# How come us old guys are knocking ourselves off? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 10, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122 "2014-09-10T22:51:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/41 "2014-09-12T14:23:13Z")
I’m 53, and it has never yet occurred to me that I ought to kill myself. So, I’m the wrong guy to ask. I still have a year to go, I suppose. We’ll see if I’m still around for my 55th birthday. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/42 "2014-09-12T15:17:58Z")
I think suicide has become more publicly accepted, more people are considering it a “choice”, whether or not to continue their lives. Also, religion and the strictures thereof are less important to many late boomers. Rather than knowing you are damning yourself to hell for suicide, rather than knowing your family would be ashamed if you commit suicide, there’s now a moral neutrality to the act. People feel sorry for the person who commits suicide, giving it a desired “well, if they didn’t understand me in life, my death will show them!” aspect. Just MHO StG ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/43 "2014-09-12T15:34:16Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Since my parents were depression-era parents (Mom grew up in an early Chicago project, Dad in tenements and joined to fight in WWII only because his mother wouldn’t sign the papers to let him professionally box under 18, and when he got back and made decent money in sales would not take his money because she was sure he could only make cash like that beating people up for the mob) I think I have a very good idea of what a child of depression era parents went through, at least for an n of 5 kids (me and my four older sibs). And for quite a few others. > > _My_ depression-era parents had nothing, hardly any education, and moved into middle class and upper middle class. Most of my generation (and I admit I am the tail end at 55 but clearly more Boomer than not and sibs all clearly Boomers) got every possible advantage, especially the chance to be educated as far as our brains and motivation would take us. What have we accomplished with those advantages compared to what they did with so little? Did we beat Hitler? Did we pull ourselves out of poverty and provide our kids with a better life than we had? If you do not think that is the circumstance for many, then we will simply have to disagree … not for the first or last time. > > In short my parents generation was tough; they had to be. We Boomers are in comparison wimps and many don’t understand about victory going to the one who gets back up one more time than he is knocked down. Your story reminds me of something my father (who is 69) told me once. When he looks back at his parents, he sees nothing but sacrifice. They had six kids and they seemed to put every grain of their being into giving them a better life than they had. But that wasn’t that hard for them to do, seeing as how they were so poor. If you’re at the bottom, you can only go up. But he readily admits he didn’t do any sacrificing for his children. I don’t know if he’s being self-deprecating or not when he says this, but he says he had hopes that we would turn out okay, but he wasn’t driven to give us a better life than his. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/44 "2014-09-12T15:48:25Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > No doubt he has boomer males mixed up with their kids. Our parents lived thru the depression and beat Hitler. > [@DSeid](#): > > Did we beat Hitler? You’re thinking of the comparable generation in the former Soviet Union, and perhaps other countries where the impact of WWII was much worse than in the US/Canada. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/45 "2014-09-12T16:01:10Z")
Um given that my Dad served in WW2 and I lost much extended family to the Holocaust, no, I am talking about them. WW2 and the boom that followed shaped that generation probably more than anything else. Growing up in that boom, the Viet Nam War, and what followed shaped mine. We are a very cynical generation. That serves us well in many ways and is probably more realistic. But cynicism has potential costs as well. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/46 "2014-09-12T18:54:18Z")
Can the OP clarify something? Don’t tell us the rates of suicide for guys my age have “doubled”- tell us what the rates went from and what they are now. I mean, to oversimplify, IF the suicide rate WAS 1.5 per 1,000 men and now it’s 3 per 1,000 men, that wouldn’t amount to much of an increase, really, even if the rate technically “doubled.” So, are we witnessing a skyrocketing number of suicides or just a statistical blip? How many 50-54 year old men committed suicide in 1993 and how many did so last year? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/47 "2014-09-12T20:54:43Z")
Yeah, I went out for lunch today and expected I’d be stepping over one or two old guys. But nope, didn’t see a one. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/48 "2014-09-12T21:15:35Z")
