Baby boomers not all alike

Sun News/ Myrtlebeachonline ^ | 7/11/04 | Jeffrey Zaslow

[qam1]

1946, 1964 classes don't always agree........

There's a great distance between Barry Manilow and Barry Bonds.

Manilow, the singer, was born in 1946, the first year of the postwar baby boom. About 76 million births later, Bonds, the baseball slugger, became one of America's last boomers. That was in 1964, when demographers say the boom ended.

Typically, those born within that period are lumped together as the "baby boom generation," as if their values, beliefs and habits are unified. In fact, as the "late-wave boomers" turn 40 this year, it's clear that the classes of 1946 and 1964 are often very different, at times resulting in alienation and even finger-pointing.

John Dieffenbach, a 40-year-old attorney in Pleasantville, N.Y., says many of the oldest boomers are "a self-aggrandizing" bunch who treat him like an auxiliary member of their generation. "I'm part of their club but don't get the benefits." He doesn't get the "benefit" of nostalgia - being able to say he recalls when Kennedy was shot or the Beatles arrived in America. And people his age might not receive full Social Security benefits when they retire because the oldest boomers may strain the system.

The oldest boomers came of age at a time of affordable housing, easier acceptance to colleges and better job markets. The youngest boomers struggled through deeper recessions, crowded workplaces and, now, outsourced jobs.

Younger boomers also worry that in the next decade or so, their 401(k) values will fall as retired older boomers cash out of stocks.

"I share very little culturally with a 58-year-old," Dieffenbach says. In 1986, when the media declared "Boomer Generation Turns 40," he was just 22. In 1996, when newspaper articles celebrated "Boomers Turn 50" - counting the candles on their cakes (400,000 a day) and the cash spent on their birthday presents ($1 billion that year) - Dieffenbach was just 32.

"I'm waiting for the 'Baby Boomers are Dead' stories," he says, only half-jokingly.

This month, a new book, "Kill Your Idols," features essays in which rock critics who are young boomers and Generation Xers tear down allegedly classic boomer albums such as "Tommy" by The Who, released in 1969, and "Pet Sounds" by the Beach Boys, out in 1966.

"I grew up with the notion that I missed out on the greatest party ever because I wasn't at Woodstock," says the book's co-editor, Jim DeRogatis, born in 1964. "Well, I've seen the movie, and it's a stone-cold bore."

In his essay, DeRogatis slices up The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." He mocks one of the 1967 album's songs, "Fixing a Hole," which he says embodies the myopia and self-centeredness of older boomers: "It really doesn't matter/If I'm wrong I'm right/Where I belong I'm right."

The song reminds DeRogatis of two boomers born in 1946: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In his autobiography, "Clinton takes 957 pages to say he really didn't do anything wrong," DeRogatis says, while President Bush "still won't say he was wrong" about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Dennis Peterson and his daughter, Dee Ann Haibeck, are boomer bookends, born Jan. 1, 1946, and Oct. 28, 1964. Peterson of Bellevue, Wash., says people from his era "opened the door for a lot of discussions America hadn't been having" - about such divisive matters as race, women's rights, the Vietnam War. He says those of his daughter's era "didn't have the testosterone to get involved in social issues. I don't think they had our sense of responsibility."

Haibeck feels some of her dad's hippie contemporaries "changed our culture for the worse" by making society too liberal.

Dieffenbach has a suspicion about why he and others born in the early 1960s are counted in the boomer generation. As the oldest boomers continue to lobby for power and their legacy, they think there's strength in numbers, he says. "They're just using us to increase their volume.'

[Mo1]

That works for me!

Well it seems like some aren't getting it

[Tamzee]

IT'S NOT A GENERATION THING .. IT'S A RIGHT vs. LEFT THING

Bingo.

[Warren_Piece]

Of course not. That's the problem with demographics, too many people take them personally (Including Xers). Of course there were lots of conservatives. I daresy, they probably outnumbered the liberals here in TN. However, on matters economic, social, and military, the polling data say that most incoming freshmen in 1971 described themselves as liberal. Pay attention : most.

The media defined the boomers and nobody called them on it.

[Mo1]

You will not even admit that your generation has been one of the most liberal.

Have you been on a college campus lately???

[CyberCowboy777]

It is a culture thing.

The Generations that embrace the other side should be pointed out - just as the so called greatest generation should be vetted for their socialist economic culture.

[Mo1]

The Generations that embrace the other side should be pointed out - just as the so called greatest generation should be vetted for their socialist economic culture

AGAIN!!! ..

IT'S NOT A GENERATION THING .. IT'S A RIGHT vs. LEFT THING!!!

