BOOMER P.J. O'ROURKE (and I) WRITE ABOUT THE BABY BOOM...

I have loved the work of P.J. O’Rourke for many years now and once had the honour of hearing him speak at a Toronto University.

I am pretty sure I have read most, if not all of his books, so when I spotted his latest 2014 offering: THE BABY BOOM – How It Got That Way And It Wasn’t My Fault And I’ll Never Do It Again, I knew I was about to have a really good book to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

We, of the Baby Boom – born within the 25 year period between 1946 and 1964 – numbered 75 Million in America; each of us are alike, according to P.J., insofar as, each of us is unusual. 

He designates and differentiates between the different groups roughly by the years they were born. There are four main groups in his book: The Seniors, The Juniors, The Sophomore’s and The Freshman. He goes on to describe those we know who represent these groups.

The Seniors among us were born in the late 1940’s a group which who P.J. says he considers ‘somewhat tethered to the previous generation’, but who were also, he feels, on the ‘bow wave’ of the Boomers “I have to be me” Mantra. He says Hillary Clinton and Cheech Martin and P.J. himself, would be considered Seniors.

The Juniors were born in the early 50’s, just in time to grow up hearing ‘What’s the matter with Kids today’ as a Mantra. I remember it well. There even was a song with this title in a movie. P.J. feels that the Juniors are the group that pursued the notions, whims and fancies of the Senior group with greater intensity. Some ended up barefoot in Haight-Ashbury. Nevertheless, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were part of this group (both were born in 1955).

The Sophomore’s in the late 1950’s were, among other things, the editors of The Preppy Handbook. Some of them will not like to know that they are considered a ‘Consumerist’ generation.

The Freshman, were born in the early 1960’s. They grew up with all of the Baby Boom accomplishments as components of their daily lives. Some of them don't seem very happy with their legacy, including still being considered Baby Boomers by most people. Jon Stewart, Sarah Palin, Conan O’Brien, Larry the Cable Guy and Barack Obama are all members of the Freshman group.

However, recently those born between 1954 and 1965 are now being called Generation Jones. That means that P.J.'s Sophomore group and the next younger group, his Freshmen are now considered separately from older Boomers. Among other things, this 'generation', when grouped together is so large that actually the Boomers span two generations. In fact, the oldest and older Boomers could be, and often are, the parents of the youngest Boomers.More about Generation Jones below.

Personally speaking, and that is the only way Boomers speak, P.J. feels that we were born into a pretty good life. Most of us don’t reflect often on how different life was before our group was born. Like most people, we were too busy living our lives to think about the fact that ‘The Times They Were A-Changin’*.  There have however, been considerable changes to differentiate us from earlier generations.

Some of the differences P.J. notices among the generation before and the generations after our own massive cohort, are important ones. 

When P.J. mentions Racial Segregation, although this was not something we thought about as much in Canada, some of us saw it in the United States. Those of us who had been to Detroit were shocked to hear that Rioters had burned down parts of central Detroit in the early 1960’s.

The Vietnam War, to some of us meant, among other things a couple of years where boys/men our age were Drafted into the Military based upon their Birthday. For a year or two those Drafted were chosen by a Lottery of Birthdates.

The Vietnam War, also meant that some guys came to Canada A.W.O.L. from the military or, as what was called ‘Draft Dodgers’. Some of us, knew former Vietnam Veterans and also knew, ‘Draft Dodgers’, who were ‘pardoned’, by a later President.

I remember watching the movie “Across the Universe” which uses Beatles music throughout to illustrate the activist period of the 1960’s. However, even the youngest Beatle is older than the Boomers.

If you were born in 1946, as the oldest Boomers were, you have now reached the age of 68. If you are a Man, you have grey hair and/or may also a grey pony tail, if your hair is still long. You may also now wear a grey beard of varying lengths and design, although very few of you did when you were younger. Given that Men do not throw clothes away often, you may still have the Jeans you wore in the 60’s. You may still wear them too.

