Stop Blaming the Boomers

 

shutterstock_220913251Blaming the Baby Boomers is a popular pastime among Millennials nowadays. Apparently, the problems of our present day are mostly their fault. They allowed government to grow and metastasize, and saddled us with loads of debt. They bought into crazy-lazy theories about overpopulation, and didn’t have enough children. They soaked up all the perks of the Reagan years and left their kids jobless with expensive, worthless degrees.

Now they’re planning to collect billions in pensions and Social Security and Medicare, and younger generations will work themselves to the bone to pay for it, while their retired parents (along with non-parent peers who spent all their own earnings on themselves, and are now helping themselves to ours) enjoy shuffleboard and vacations to the South of France. And then we’ll probably just lie down and die of treatable diseases in our broken-down, two-bit apartments. By that time, you see, the coffers will be emptier than empty, and death will be the only thing we can still afford. Dang Boomers.

I’m being dramatic of course, but I confess that I am not immune to anti-Boomer angst. We’ve all been privy to those conversations when an older relative (perhaps freshly returned from a Caribbean cruise) complains about the medical procedure that Medicare won’t fully cover even though they need it. The griping about how Social Security or pensions are too small. It’s hard to resist unleashing a torrent of indignation on such people. Do they really not see how entitled they are?

Nevertheless, I’ve been wondering lately whether we young folk may be too hard on the Baby Boomers. Mind you, I’m not nominating them for a Greatest Generation prize. But I do think we should probably shift more of the blame to… the Greatest Generation.

They fought the Second World War. That was amazing. Warmest thanks for that incredible feat.

After they came home, though, things went a little haywire. The Boomers may have been lamentably placid about rectifying the worst mistakes of that era, but weren’t the GGers the real movers and shakers behind most of our unsustainable programs? Social Security already existed, but they ramped it up. Medicaid came out of that mid-century period. Moving into the Johnson Administration, we see the Boomers protesting wars and smoking weed, but wouldn’t we really have to say that the Boomers were too young to bear much blame for the real evil that was wrought in that era? The welfare state was primarily their parents’ misconceived brainchild.

I’m not actually interested in stoking intergenerational warfare, but I do think the point is worth considering if only for the sake of clearing away obstacles to sensible reform. Understandably (given their military accomplishments) that generation looms large in our minds, and in some sense all political parties, both left and right, have a yearning for the 1950s that they haven’t fully exorcised. (On the left it manifests itself in their love of unions, secure jobs with rafts of benefits, and the regulation of big business. On the right it’s traditional gender roles and suburbs and wholesome cultural values. All of us, though, have a tendency to view mid-century America as a kind of Eden that in some way or other represents the best of our society and culture.)

The truth about the Greatest Generation, though, was that they fought the war, but then raised their children to be lovers and not fighters. As a group, they chose comfort and security over the preservation of rugged individualism, personal responsibility or an entrepreneurial spirit. We may need to come to grips with that component of our history before we can figure out how to move forward.

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  1. Bob L Member
    Bob L
    @

    Annefy:I am gob smacked by some of the life stories of my children’s peers.

    Family chaos so beyond the pale I sometimes have trouble finding a toe hold in conversation. How can you possibly talk about “family values” when someone’s reference is so bad?

    I am somewhat optimistic that, while some millennials may chose to forego marriage and children, those that do get married may take the commitment more seriously than their parents did.

    • #61
  2. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    Bob L:

    Annefy:I am gob smacked by some of the life stories of my children’s peers.

    Family chaos so beyond the pale I sometimes have trouble finding a toe hold in conversation. How can you possibly talk about “family values” when someone’s reference is so bad?

    I am somewhat optimistic that, while some millennials may chose to forego marriage and children, those that do get married may take the commitment more seriously than their parents did.

    I hope so. But with so few good role models I worry that commitment won’t be enough.

    • #62
  3. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Annefy:

    Bob L:

    Annefy:I am gob smacked by some of the life stories of my children’s peers.

    Family chaos so beyond the pale I sometimes have trouble finding a toe hold in conversation. How can you possibly talk about “family values” when someone’s reference is so bad?

    I am somewhat optimistic that, while some millennials may chose to forego marriage and children, those that do get married may take the commitment more seriously than their parents did.

    I hope so. But with so few good role models I worry that commitment won’t be enough.

    When my kids were in school and I was volunteering, it felt like the majority of kids were living in divorced households. I thought it was sad. But the kids seemed okay. When something becomes a norm, perhaps that eliminates some of the problems right off the bat.

    • #63
  4. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    Layla:

    Hoyacon:I blame boomers for begetting the generation that begat the millennials. Other than that, helping to elect Jimmy Carter, disco, and selling out the troops in Viet Nam, I’m good with them.

    I object to this. Strenuously. I was weaned on disco. Disco lives!

    May you burn in Disco Inferno.

    image

    • #64
  5. Duane Oyen Member
    Duane Oyen
    @DuaneOyen

    The thing that is always missing from these retrospective assessments is perspective.  Read the history novels of Gore Vidal, (who was a jerk, but got this described well, confirmed, I thought, also by the narrative in Amity Schlaes’ Coolidge) starting with Empire in 1898, through The Golden Age in 1954.  The Gilded Age and The Roaring Twenties were no different from the 1960’s, when boomers like me were feeling their oagts and doing stoopid stuff.  Humans are humans- David grabbed Bathsheba because he wanted to; sex was not invented in 1963, Philip Larkin notwithstanding.

    People have always wanted government to take care of them- Gaius Gracchus figured that out in ancient Rome.

    The Greatest Generation, which included my sainted parents and parents-in-law, lived as they were able and kept up with the available technology of the time.  My folks lived a pretty straitened existence, but they were OK because they didn’t “buy now, pay later.”

    It has always been about individual choices.  I went to college as a commuter for almost 6 years so I wouldn’t have any debt, given my parents’ inability to pay bills for kids’ college expenses, and also came out of school as a mediocre student right at Arab oil embargo time as well.  My kids insisted on going out of state to school, so here I chalk one up for the boomers as opposed to Genny X.

    But you do OK if you learn to work and defer gratification.

    • #65
  6. iDad Inactive
    iDad
    @iDad

    Look Away:

    iDad:

    Look Away:

    And for someone so “down” on a group you seem awfully bothered about a reply that disagreed with your view. As you seem to believe the above authors are not relevant, I feel doubly sorry for you, or do you just hate all Southerners?

    Your first sentence addresses the first version of my comment, which I edited soon after posting.  Your attempt at a “tit for tat” response makes no sense.

    My point regarding the authors you listed was not that they aren’t “relevant,” it’s that I wouldn’t accept gratitude for their accomplishments.

    Finally, I think you should know that Lewis, Gilder, Buckley, Goldberg, Chambers, Kirk and Conquest are not Southerners.

    • #66
  7. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    Gen Y overwhelmingly voted to up the spending. Apparently they don’t mind paying for my benefits.

    • #67
  8. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    I am gob smacked by some of the life stories of my children’s peers.

    Family chaos so beyond the pale I sometimes have trouble finding a toe hold in conversation. How can you possibly talk about “family values” when someone’s reference is so bad?

    What to do? Be an example? A place where they can come and talk with someone who will listen and share a home cooked meal instead of a microwaved one.

    • #68
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