While I am not a boomer, nor Gen X, I have a hard time feeling sorry for Boomers. Your generation came of age during a great economy. And your generation took the birth control pill and for a short while legitimately had twice the earning power of the prior generations. That worked for a while until all the women in the workforce pushed wages down. Now two incomes is a sad necessity for most young families.
Your generation also went wild on unconventional behavior. Right and wrong was muddled. Divorce became commoonplace in the 70s and latch key kids became a real thing.
I recall being a teenager (I was born in 1970) listening to Boomers being exasperated with their children not listening to them. As a smart mouth teen I would ask them if they would ever behave like this when they were young and they would almost always look at me like I was the most stupid person in the world. They would say of course not, my parents would have killed me. Then I would give them the look like, well why don’t you do the same. And suddenly they looked rather small.
However I can’t really hate on Boomers because there has never been a time in history when human beings could control their fertility. As we can see around the world and despite culture or religion, women went for birth control in a big way. That is imo, the most significant event that turned our culture. Women went from being nurturing moms to boss babes who can do anything a man can do. And how have the children suffered for it.
And now the youth are so strapped, they may not even have children. I guess that’s one way to make sure the rent is paid on time.
Your generation came of age during a great economy. You forgot Jimmy Carter? By then we had a house and Hubby had to drive for work, a company vehicle, we didn't own a car of our own.
And your generation took the birth control pill Nobody that I knew used the pill. It had side affects back then.
and for a short while legitimately had twice the earning power of the prior generations. I wish.
That worked for a while until all the women in the workforce pushed wages down. That became a necessity in cities. I lived in suburbs/rural area and the Moms were stay-at home Moms. And no, women were not paid less although libs love to push that lie. How many male secretaries were there? Waitresses? Nurses? Teachers? etc.
Now two incomes is a sad necessity for most young families. That depends on what they're buying.
Your generation also went wild on unconventional behavior. Right and wrong was muddled. You believed what the press was pushing? They weren't anymore truthful back then than they are now. Yes, they can and did influence future behavior.
Divorce became commonplace in the 70s and latch key kids became a real thing. Yup. The press and culture convinced women to "find themselves". The feminist movement did a lot of damage, pushed by the press and Hollywood.
I recall being a teenager (I was born in 1970) listening to Boomers being exasperated with their children not listening to them. As a smart mouth teen I would ask them if they would ever behave like this when they were young and they would almost always look at me like I was the most stupid person in the world. They would say of course not, my parents would have killed me. Then I would give them the look like, well why don’t you do the same. And suddenly they looked rather small.My oldest came home from school spouting that I couldn't spank him anymore because he could have me arrested. He was in 2nd grade. He also told me that his teacher said to throw my cigarettes in the toilet....he did and got spanked. I handed him the phone to turn me in and he hung it up.
You blame a lot on "Boomers" without taking into account the power of Hollywood and the press, even the schools. It's called manipulation and it still works today, you know, like TikTok posts......
“Your generation also went wild on unconventional behavior.”
Not quite. It was a loud-mouthed minority that did most of that stuff. They got all the attention. Most of us reported when drafted and did our duty, or graduated high school and went to work and started our own families.