If you are a Woman on the other hand, you may still have long hair and wear loose long skirts and some form of Birkenstock footwear. Your hair may or may not be grey. In fact, you hair may be brown or blonde, but usually not multi coloured. It may also still be similar in style to whatever way you wore it when you were growing up. You may now be a ‘Cougar’ although a few years ago this would not have been admired or appreciated.

We can’t say that there was only a Generation Gap with our Parents. There are actually one or more generation gaps among Boomers. One of the gaps is actually chronological because of the 25 year span from 1946 to 1964 of the Boomers, making many Senior and Junior Boomers, parents of younger Boomers. Not surprisingly, people with that much of an age gap between them would naturally view the world differently. 

Some later Boomers really seem to want to distance or even disown some of us born earlier or in a previous decade. Some of these ‘younger’ Boomers however are no longer very young, having reached the age of 55. 

P.J.'s Sophomore and Freshman groups of younger Baby Boomers are now called Generation Jones by cultural historian Jonathon Pontell. He uses this term to designate the group(s) born mostly in the U.S. and U.K. between 1954-1965. Possibly even those born before 1969 might be included. 

It is felt that neither Baby Boomers for the oldest ones nor Generation X for the younger, quite fit the experiences the Sophomore/Jones had as they were growing up compared to those of the older Baby Boom groups. 

In many ways, some of them resemble Generation X, latchkey kids, one parent families (among the later ones), and different experiences from those of older Boomer.

‘Jones’ group also reflects consumerism (keeping up with the Jones), so the title is not all complimentary and based on technological savvy or birth years alone. Some of  P.J.’s Sophomore’s seem to have gone from Preppy to Yuppie with M.B.A. degrees, Beemers and a Mortgage. Both members of the couple are working very, very hard to support their lifestyle.

Their children seem to be enrolled in every extra-curricular activity known to man and all of them have their own technology as soon as it is available. Many of this group have remarried at least once. Often they have children from both marriages and sometimes the children are several years apart in age.  

The oldest Freshmen, I think, consider the older Boomers really old. To them, 
I think most of the older Boomers, probably seem old and interested in and only interesting to our own ‘generation’. Not cohort; Generation. When you realize that many older Boomers are, or could be, their parents, it becomes easier to not take this personally. 

It has been suggested that older Boomers should also be 're-labelled' to reflect their concern and activism about i.e. civil rights, Vietnam War and the struggles for women's rights.

Younger Boomers seem as skeptical about the idealistic optimism that change was possible, with which I describe my group. 

I hear some of my younger siblings say they think I talk about the past a lot and especially about friends and family members they never knew.  

Something so easily remembered by us – that there was Music in the air wherever we went, seems to be dismissed by them as absurd. Besides, they also don’t care for some of my music any more than I do for theirs.

Nevertheless, I persevere in trying to explain that we were many individuals who nevertheless were united in wanting to change the World for the better. I don't know whether the younger kids believe me about this either. 

To older Boomers, these younger ones weren't interested in these things but produced innovation in technology and two of the most famous 'computer geek' pioneers. We sometimes feel that they got the benefits of the societal changes our group fought for and the injustice we fought and prevailed against, as an established way of life. 

Meanwhile, we sometimes feel they blame our Cohort for what they consider harder lives. I also think that some of them feel they missed out on something. That some of them seem to believe it is somehow our fault that the world isn’t perfect, rankles a bit. Still others among them, seem to think that they are worse off than their Gen X or Y younger siblings.

Whether they believe me/us or not, big changes in all of our lives had lasting effects that have been incorporated into our society today.

For example, Women, of my generation, were perhaps, for the first time in history, no longer expected to be stuck/stranded for life to an abusive or uncongenial spouse. Improved social services and a better education enabled us to earn an income of our own and be able financially, to leave a loveless marriage, if necessary.

