USA Today headlined recently with the exasperated question, "Will Boomers Ever Yield the Stage?" and I could feel the sigh from here. There followed a series of articles debating this query; timely, no doubt, what with battle lines now drawn between Social Security vs. job security, Medicare vs. Mommy-care and, of course, facelift vs. Facebook. The Young have apparently gone to the mattresses, weary of Woodstock retreads, relentless "new" Beatles releases, and the sense that no amount of fashion forward will ever convince anyone that bell-bottoms and platforms are "fresh again." Those damn Boomers are a tough act to follow and every Generation since has been left gasping in what little cultural oxygen they left behind.
...Are you kidding me?!!
I'd be affronted by this generational throwdown except for one thing: it's completely manufactured. A faux battle whipped up by provocateurs who find reason to pit even eras against each other. (And we wonder why we have wars!)
Does anyone really think the Generations since are paying any attention to what the Boomers did or didn't do...or to the Boomers themselves? Laughably, no! They don't have time and, frankly, they don't care.
I know younger people. Some are my friends. Some are family members. I work with some, workout with others. The ones I know span several post-Boomer generations and I'm here to tell you, they are not gauging their value, their ability to contribute or their historical legacy against my large and lumpy generation.
First of all, they're younger. And younger by its very nature means self-confident, self-focused, certainly thinner and with better skin. Regardless of which Gen we're talking about, they're typically fixated on things youngish. Anything from getting famous, being hot, graduating college, designing software, planning weddings, starting foundations, birthing babies, getting careers established or staying abreast of the latest iPad. They're doing whatever it is people do at whatever stage of life they're in. Why on earth does anyone think they give a rat's... well, care at all about being compared to Boomers who are all pretty much just... old?
It's a trick, this question, a red herring, designed to deflect from the fact that, in the zeitgeist of today, it isn't the past that's hogging the cultural spotlight, it's gerascophobia, the "fear of aging"; a syndrome so pronounced it has six syllables.
I'm not sure who's to blame for this growing malaise -- the media, reality TV, cosmetic surgery, Justin Bieber -- but nowadays it isn't just lovely to be young, nice to have all that energy, so many opportunities, all that attention being paid... no, nowadays, young is a religion, a movement; a cult. And if you are not a member (unless you're Cher or Betty White), it's time to go.
Gerascophobia has tsunami-ed over our society, leaving it willing to slough off its elders like so much sagging skin, as if there were no admirable, appealing, energized older folk worth emulating... or even listening to (certainly none with their original faces). Consequently, we've literally scared our Young into believing there really is no there there. There, beyond the dreaded fork in the youth-road. Our print media, entertainment models, and standards of what's beautiful or attention-worthy have so convinced the Young that youth is the only commodity that matters that the black hole of older age is simply terrifying. Age, with all its moldy implications, has become as repulsive as leprosy (in one article the image of shoving Boomers off on ice floes was actually articulated... could an island colony be far behind?)
Consider a Facebook exchange I read recently: 20-ish Woman One: "Wasn't it great to see Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford together again on Oprah?!" 20-ish Woman Two: "Dude, I was so bummed to see how old they both got!!" Wow. Is it possible this girl actually believed Bob and Babs would remain the way they were forever? What a shock to realize that if even rich and famous people can't actually stop aging, her fate is clearly sealed.
In all fairness, some of our Young are arguably less terrified of age than others. And the smart ones reject the idea that any one Generation is a great big monolithic thing sucking energy, taking up space or "hogging the cultural spotlight" from any other. Whether X, Y, Millennial, Experiential, Boomer, or The Greatest, a Generation is less a thing than an amalgam of people, events, experiences, accomplishments, and serendipity, all directly related to the times they're in, their particular moment in the Youth Spotlight. We all get one. And one is not better than another; I don't care what Tom Brokaw says. Every Generation makes its mark, regardless of size or place in history. Accomplishment, discovery, invention, and innovation are happening every minute of every day, year after year, generation after generation and while we're all still here on this earth, we Generations can peacefully coexist, making our marks simultaneously and uniquely as we all grow older; graciously, fearlessly, and together.
And just so you know, we Boomers aren't going anywhere yet. So just breathe, all of you...there's plenty of air to go around.
Follow Lorraine Devon Wilke on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LorraineDWilke
Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Leaving Narcissism Behind: True Boomer Power
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Only 28% of the boomers plan on retiring. The rest either say they can't afford to or don't want to because they love their job.
The first and last generation to ever get such a priviledge because they pulled the ladder up behind them.
