now rejects it and Barack Obama who many national observers have recently called a post-Boomer, and more specifically part of Generation Jones[29][30][31][32]
Excellent piece. I agree with you completely. I hope I , as a Gen Xer, can do something to revive the spirit of change in society; but it is a daunting task. So well-written, Leslie. Very timely. Very important.
My honey read this, and told me that he understood what I want to say, but that many baby boomers may read it only as “I hate old people”, not as a good opinion piece. I hope not. I hope they read it through.
Being a ‘baby boomer’ I could not get past the anger you feel towards a body of people as a whole. It appears you are angry that you will not have the ‘privileges’ of your elders, probably because you were spoiled by “baby boomers’ who provided more for you than you can provide for yourself … life is not fair and most ‘baby boomers’ were given only a work ethic and the ability to believe they could do better that the generation before them. You might want to take that lesson from the ‘baby boomers’ and not blame them for the state of the economy, the environment, the future … don’t forget we are in the midst of all you are concerned about, no one intentionally does the wrong thing … we do the best we can with the knowledge we have at that time … when we know better, we do better. Youth is a wonderful time … but sooner than you would like you will be the “problem” talked about by the generation coming behind you. Well written … but one-sided.
See, that’s what honey said it sounded like to him too, and it is frustrating the heck out of me that I failed at getting my point across. I am not angry at baby boomers at all, I’m more…. disappointed?? Event hat isn’t quite the right word, because I’m not just disappointed, I admire boomers too…
I come from a generation who really look up to the boomers for all of your achievements in the 60s and 70s, and who love you because you are our parents. And as we get older, its like the drive for change just …. petered out? So I was trying for a rallying cry to get boomers back into the groove of change that they were so good at before, because we need it now more than ever.
It’s a complicated issue, because I think the REASON the change isn’t the focus anymore are the things I mentioned in the post, the focus on other things, like fear of aging. So I think both generations should work together for change to happen again, BUT it seems I didn’t get it across like I’d hoped.
Hold a mirror up to a boomer and they will not see their reflection.
They are like vampires. I think it is interesting the boomer comment that says they were given a work ethic. A work ethic is a great thing to have, as long as there are jobs to apply it at or ideas and capital to create new jobs. All of which are gone.
You are not alone in your view of the boomers.
The boomers need to be written off. The analogy that works the best is, “Their sh1t doesn’t stink.” Don’t expect them to realize their culpability either. You are beating your head against the wall.
Remember the slogans of the baby boomer generation, “Take it easy”, “relax”, “Don’t be so uptight”. It was inculcated into them from the time they were born. Why? No one really knows. It is the way it is.
It is sad that we will be left to clean up the mess.
Of course we are angry. $9 trillion in debt. Only 10% of the jobs in this country are manufacturing. It would be a shock if we weren’t angry.
I am really confused now. I don’t know where I fit into your Boomer description. Sure, I hate getting older. This year, I went from being mobile to having arthritic knees. I had cataract surgery. I bought a CPAP machine. And you don’t think I should worry about my quality of life? I’m not that old!
I am really confused now. I don’t know where I fit into your Boomer description. Sure, I hate getting older. This year, I went from being mobile to having arthritic knees. I had cataract surgery. I bought a CPAP machine. And you don’t think I should worry about my quality of life? I’m not that old! I put my hubby through school, and stayed home with the kids while he worked for the federal government protecting the environment. He and his coworkers caused virtual elimination of the use of clorine in manufacturing. I did volunteer work promoting community health. We attended a local church. We had a family culture of hospitality. We raised intellegent, compassionate, hardworking children. What exactly did you want us to do differently? Join the Peace Corps? No, I don’t think we are all vampires, and we weren’t privileged, except for the privilege of having hardworking ancestors for several generations. I don’t propose to prop myself in a corner and die for your benefit. I just don’t get what you want me to do (other than not endanger others on the highway). If I’m still around when you turn 60, and my mother is 95 now, so there’s hope, I will be very interested on what you think then.
Boomers, do not waste time, thought or breath attempting to rationally explain ANYTHING to a Gen-Xer! They see only what they are and what America itself has become in this day and age- BLIND HATE. Just wait until
Generation-Y cleans their clocks! SWEET REVENGE!
Mainly because if they did foresee this damage that would mean they inflicted it on purpose, and that would mean that there was no hope of ever rekindling that flame of change that used to burn in their hearts.
sleep apnea machine
Right now I'm listening to some boomer men in the next room talk about collecting social security early. I am at work, these men are employed and in fine health. One of them wants to collect at 62. That will come directly from my paycheck to them. I am taxed to the brink. They grew up in a completely different world than I did. My generation cannot find work, and will never recover from their policies. They think of us as lazy because that's what all old people think of young people. There are no jobs. Hopefully they will still be alive when Social Security runs out (which should be very soon) and we can use them as cannon fodder- as they have used us.
Also, please check out something called “the Fourth Turning”
Knowledge gives weight, gives glory to achievement, most people only see the glory, not to weigh the weight! http://www.alliask.net
It’s been a plan of the Government sense the 1950′s to eliminate the baby boomers either through war casualties of health issues or breakdown of their own desire to excel and exist, to make ourselves feel useless and incapable to function in a society and to chose to be exterminated like the Jews during the Holocaust.Because we know to much. Why don’t you read the Archive of 2004 X Conference. Then read it again but this time between the lines, if your smart enough to comprehend.You should learn from an old dog, not put him to sleep.God Bless your sorry ass, cause nobody else is going to give a crap.