Shagnasty’s pitting thread reminded me of a question I’ve wondered about. I’ve heard people complain a fair amount about baby boomers. Why? What have they done? What are they associated with that causes hostility? What were the trends in that generation?
So, in short, what’s wrong with baby boomers, if anything?
For purposes of this thread, a baby boomber is someone born from the end of WWII to the early 60s.
There are too damn many of them!
And they drive too slow!
We are the first big entitlement generation. Unlike the generations before us who considered themselves lucky to struggle through life, we felt we should get something just for showing up. We are incredibly self centered and greedy, a trait we picked up from our parents, who had grown up in the worst of times. Unfortunately most of us were born before me. I will be one of the last locusts to reach the field, after my older brothers and sisters have picked it clean.
You can complain all you want. Just consider your inheritance will not be there, and I’m not just talking what was going to be in the will, either.
And most won’t even have the decency to drop dead withing a few years of retiring.
I’m a baby boomer born in the 40s and I never had a sense of entitlement nor knew anyone else who did.
In fact, I started out in life surrounded by people who refused their parents offers for material things. We saw material things as normal and looked at our parents as odd for loving these things.
Of course growing up in the Depression was responsible for most of that.
We also had access to great jobs and they were easy to get and they had great benefits. Geez, I had dental insurance with a $2,000 cap in 1970. Can you believe that? And root canals and gum surgery were covered by medical not dental. And you had 20/80 plans for insurance.
I was able as an 18 year old kid, to move to NYC, get a job with Time magazine, start at NYU and get an agent with the William Morris Agency all in the span of about two months.
I grew up in a time of change it was exciting to be alive and see it. We had real changes. As you can see everything you wanted to do, just seemed to be so doable. That is if you were part of the norm and wanted to conform. Oh what a dirty word that was to me.
We also had real violence and an increase in crime. The goals were really not obtainable. Sure I had an agent at William Morris, but she hated everything I sent her. And it never occurred to me to ask for a new one.
As a woman, I got a great job at Time magazine with just a high school education. I was making 2.50/hr and paying $90/rent on a one bedroom apartment.
But as a woman I was treated like garbage. It’s laughable at the complaints I see now in the workplace, considering the indignities I put up with as a women then.
If you were black or heaven forbid gay (I lived in Greenwich Village so I had a lot of gay men there), life wasn’t so good at all.
By the early 70s, we had ended Vietnam, and it looked like with the ERA women would have real equal rights.
But nothing lasted. Ideas we found radical like total equality were stupid. Men and women are not ever going to be equal. They are different. That doesn’t make one better or one worse, but it means that it’s foolish to try for total equality.
Just go for equality in the things we can be equal with and learn to celebrate the differences.
I strongly disagree with sense of entitlement though, we worked hard, and expected to be rewarded for it. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is we expected for progress to continue forever. And it didn’t in many ways.
But a lot of us, based on what our mamas fed us, WILL, despite it all.
You poor bastids grew up unfamiliar with that which is butterfat and lard. More years does not mean happier years.
Yep, way too many of us. And instead of having a decent admirable war like WWII, we had that scuzzy thing in Viet Nam that we didn’t even win. Hell, what’s right with us? 
Many of them use words like “groovy” and “mellow”.
We had sex without worrying about pregnancy or disease, cheap gas and muscle cars, and properly animated cartoons. What’s not to envy?
Stereotyping a whole segment of humanity by ‘generation’ is as foolish as stereotyping them by ‘race’.
But hey, lots of words were expended declaring blacks to be lazy, jews to be money-grubbing, irish to be less than human, asians to be disloyal, etc. People have mostly learned better than to do that anymore, so have at it about boomers.
Well as someone one generation younger (parents are boomers) and in another country (I must add) it seems we are losing all entitlements they had. Here in the Netherlands the story is that the Boomers got to study (while receiving scholarships from the state) as long as they wanted (8/9 years was quite common) then they benefited from rising property value and all had the opportunity to retire at 58-60.
Nowadays students get less and less time and opportunities to study. If you need extra time you’ll be charged higher tuition. The scholarship isn’t anywhere near large enough to live off (so you need parents to chip in or get a parttime job, usually both). It is almost impossible - as a young family - to get mortages large enough for the properties in good neighbourhoods and the retirment age is going to be raised to 67 and probably even higher after that.
Off course everything is a bit more complicated, but this is how it looks. We see our 60 year olds (that often seem more like 40 year olds) living in their expensive houses - that we can’t imagine ever being able to afford, except as inheritance - driving their sportscars to play golf twice a week and tennis once a week. While we are looking at a future where we need to somehow pay for all these retirees. Seeing the political landscape, it also seems the boomers’ agenda is best represented.
ETA This is not necessarilly how I see things, but it is how it looks too many.
Agreed. I worked from the time I left high school until I retired, and managed to earn a degree along the way. I’m not sure how entitlement enters the picture in that scenario.
sry, that there are no ice floes for us to go sit out on…do you know you is STILL financing your asses? US!..adult children coming back home, single mothers leaving their babies with us to take care of, grown children “needing” a second car/boat/trip to Jamaica…& we’re supposed to co-sign for it. We drive too slow? We don’t “look good” anymore? Hey, this is what happens when Time catches up with you & you ain’t dead yet…you should be so lucky to experience it. What did our generation do? (We’re not “the Greatest Generation”, Tom Brokaw has pointed out.) But, we helped bring about Civil Rights. We helped bring about Women’s Rights. And we helped stop the Vietnam War. What have YOU done lately?
As a Boomer, I started working at 16 and continued until retirement. While attending college part time, I received my draft notice that ended my education for the moment and immediately joined the Air Force to avoid Vietnam. After discharge and while in my 20’s, whenever people my age discussed Social Security, we agreed it would not be there for our later years but I never felt bad about paying it because I was aware of elderly people surviving on their monthly pittance.
I never felt a sense entitlement but realized I needed to begin planning for my own future by not relying on the government to take me under their wing for my retirement security. I began saving for those years early on in life turning it into a routine but it was never easy. I had so many desires that could have been satisfied by the immediate use of that cash but as I look back, none were really important because they were “wants” as opposed to “needs”.
At 55 I stopped working because I wanted to and could because even though I’m not rich by any reasonably measure, I’m financially secure and I credit my personal discipline. Could I accomplish the same lifestyle today? Obviously, I’ll never know but if you’re young and want to blame a generation based on when they emerged from the womb and took advantage of whatever opportunities you believe were available to them, just be patient and wait your turn because your day may soon arrive from a future generation.
Adding to many good comments above, as one of the first baby boomers: We plan to live a long time in better health than our parents. We required our parents to build lots of schools. We will require you to finance our retirement. There are more of us than there are of you. We vote. Get used to it.
I’m the mother of a couple of Boomers. The Boomers are, for the most part, good citizens, hard-workers, productive people.
I hate to see any particular group signaled out as the cause of all our problems.
Such hostility is sorta silly - IMHO. 
Ok, but at least get over. You driving 30 in a 40 in the left-hand lane when I’m behind you makes me stabby.
An explanation of what I meant entitlement to mean, from a similar thread elsewhere on this board.