To close to answer the question with numbers easily available in the CDC link earlier provided - In 1999 the rate for 50 to 54 males was 20.3/100,000. In 2010 it was 30.7/100,000. However to call that consistent trend over two decades “just a statistical blip” is inaccurate, even if 9997 out of every 10,000 males in that group do not kill themselves. [Yes](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr62/nvsr62_06.pdf), ten times as many in the complete 45 to 64 year old cohort die of cancer (number one for the age group), and seven times as many die of heart disease, But it is still over 3% of all deaths in the age group and a bigger cause of death in that group than are strokes. A cause of death that should be preventable more than many others and one whose impact on those in the individual’s family is particularly devastating. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/49 "2014-09-12T21:29:55Z")
Another way to look at it is that suicide is the cause of death for twice as many males in the 50 to 54 year old group as is colon cancer (about 10/100K). Breast cancer kills about the same number of women in the 45 to 54 year old cohort (and only twice as many in the 55 to 64 year old female cohort die of breast cancer than that); are those numbers so small as to count as statisitcal blips too? Would breast cancer mortality increasing by 50% for 45 to 54 year old women be not “much of an increase”? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/50 "2014-09-12T22:40:46Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Yeah, I went out for lunch today and expected I’d be stepping over one or two old guys. But nope, didn’t see a one. If you look around, and you can’t spot the old guy … ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2014, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122/51 "2014-09-13T02:36:00Z")
Some data [from Pew](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/06/25/baby-boomers-the-gloomiest-generation/) about the characteristics of the Boomers. (About 6 years old at this point.) > [@](#): > > Members of the large generation born from 1946 to 1964 are more downbeat about their lives than are adults who are younger or older, according to a new Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey. > > Not only do boomers give their overall quality of life a lower rating than adults in other generations, they also are more likely to worry that their incomes won’t keep up with inflation — this despite the fact that boomers enjoy the highest incomes of any age group. > > More so than those in other generations, boomers believe it is harder to get ahead now than it was 10 years ago. And they are less apt than others to say their standard of living exceeds the one their parents had when their parents were the age they are now. … > > … When it comes to quality-of-life assessments, data suggest the boomers generally have been downbeat, compared with other age groups, for the past two decades — starting back when some were still in their twenties. So their current sour ratings may be related to getting older, but they also may be related to the attitudes and expectations about life they formed when they were young. … > > … Baby boomers are pessimistic not only about their own finances, but also about everyone else’s. They are more likely than younger or older Americans to believe that it is harder to make progress, and easier to lose ground, than it was in the past. > > Two-thirds of baby boomers say it is harder for people to get ahead now than a decade ago. That is a more downbeat assessment than other age groups give. … > > … Looking into their financial futures, only 26% of the baby boomers said then that they expected to live very comfortably in retirement. That was a lower percentage than either younger people (37%) or older ones (33%), many of whom already are retired. > > On the other hand, another theory is offered by University of Chicago sociologist Yang Yang, who suggests that the huge size of the baby boom generation — 76 million — created more competition for schooling and jobs than smaller generations encountered. This competition, so the theory goes, creates stress. In a recently published research paper,1 she proposed the theory to explain why three decades of data from the General Social Survey indicate that boomers have experienced less happiness on average during their lives than younger or older adults. Their [more recent data](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/12/20/baby-boomers-approach-65-glumly/): > [@](#): > > At the moment, the Baby Boomers are pretty glum. Fully 80% say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country today, compared with 60% of those ages 18 to 29 (Millennials); 69% of those ages 30 to 45 (Generation Xers) and 76% of those 65 and older (the Silent and Greatest Generations) … So _the measurable fact_ is that Boomers (and that is defined in this study as up to a birth in 1964) have been and continue to be relatively gloomy group with less optimism than those generationally above or below them. Given that fact it is unsurprising that more of them get depressed and even suicidal than more optimistic, hopeful, and resilient cohorts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-us-old-guys-are-knocking-ourselves-off/698122.md?page=2)