[nmh]

"My kids are Gen Reagan. The spending I'm paying for comes not from my generation, but the "Greatest Generation" -- my parents. The most affluent and government subsidized generation there is."

Ahem. Your parents worked their arses off. Many gave their lives in wars. When Viet Nam rolled around the boomer generation took to Canada - free love, war protests and advocated the "Great Society" through Johnson.

In no way shape or form is your parents generation the most "government subsidized generation there is." It is YOUR generation that fits THAT description. In your parents time, divorce was not 50%, homoseuxlaity was in the closet, aids was non existent, chemical abuse and pornography was still shocking - THIS is what YOUR generation has promoted. How arrogant of you to blame others for your unquenchable handouts, perverted civil rights and in your face immorality.

[Mo1]

The media defined the boomers and nobody called them on it.

Many did .. and the Media ignored it .. just like they are doing today

[nmh]

"My kids are Gen Reagan. The spending I'm paying for comes not from my generation, but the "Greatest Generation" -- my parents. The most affluent and government subsidized generation there is."

Ahem. Your parents worked their arses off. Many gave their lives in wars. When Viet Nam rolled around the boomer generation took to Canada - free love, war protests and advocated the "Great Society" through Johnson.

In no way shape or form is your parents generation the most "government subsidized generation there is." It is YOUR generation that fits THAT description. In your parents time, divorce was not 50%, homosexuality was in the closet, aids was non existent, chemical abuse and pornography was still shocking - THIS is what YOUR generation has promoted. How arrogant of you to blame others for your unquenchable handouts, perverted civil rights and in your face immorality.

GROW UP! Accept YOUR lovely generational contribution to the denegration of our country.

[Tamzee]

Perhaps the legacy of the Generation Xers is that they are the first generation to be so damn ungrateful that they blame everything wrong with their lives on the people who did the best they could before these whiney babies came along.

You may be on to something... X-ers certainly have known greater levels of scientific and medical advancement, comfort, wealth and security than any prior generation.

A lack of hardship in children leads to self-indulgence, feelings of entitlement and skewed perspective of their good fortune.

X-ers.... The Spoiled Rotten Generation LOL

[beef]

"The foot soldiers in the Marxist/pantheist environmental movement may be GenX, but the movement has been run by boomers for decades."

GenXers never needed much persuasion to get on board with ecosocialism. Many of their spiritual leaders, such as Joel Kovel and Arne Naess, predate the boomers.

You know, sometimes I wonder if GenXers aren't mad because they had to grow up listening to disco, the REAL shameful legacy of the boomer generation. ;-)

[CyberCowboy777]

Blame? whiney babies?

Who here is willing to accept responsibility for their generation?

In 1992 Bill Clinton's second widest demographic (behind seniors) was people under 30, he won that vote by 9 points.

In 1996 Bill Clinton's largest demographic, by 19 points, was the under 30 crowd, followed by the seniors.

This is my generation (though I was not 18 until the 1996 election) and I accept that. I only ask - who ran the media and the schools? Who raised these voters?

[CyberCowboy777]

Have you been on a college campus lately???

Why Yes, and yes I have seen who is running the schools and who the faculty are.

[Warren_Piece]

Ahem. All the things you listed were material things. More on that in a minute. The ingratitude comes from the fact that half, i repeat HALF of them come from broken homes. I grew up in a lower-middle class setting, but my parents stayed together. I was far more stable than my wealthier friends whose parents had divorced. This is a black spot on the soul of my generation that will never go away. Stuff? Oh yeah, Daddy would load the kids down with all the toys they wanted and sugared cereals to make up for the fact that he was always off with his 20-year-old bimbo.

And all that affluence? You know, single parenthood is the greatest cause of pathology and poverty. And guess what divorce causes? You got it, SINGLE PARENTHOOD! Many Xers grew up less-than-well-off because their parents couldn't keep it together.

Although I, too get tired of Xer whining, at least I know where it comes from. Yours was a cheap shot.

[Howlin]

Who raised these voters?

If you have issues with the way you were raised, you should take it up with your parents instead of trying to blame the rest of us for your upbringing!

[Warren_Piece]

Hey, disco wasn't so bad. Compared to hip-hop, it was musical genius.

[CyberCowboy777]

GenXers never needed much persuasion to get on board with ecosocialism.

Your right, and I don't defend that. I only point out that the culture was not openly embraced until the boomers.

[Howlin]

LOL!

[CyberCowboy777]

ROTFLMO!

You still don't get it do you?

I was raised just fine, I am a fine upstanding citizen, just as my Baby Boomer parents are. This is not a personal thing (why you have to get personal I don't know), this is a demographic thing.

[Howlin]

You know, a lot of us "awful" parents stayed together because of the kids. Those of us who left, did so after the kids were grown.