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Op, a boomer, asks a forum full of mostly boomers how they feel about being known as boomers. I wouldn’t exactly call this feedback representative of everyone. You could do this with pretty much any generation or subset of people and the answers would be the same.
Every generation thinks theirs’ is the “greatest” and the ones who follow will ruin everything, yet society keeps moving forward.
I have absolutely no qualms about being a Boomer. I'm proud of it. Boomers changed the world. They took what they were given, questioned it, and reshaped it. Some bad but mostly good. They frightened a lot of people in the process. For that reason, there is a low level of resentment and animosity and whining. Some right-wingers want a do-over and think the 1950s were the "wonder years"...they were not.
Boomers were far more educated than any previous generation. About 88.8 percent of Boomers completed high school, and 28.5 percent gained a bachelor's degree or higher. That is even more impressive with the huge numbers of Boomer cohort. Clearly, their parents valued education so that was an important boost -- and education was more accessible than in the past. I think the earlier generation opened the door and Boomers rushed in. "Junior" or community colleges made higher education reachable for many.
I remember the first space accomplishments (sputnik, first men in space, Vangard explosion, Tang, etc.) but those were baby steps by the previous generation. Things "took off" after that. Education and opportunity brought questioning and defiance in the counterculture. The "torch was passed to a new generation", but JFK was talking about his generation when, in reality there was a huge new cohort in the wings.
The Boomers were the last generation to have a common experiential bond. Our parents had the depression and WW2. Boomers had sheer numbers of the cohort. We had polio and a-bombs. We did everything together in huge groups. Experimentation, Woodstock, the Summer of Love, the counterculture, and antiwar movement were manifestations of the herd moving together in one direction or another. Civil Rights, Feminism, Greenpeace, and other activism efforts took off. Though they may have started a bit earlier, Boomers embraced the various causes.
There was a spiritual aspect to it all. I recall the Hari Krishnas, Children of God, Timothy Leary and Ram Das (Richard Alpert), EST, and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his TM movement. I cast off the bow line and sailed through some of that. To many that was just pop culture going off the rails but to those engaged in it, there was some positive and sincere involvement.
Boomers were politically engaged and angry. I recall the "Children's Crusade" for Eugene McCarthy and saw him speak before a cheering capacity crowd in 1968. (The Bernie Movement is/was a similar thing.) I graduated from college a week after the Kent State shootings. Watergate followed not long afterward. Optimism fell bleeding on the grass but did not die.
There was a soundtrack that went all through this generation and the various events and experiences. The music is still popular -- and crotchety Boomers will tell you that there has been no actual music produced since then. Grace Slick is 82. James Taylor is 74. Rod Stewart is 77. Joanie Mitchell is 78. Bob Dylan is 80. I already have tickets to see James Taylor in concert this summer.
So, what happened? Biological clocks keep ticking. Somebody has to make a living. There actually needs to be money coming in. Babies are born. Mortgage and car payments have to be made. Ten years passed before I went to graduate school, at night. But Boomers were starting to spend hand over fist. We got ATMs. Boomers were the engine that drove the economy. We got IRAs. They aged, some got sick. We got ACA. But the economy after the Reagan Era was (and is) distorted. My first, brand new, house cost $25k. My first gross net career salary was $448 a month. I vividly recall struggling in a salary negotiation to get $20k annual salary in the 1980s. That sounds ridiculous now when CEOs are making millions and corporate profits are obscene. But wages have not kept pace with productivity. Something is wrong.
Boomer families were smaller but there was still a huge Echo Boom of kids born to Boomer parents -- they probably prefer to be called Millennials. But still, the number of solitary kids (only-child families) rose from 11 percent in 1976 to 22 percent in 2015. There were fewer group experiences. That Echo group makes up the largest generation in the US now as Boomers disappear over the horizon. Echo Boomers were/are more pragmatic and less engaged or emotionally involved than their parents. The Echo Boomers, as a group, have little or no common experiential bond like previous generations. The 9-11 attack sparked that response but soon faded. It is more of an "every man for himself" mindset. Grouped experiences, like those of the Boomer parents, were less appealing and seemed forced (little league, gymnastics, etc.). Joining or group membership was not a thing. The internet and computer games replaced playmates. Even the global pandemic failed to cement the later (adult) generational groups -- it served more to divide them. To the die-hard Boomers, that is all something of a disappointment. But now, the Echo Boomers/Millennials are reshaping things and spending money hand over fist, like their parents. But, for many, college and home ownership were/are almost out of reach, but then some expectations are as well. There are so many more "necessities" than there were in the earlier years. The Echo babies are producing Generation A (Alpha). Generation A will have more of a common bond due to the pandemic and the disruption of schools and forced isolation. That seems counter intuitive, that forced isolation and disruption of normal schooling would be a common experience, but they will remember that as they move forward.
Repping you again. Excellent post. Thanks for writing it.
If this is true, these are a couple of stunningly ignorant people. They don't believe the obvious data right in front of their eyes? They think Zillow and university bursars are lying to them?
It's not that uncommon. The education section of CD, as well as now a thread in Great Debates are on exactly that subject. It's amazing the number of responses that pretty much ignore costs and say pretty much what saibot points out:
Quote:
Originally Posted by saibot
It's a lack of understanding of today's costs coupled with the attitude that today's young people are fundamentally lazy and expect everything to be handed to them. "Well, if you just worked hard like I did when I was your age..."
Exactly right. It was possible back then to have a summer job that paid a significant percentage of college costs. Much harder today given that college costs have significantly exceeded inflation for years.
