I believe the later Boomers who gave birth to Gen-Ys had more kids than early Boomers. The Peak Birth years of Gen-Y are the late 1980's which was probably the end of child bearing for the Hippy early Boomers.
Posted on 07/12/2004 9:38:33 AM PDT by 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.'
Why is that so difficult to do for you boomers?
Are you asking us to assume guilt for what a group did? I know I've observed many a freeper boomer rail about the cultural nonsense that led to many of our current problems. That doesn't mean we participated in it by happening to be born in that generation.
The problem on threads like this is some can't discuss specifics without then castigating a whole group of innocents.
She can have mine! I'll either die first or get my husband's.........LOL.
You're officially OFF the hook!
Exactly
LOL!
Why should someONE "accept responsibility for their generation".
Absurd.
The sexual revolution has gone out of orbit.
The Boomer did not have enough votes to swing the election one way or another, even if you included another 4.2M for 1945.
My generation will be responsible for an impact on the society, that does not mean I am personally responsible.
LOL!
I'm sorry, but by your above-it-all approach sounds so silly.
Carry on.
It's bizarre. It is better to discuss phenomenon such as certain cultural movements and events and determine the decade or era that they occurred and the preceding events that may have set the stage and the fallout of same.
But those who deny that nobody is being attacked are misguided (if not deliberately fomenting discord).
Futhermore, my children are Gen-Xers, and it's their generation that's fighting the war on terror, and maybe it's high time we started cutting these "Kids" some slack.
They don't have the same future to look forward to, that the "greatest generation" had. So if anyone is falling down on the job, perhaps it's due to a self-congratulatory and self-aggrandizing generation that bailed-out when the check came due while they were busy patting themselves on the back.
I think events that occur and those that participate in them and those that try to counteract them impact society.
It is best to discuss the specific events and decades in a historical context rather than berate a whole group based on their age.
Absolutely correct. They have potential ten-fold over the blue haired crowd. They'll pee it away at their own peril. Perhaps a few of them listened to someone who'd been around, someone with character, someone in whom they had trust.
Perhaps not.
So we are suppose to happily pay for all your goodies and not complain at all? Gee I wonder why people say Baby Boomers are selfish.
Stop whining, X'er. It's getting you nowhere but bitter. When you reach my tax bracket, you might have a clue.
I'm not bitter, As Forbes calls us “ the most entrepreneurial generation in American history.” and we are the ones who ushered in the Information Age so despite what you Baby Boomers like to believe my Generation already has a good legacy, As for your generation, well the baby boomers have already secured their place as the most selfish and worst generation in American history. 100 years from now when you and I are both gone and Gen Z+4 is still paying off the debt you ran up do you really think history is going to look kindly on the baby boomers?
I wonder if you could find any demographic info on the people born from 1946 - 1964 and how many kids the people had during these years. What I'm trying to find out is if there were more kids born to the front end boomers as opposed to the end ones, or is it just about equal?
For instance, did the people born in 1946-1956 have more kids later on than the ones from 1956 - 1964? It's just something I've been wondering about. If you know where to find such info, I thank you in advance.
I believe the later Boomers who gave birth to Gen-Ys had more kids than early Boomers. The Peak Birth years of Gen-Y are the late 1980's which was probably the end of child bearing for the Hippy early Boomers.
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Um, a little basic math (very basic)....1946 plus 21 = 1967. With us so far?
In 1964 absolutely no boomers were 21, the legal voting age at the time. The first election year when any boomers were old enough to vote (21) was 1968 and then it was only those born before November 1947, not very many no matter how you look at it.
Fueled by boomer capital.
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