And I know alot of union people at the golf club too.Their kids wont get generous pensions.And most dont care.They got theirs.
thank a boomer.
The boomers should not be blamed for what our politicians did and do. Democrats voted for Gore, but Bush was selected by the courts.
We should all focus in on most of our news media. They cover for the politicians and government. They don't show the politician saying anything that the people would not vote for. When the politician gets elected he says he has a mandate.
Anyway, it is the corporate conservatives that have done most of the harm to this country. It doesn't have to Republicans. Democrats have had a lot of corportate conservatives. For a long time I kept thinking the Democrats would put a stop to a lot of what was happening, but they didn't. It took a lot of us a long time to realize we didn't have good representation. Voting became a matter of choosing between two bad choices.
Blanch Lincoln and Kent Conrad are examples of corporate conservatives. Another way to describe corporate conservatives is to call them the 'Money People'.
We need to quit putting other generations down and blaming them. We need to focus on the corporate conservative money people who are shipping our jobs overseas and are trying to wipe out middle class benefits.
The conservative blogs voted for Bush, but the courts selected him.
I'd like to see the boomers remove the stigma from aging. Too bad they couldn't have done it for their own parents generation, but it still isn't too late to work at that social movement now.
Do we have world class schools?NO.
Do we have free college or trade schools like other countires?NO
Do we have universal healthcare?NO
Have workers wages and benefits improved?NO
Heve we created industries and jobs for our kids other than wars?NO.
The baby boomers gift to the world is gross inequality, the Iraq and Afghan wars, paedddophile scares and the most overcontrolled childoods in history.Not much to be proud of.
the best thing the boomers could do for the world would be to pass good voluntary euthanasia laws in every state, and then to just do the deed when we hit, say, 70. I say this as a boomer. Why stick around? Pointless and cruel for everyone. I am pro-choice at both ends.
You do know we spend more on the last 2 months of life than the first 70.Yet anouther bill left for our kids to pay off.
It is even more wrong to cut the Social Security Rate while the boomer are retiring:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-the-nerd-ferraro/rich-guy-discounts-2011_b_821493.html
Cutting the Social Security Rate while the boomers are retiring was one of those ‘In the dead of the night’ behind locked doors deal that Obama made with the Republicans for unemployment benefits. He did promise he would pay it back out of the general fund this year.
Boomers came into their early professional lives when wages became stagnant and the war against the middle class was in its infancy. With stagnant wages, raising young families relied on ever-dwindling purchasing powers and supplementing with debt. Companies made trillions off their struggles while quieting their political voices sometime after Reagan came into power.
When many of us in college in the mid/late 90s protested against cuts, lack of jobs, and raids on Iraq, only a handful of boomers joined or lead with us. The remainder were struggling to support teens/college kids and/or having their first coronaries.
GenXers have been in the workforce for about 24 years and carry the burdens of political ennui. We were all sleeping at the wheel while the economic elite rose into power.
Those of us on the tail end of the GenX group are used to scarce jobs. Too many in my class never held a permanent one. We have only had full-time/multiple part-time contracts. No benefits. We have too many degrees, not enough opportunities, dismal retirement savings (what is that?!). But we have community gardens, use short-term car rentals, and have re-discovered the joys of finding endless inner spaces in a 400sq. apartment.
With the wealth siphoned up, we know that boomers can't retire. Not with debts, savings decimated, and the country's sham of a health care system.
The gen x need to write or phone their representatives and they will learn that a letter or phone call doesn't do the trick.
Some of the Boomers are just still fighting over the Sixties, always will...
People of all generations are different and only have to give each other respect.
The blame game does not empower anyone.
Some of the younger generations complain that we have more than them. We should have more since we have worked 30-45 years.
There is as much difference in the younger generations as there is among the older boomer generation. We are like snowflakes, none of us are identical.
Look around you. You will see many boomers still working because they can't afford to quit. Others continue working because they like to work. Only 28% of the boomers plan on retiring, so over two thirds of them are still paying in to Social Security and Medicare.
I love them for doing that, but it makes me mad that they still need to work because of lost investments and malfeasance and mismanagement by our government.
Lumping the younger generations in the same category is what the boomers are having to deal with too.
Most of the younger generations have more than I did and my siblings did. Some in the next generation are pampered, but not all of them.
Raising a family on one salary became very hard to do starting around 1976 or so. Mothers who worked gave their children a lot more than the mothers who didn't work.
Volker like to have ruined us with high interest rates. Our banks had quit loaning so we had a variable rate farm loan.