It's not that they think Zillow and bursars are lying to them, but that they (seems almost an inclusive they) have no personal experience with today's costs. For many it's been decades since they even looked at the housing market, unless they are now selling and downsizing. Consider for the oldest millennial children of the oldest boomers themselves went to college 20 years ago, it's GenZ now attending and graduating college, with Gen Alpha coming close behind.
Op, a boomer, asks a forum full of mostly boomers how they feel about being known as boomers. I wouldn’t exactly call this feedback representative of everyone. You could do this with pretty much any generation or subset of people and the answers would be the same.
Every generation thinks theirs’ is the “greatest” and the ones who follow will ruin everything, yet society keeps moving forward.
I still think the War Generation accomplished more than we Boomers did.
the claim that boomers didn’t care about climate change is a typical stereotype embedded into peoples minds but there were huge movements by people in the 60’s and 70’s concerned about the ozone layer, chemical contamination, nuclear contamination , etc.
Before 1970 factories were free to spew out whatever they wanted until the Earth day movement and the development of the epa https://www.epa.gov/history/epa-history-earth-day
Clean water act 1972 and the list goes on.
I'm really puzzling over this, trying to fathom how there could be such a lack of awareness of this history. What comes up for me is, that maybe they're focussing on the part of the glass that's half empty---all the work that remains to be done, the climate change crises, etc., rather than appreciating the positive steps that were taken back then. After all, it's the current state of things that's in their faces.
And they probably take the existence of the EPA, the Clean Water Act, etc. for granted. The unfortunate thing is, that some of those measures got watered down by later Presidents, so it's possible that Millennials view them as part of the problem that needs solving, not as as a series of attempts at a solution.
I wonder what the current take on Earth Day is. Is it even seen as relevant? Do teens and 20-somethings get involved?
It's not that uncommon. The education section of CD, as well as now a thread in Great Debates are on exactly that subject. It's amazing the number of responses that pretty much ignore costs and say pretty much what saibot points out:
Exactly right. It was possible back then to have a summer job that paid a significant percentage of college costs. Much harder today given that college costs have significantly exceeded inflation for years.
It's not that they think Zillow and bursars are lying to them, but that they (seems almost an inclusive they) have no personal experience with today's costs. For many it's been decades since they even looked at the housing market, unless they are now selling and downsizing. Consider for the oldest millennial children of the oldest boomers themselves went to college 20 years ago, it's GenZ now attending and graduating college, with Gen Alpha coming close behind.
I question the bolded, though I don't at all question the fact, that college costs have increased exponentially since then. But prior generations had to take out federal loans (which had the advantage of low interest rates, or maybe they were interest-free, I don't know) in addition to getting financial aid such as work-study deals on campus, and those who could qualify applied for scholarships.
All this was necessary in addition to summer jobs. And the reason the federal student loan program was discontinued, is that too many students defaulted on their loans. They simply walked away from them, and the government apparently had no way to track them, or perhaps didn't have the manpower to do that. Those who did repay the loans were paying for years.
Those who went to college in the era of bank loans for college with commercial interest rates were stuck with high interest rates, so they do have it much worse. But paying for college was never a walk in the park, except for the students whose parents could afford to pay their way.
I question the bolded, though I don't at all question the fact, that college costs have increased exponentially since then. But prior generations had to take out federal loans (which had the advantage of low interest rates, or maybe they were interest-free, I don't know) in addition to getting financial aid such as work-study deals on campus, and those who could qualify applied for scholarships.
In 1972, my tuition at the University of Oklahoma was $25 per credit hour. I had a part-time job making $2.50 an hour (minimum wage was $1.25 an hour).
Working 20 hours a week, I paid for a semester of tuition (14 credit hours) in half the semester. If I were working at minimum wage, It would have taken me the full semester to pay tuition.
Last I checked a couple of years ago, tuition at the University of Oklahoma was $400 per credit hour. In order for a student today to do as well as I did, part time wage would have to be $40 an hour.
In 1972, my tuition at the University of Oklahoma was $25 per credit hour. I had a part-time job making $2.50 an hour (minimum wage was $1.25 an hour).
Working 20 hours a week, I paid for a semester of tuition (14 credit hours) in half the semester. If I were working at minimum wage, It would have taken me the full semester to pay tuition.
Last I checked a couple of years ago, tuition at the University of Oklahoma was $400 per credit hour. In order for a student today to do as well as I did, part time wage would have to be $40 an hour.
You were lucky. Or maybe you went to an in-state school and lived at home to keep costs down, which was smart. The people I've known who had to work through college in prior generations, including Depression-era students, had to combine at least 3 out of four of the following: scholarships (those who qualified), work-study jobs (at minimum wage for their day), federal loans and summer jobs (typically at minimum wage). But all of them had to pay for room and board, as well as tuition and fees, textbooks, and personal expenses.
You were lucky. Or maybe you went to an in-state school and lived at home to keep costs down, which was smart. The people I've known who had to work through college in prior generations, including Depression-era students, had to combine at least 3 out of four of the following: scholarships (those who qualified), work-study jobs (at minimum wage for their day), federal loans and summer jobs (typically at minimum wage). But all of them had to pay for room and board, as well as tuition and fees, textbooks, and personal expenses.
You missed the point that tuition and all other expenses have gone up 16x while minimum wage has gone up 6x.
I could pay off my tuition in half a semester of part-time work, or within the semester at minimum wage; there was nothing "lucky" about those numbers. That's not possible for a kid today.
Yes, I did have scholarships to pay my room and board, books and other fees...all of them, in fact. I had no need to take any loans. Not even scholarships have kept up with the increase of prices to that extent.
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