This is my first new thread, so I apologize if it’s in the wrong place. There wasn’t a division called “Rants”, but I wanted to get this off my chest.
I am a member of the “Baby Boomer” generation – they’ve told me this all my life. According to the portrait of Boomers that’s drawn by the Mdia, we were born around 1945, grew up watching Davy Crockett, Howdy Doody, and the Mickey Muse Club on our new TVs, and played with hula hoops in our suburban homes. In the 60s we became hippies.Some of us were drafted and went to Vietnam. In the seventies we discovered disco and wore loud fashions and became yuppies. In the eighties we really buckled down and became workaholics and watched “thirtysomething” on TV (a title cleverly chosen to embrace the whole generation. Now we’re getting those letters from the AARP and getting ready to retire, and taking Viagra.
But this isn’t me. I’m out of sync by at least a decade. I was born in 1955.
Here’s the thing I don’t understand – the start of the Boomer generation as born in 1945, but the PEAK of the Boomers occurred around 1955, with the tail ending, according to some, around 1964. In other words, MOST of the Boomers are in my situation – they can’t relate directly to the supposed “Boomer experience”. They were born AFTER the “classic” 50s TV shows aired, were too young for Woodstock or Haight-Ashbury or the Draft, were not even 30 when “thirtysomething” aired, and are still a long way rom thinking about retirement or Viagra. Someone born in 1964 can’t begin to relate to this scenario.
Yet there has never been any recognition of this in the Media. The experiences of those born in 1945 – the start of the Wave – are still treated as if they are characteristic of the entire Boom. We’ll see a lot more of this in the coming years, especially when the start of the Boom hits 65 in 2010, and they start alking about “all” of the Boomers retiring.
So why is it that no one else ever talks about how false this picture is? When I bring it up at parties, people agree with me. But I’ve never seen any mention of it in newspapers, magazines, or television.
I know what you mean…I take Baby Boomers to mean the children born after WW II. The soldiers came back from the war, immediately started families, and hence the “boom” of babies.
So, I am a Baby Boomer. My dad was a WW II vet. The thing is, I am the youngest of three kids…my dad married late, and I was born when he was 41. So, I was way too young to get much out of the 60s, I wasn’t 30 when “30-something” aired, etc. I still feel like I am just hitting my stride, and now they are talking about us “aging” Boomers? Excuuuuse me?!?
I heard on a radio program once that the “younger” Boomers are called “Tweeners” - between Baby Boomer and Gen X. Too young to be a Boomer, too old to be Gen Ex. Sounds about right.
I just wrote an article on this very subject for yesterday’s issue of my organization’s daily newsletter. Here it is in case anyone’s interested (I think it turned out pretty well)…
One of the research studies I cited calls the younger wave of Boomers “Generation Jones,” or “jonesers.” Better than tweeners if you ask me; I keep hearing Beavis saying “heh-heh…you said weiners…heh-heh…”
Because the biggest reason Boomers have had such success in setting the national agenda is that they stick together. The sheer size of the Boomer cohort isn’t solely responsible for their success - if it were the X-ers (who are a lot bigger) would be better off. It’s been the Boomer ability to project a unified front (against the war, for disco) that’s been responsible for a lot of their success.
I was born in '64. That’s right, the very last year for being a boomer. What really sucks is that one theory of the current economic expansion holds that all of the money being invested in the stock market will start getting pulled out again as the boomers start retiring. How about my pension? As the very last of the boomers, I ought to be looking at a really horrible rate of return, right about the time I would be taking out my money.
