The other day I was sitting at the kitchen table with my fifteen-year-old son, who's in the throes of teen love. The conversation went something like this:
Me: How's your girlfriend?
Him: Check my relationship status on Facebook.
Me: Excuse me? I'm sitting right in front of you. You can just tell me. In person. It's called talking.
Him (rolling his eyes): Mom, you are so twentieth century.
Of course I was born in the twentieth century -- 1960, to be precise, when roughly half the population of the United States was under eighteen. Back then you could get a live person on the line simply by dialing "O" on a rotary phone, and it was impossible to imagine, except in some episode of Star Trek, that we might one day beam each others' faces onto screens and speak in real-time on iPhones or Skype, or feverishly ichat in long threads of electronic dialogue.
Now many of us are parenting eighteen-year-olds and parenting our parents, while we straddle a complicated new generational subdivision called the "sandwich generation" (a topic we will regularly cover on Huff/Post50). My kids can barely imagine the challenges that being part of this "sandwich generation" represent, just as they can barely imagine what their 50-plus parents have lived through. Everything about us is so painfully retro, even though what goes around comes around. (What are flares, anyhow, other than streamlined bellbottoms?) And so it's hard for my kids to imagine that when I was their age, the public school I attended had only recently allowed girls to wear pants. I remember carrying my pants to school in a paper bag, certain that not one girl would dare wear anything but a dress. (Happily, that was not the case.) This was a mini fashion revolution rooted in the burgeoning heydays of feminism. Back then, my (single) mother had a black boyfriend. It's equally hard for my kids to imagine the intensity of social outrage that this provoked.
My mother was shocked by this outrage at the time. She simply could not comprehend it. In retrospect, her idealism (or naivete) was stunning, yet it underscored a certain innocent and courageous spirit that was the hallmark of those years. We were still living in the era of Woodstock, Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement. Tough but extraordinary decades loomed ahead.
There are now roughly 78 million Baby Boomers. We invented the Information Age and inherited the Digital Age -- but these days even that has slightly dusty overtones to it. Who knows what our children's lives will be like, or what our lives will be like when we've reached our parents' age. Which brings me full circle.
We don't choose the decade we're born into. We can only hope that the collective entrepreneurial spirit of our generation can mobilize itself to create a better future not only for our kids, but for our parents and for ourselves. We can hope that as technology progresses, certain quintessentially human values will prevail, like sitting at the kitchen table and actually talking. Or reading a book from start to finish. Or enjoying the analog over the digital life. At Huff/Post50, we plan to bring you some of the best and brightest minds behind these crusades, along with intelligent musings on life and culture. Lest we forget, one of the best things about being a grownup is that we've usually accrued enough life experience to enjoy simple pleasures and understand the value of essential things in life. What seemed like platitudes before take on a sense of immediacy and significance -- like life is short. Carpe Diem.
We hope you enjoy Huff/Post50 and look forward to many discussions about life then, now, and in the future.
(1) The term "sandwich generation" is not a "new generational subdivision". It is not new nor is it a generation. Actually, this term has been used for over 20 years to refer to each new group of middle-aged people who feel "sandwiched" between the responsibilities of taking care of aging parents at the same time as raising children. It has everything to do with life cycle, and nothing to do with generation.
(2) Born in 1960, do you really feel like you are part of the Baby Boom Generation? You were 3 when the March on Washington happened. You were 9 years old during Woodstock's weekend. In the past it was different, but currently there are very few generational experts who would still consider you, born in '60, as part of the Baby Boom Generation. Almost all actual experts these days would argue that you were part of the demographic baby boom, but generationally you are a Joneser, not a Boomer.
1946-1964 saw a boom in babies. This has absolutely nothing to do with generations whatsoever, which have everything to do with shared formative experiences. Why is it that no generation ever--before or since the so-called Baby Boom "Generation"--has ever been defined in any way by birth rates? Because birth rates are completely irrelevant to generations, which is why virtually no real deal experts still use that old '46-'64 Boomer Generation definition.
Further, there is no such thing as a "technical" definition of the Boomer Generation. Generations are defined by the subjective opinions of experts like sociologists; typically a consensus emerges among these experts which then becomes "conventional wisdom". Such a consensus has recently emerged among experts that there were two distinct generations born during the '46-'64 baby boom.
If you spend some time researching this, you'll find that expert opinion in 2011 is:
Demographic boom in births: 1946-1964, Baby Boom Generation: 1942-1953, Generation Jones: 1954-1965. You'll find that while the exact birth years will vary a bit depending on the expert, this basic two-generation approach to the post-WWII baby boom has generally reached consensus among experts.
The "over 50" market is huge, diverse, and powerful. All we have to do is remind ourselves of this, and raise our voices a bit more. Together, we can make magic.
Congratulations on a very successful launch!
Barbara
Yes, you're right that the traditional definition of the Baby Boom Generation was 78 million people. But that old Boomer definition has virtually no support currently among social scientists who define these terms. Yes, there was a baby boom from 1946-1964, but generations are about formative experiences, not birth charts. Two generations were born then: the Baby Boom Generation ( born approx. 1942 to 1953) and Generation Jones (born approx. 1954 to 1965).
Polling repeatedly shows most Jonesers do not feel like Boomers. (e.g. one of your competitor sites--Third Age--comissioned a nationwide poll of those born the same year as Obama (1961) and found that they overwhelmingly believe they are part of this generation between Boomers and GenXers). The statistical personality differences between Baby Boomers and Jonesers are often dramatic.
Huff/Post 50 risks looking very out-of-date by using this mostly obsolete Boomer definition. By contrast, prominently displaying that it is aware of, and respects, that many born in the second half of the demographic baby boom feel they are Jonesers, not Boomers, would show that Huff/Post 50 is up with curent trends/thinking, and greatly reduces the risk of alienating a big chunk of its potential audience.
Keep in mind that most people find being lumped together with an entire generation inaccurate and irritating. Nevertheless, I think this "50" section has been pulled together nicely. But, good comment, HeyNowToday and one that I will keep in mind as a contributor to this new section on Huff Post.
"The name "Generation Jones" derives from a number of sources, including our historical anonymity, the "keeping up with the Joneses" competition of our populous birth years, and sensibilities coupling the mainstream with ironic cool. But above all, the name borrows from the slang term "jonesin' " that we as teens popularized to broadly convey any intense craving.
The Jones runs deep in us. It arose from our 1960s childhoods. While the Boomers were out changing the world, Jonesers were still in elementary school — wide-eyed, not tie-dyed. That intense love-peace-change-the-world zeitgeist stirred our impressionable hearts. We yearned to express our own voice. By the time we came of age and could take the stage, though, a decade of convulsions had left the nation fatigued. During the game we'd been forced to watch from the sidelines, and passage into college and careers came only after the final gun had long since sounded.
The Boomers had their opportunity, and the GenXers weren't around soon enough to bear witness. Neither was left jonesin'. But the actual children of the 1960s yearned for something more. Our unrequited idealism has bubbled beneath the surface ever since."