Posted on 02/27/2011 3:03:31 AM PST by Scanian
Baby Boomers are having a hard time. Not just with the economy, or the health issues that crop up in your 50s and 60s, or even getting caught between taking care of our aging parents and unemployed kids.
No, I’m talking about the fact that many Boomers, of which I am one, do not want to grow up.
Those of us born in the Baby Boomer period, between 1946 and 1964, range in age from 47 to 65. We are either on the young side of old, or we’re just a hop, skip and hopefully not a fall into 70.
I don’t know that we mind growing up, but many of us don’t want to grow old. But certain Boomer minds have somehow merged the two. In order not to grow old, they have taken the position that they will simply not grow up.
You see it in the absurd notion put forward by journalists and advertisers — “50 is the new 30.” “60 is the new 40.” We buck each other up by dressing and behaving like it’s true, as though if we repeat it enough we will actually make it so.
And because we are Boomers and have been at the forefront of so many innovations, from rock ’n’ roll to the computer, some have this misguided impulse to act hip. Have you ever seen so many 50-year-olds dressed like teenagers? In my grandfather’s and even my father’s era, grown men did not wear sneakers, shorts, T-shirts and caps unless they were actually involved in an athletic activity. Grown men did not go to work looking like they were headed for sleep-away camp.
My grandfather dressed in slacks and a shirt and sensible shoes and a suit every day for work.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Didn't have time to read through all the comments on this thread, but a general point is that after the age of about 30-35 the relationship between true chronological age and physiological age splays dramatically in the general population. I'm a doc, and have seen 95 year olds who are totally intellectually intact and still ‘go out for lunch’, and have seen 30 year olds who look like they are 50 or more.
Some of it is genetics, and some of it is about how abusive people are to themselves, but I am also convinced that attitude effects how you age. Just my two-cents, but I think cynicism makes people age faster.
Yes. :-)
She now spends much of her time blogging and doing consulting on Indian films.
Sounds like we got us a Socialist Baby Boomer here. Wanting to tell all of us other Boomers what to say, do and wear. I suggest getting that fudgesicle stick surgically removed from your port side there buddy and loosen up and put on a pair of sneaks and chill out.
Some boomers are just whiney sorts. Do we think we're the first generation to have to deal with these issues? How about our Grandparents, who lived through the Depression with THEIR parents, sometimes grandparents, AND the children, all in one house. And that house was a few hundred square feet smaller, had only one indoor bathroom, if it had that at ALL, and didn't have an electric washer and dryer.
Boomers need to get a big dang GRIP, and learn to deal with it.
Kind of interesting part concerning the manner of dress. My dad will be 78 the end of the year and he does not wear jeans. When he goes casual, the style of dress would be defined as “business casual”. Even Gen-X which I am a part of, we are similar to the Boomers in terms of it.
I had jobs where I had to dress up and unlike my dad or other men his age, when I got home from work, the first thing I did was change clothes to shorts/jeans and t-shit/sweatshirt. My dad on the other hand might take the tie off when he got home but the dress slacks and shirt would stay on until bed !
There are some boomers that believed in dressing up. One company I worked for, we had a lot of former IBM folks who were in management. I have been talked to by a couple of them about my manner of dress when I had to come into the office on weekends and told to grow up on manner on dress even on my own time ! Some of these folks actually remarked that people need to dress nicer not only to work but when out in public.
One last thing is looking at old pictures. You see pictures of people at ball games or other public venues back from the 1940’s to late 1950’s, you notice that most men are in suits and women in dresses. Today, t-shirts, shorts, jeans and one out of say 200 would be in a suit today.
Exactly...what this author apparently 'needs' to see is us boomers donning fedora hats and listening to glenn miller like good 'ole 'normal' old people.
Boomers grew up with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and baseball caps.
He may not want to embrace his generation required hoodie and Kurt Cobain.
“Surrender gracefully the things of youth” - not the boomers, they’re kicking and screaming all the way to the plastic surgeon and the pharmacy. A 65 year old woman who is worried about how sexy she looks is beyond pathetic. When Hugh Heffner finally goes to his warm reward, I’m going to have a party. He has made too many people believe that a woman is only valuable if she has big boobs and hops into bed with every male she meets.
The author is a lefty. Why are you buying into her generational war?
I’ve seen them for decades. My *faves* (not) were the 50+ obese German men in Speedos with their sunburned, peeling stomachs prancing around in the Caribbean. And the pocket flap, tube-sox-and-tennis-balls and worse Euro women.
Still, I just learned not to worry about them and enjoy my own vacation. I remember being young and seeing my first C-Sectioned lady in a 2-piece swimsuit. I was shocked. My culture, at that time, insisted no one ever show a scar or anything less than an attempted perfection, even if it took a $200 swimsuit-cum-body-girdle to achieve. Years later, I recall that woman as something of a role model for just being who and what she was and enjoying the sun and the sea as much as she had before her surgery.
We used to prefer Dania Beach to Miami, especially after a storm, when the shelling was superb.
That would be boomer baby. I was strictly surface greyhounds. I was wondering if you know what a napscoordinator is?
I was only able to come up with someone who is in charge of ensuring that Gen X wussies get their beauty sleep.
I work for the VA. You would not believe the old guys comimg in for little blue pills.
I’ll never forget a man’s wife that called begging the doctor not to give it too her husband who was older then she was.
She was 80.
First tier Baby Boomers are/were scared to death that their kids would grow to resent them just like they resented their parents when the 60’s Generation Gap had the youth rebellion all stoked and loaded for bear...
The Baby Boomers must have figured that to avoid being hated by their own kids and every other kid, they’d have to suck up to them. They strive to be their kids’ “bestest” friends. They drink and some dope with them, take them places after bedtime rather than get a babysitter, dress them up in risque costumes and call it “role-playing”...It’s as though they actually want to BE their own children!
Usually, it’s the kids emulating the adults but now we have the parents and adults, some of whom have lived to be great-grandparents, “reaching out” to their kids, their music, their fashion statements, their lingo, their manner of speaking, their body language...It’s freakin’ backwards! No wonder their kids are so narcissistic, they think they’re in charge of everything and that the not only does the future belong to them but also the present!
I was wondering if you know what a napscoordinator is?
I was only able to come up with someone who is in charge of ensuring that Gen X wussies get their beauty sleep.
The reason you don’t know what napscoordinator is because you are anti-military and anti-American. Does not surprise me one bit. Sad that you even fraud yourself coming here. I will pray for you.
Uh, yes I can. Who in the hell do you think is footing the bills for all the current boondoggles?
I agree, a lot of adult people look and act like toddlers any more. I am offended by what a lot of people wear out in public. Slobs should not be so acceptable in the workplace. You don’t have to dress to the 9’s but some personal pride in an outfit would be nice no matter how old the garment might be. A piece of clothing can be mended and clean and still look good. When you look good you feel good. When your clothes are shabby you act shabby.
You need to study more history.
I’ve been watching pre-Boomer geriatric gentlemen wearing shorts, caps, and sneakers in public for at least thirty or forty years. Where the heck does this guy live? I see many old fa.. er guys wearing their caps in restaurants. Another Boomer-bashing article with little attention to reality.
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