At the same time, many Women were accepted in the workplace as having ‘a Career’. Many personally expected to want, or need to continue working after Marriage and while raising a Family. This is an ongoing way of life that did not exist even at the time when either the Senior or Junior Boomers were still in School.

Perhaps as a result of both sexes remaining in the work force, increased opportunities for Women were made possible, particularly as economic times worsened. Careers opportunities became available in areas which had previously not been as welcoming to females as they later became, including Finance, Medicine, Engineering, and Law. Ability became more important than Gender when the demands of the work force became based on results. The Two Income Family became not only desirable, but often a necessity.

We also could not help but notice that our long married Parents were coming to accept that their own Children’s or their Friend’s Children were now possibly living together before Marriage or Divorcing. It wasn’t just the times that were a-changin’, but the laws as well.

The Parents, many of whom remain married to this day, remembered the ‘Big Wedding’ and a traditional special gift to give the couple a ‘Good Start’ in life. However, often only a few years later, the couple were Separated or Divorced, sometimes with young Children to take care of alone.

Last year I wrote about the modern couple. I felt sorry that other than financially, breakups are now so frequent that the Law today cares more about who has a greater ability to pay for support for any Children or minors than anything else, when a marriage is dissolved. The emotional cost to the Man or Woman, or the Children, seems to have become almost incidental as long as the financial split is orderly.

Perhaps complete trust has always been difficult. Today, however, it isn’t about not trusting anybody over 30, as it was in the early 60’s, but rather, starting a relationship with mistrust and a lot of caution, and maybe occasionally deciding to try again to trust someone anyway.

Nevertheless, both despite and because of, this large group of (older and younger) Boomers, we live in a different world. The reality that more than one generation is actually involved in the Boomer period, explains why various among us may be living very different lives and actually have very different priorities in those lives.

While it is sometimes difficult to reflect on your own time with any degree of impartiality, P.J. O'Rourke makes a few cogent observations about the larger changes which have occurred during the time the Boomers have come of age.

There have been fewer dead in the Wars during our time span; however, some horrible wars and genocides have still occurred. 

Encouragingly, people living in Extreme poverty; those living on less than $1.25 a day was 52% of people in the developing world in 1981. By 1990, P.J. says it was 43% and by 2008, the last year of complete data by the World Bank, it was 22%. Although this means 1.29 billion people are still starving and in ragged misery (to quote P.J.) that is still a vast improvement from 1981.

Ideally, I am somehow still idealistic enough that I might like to spend the $50 Billion that Bjorn Lomberg** says could make a big difference to the world and see if it worked. We have enough knowledge of history to realize that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ and that the 20^th century failures left a society with perhaps the greatest losses of life in history. In the course of their experimentation with the perfectibility of mankind, many countries encountered others with conflicting cravings for power and influence over others.*** Perhaps knowing that the State of the World really is improving, may have to suffice to encourage us of the Boomer generation.

The 'whole world' may have been watching. Our parents may have wondered what was the matter with kids today. We now have seen divorces in our own generation that might have not occurred in previous generations, however, bad the marriages. 

Nevertheless, we live, in our own time period and face our own changes and challenges to live with and adapt to. Perhaps it has always been thus throughout history. 

As most of the W.W.II generation passes away and even some of the older Boomers seem fairly old to the rest of us, we can, at the very least say, we raised our voices and made changes happen to the world...and many things in the world have changed, but also improved because we did.

*Bob Dylan – The Times they are A-Changin’ (1963/1964)

**Bjorn Lomberg – How to Spend $50 Billion to make the World a Better Place
***Robert Conquest – Notes on a Ravaged Century

Some statistical information about the Baby Boom found at: http://www.socialmarketing.org/newsletter/features/generation2.htm:

Boomers I or The Baby Boomers
Born: 1946-1954
Coming of Age: 1963-1972
Age in 2004: 50-58
Current Population: 33 million
For a long time the Baby Boomers were defined as those born between 1945 and 1964. That would make the generation huge (71 million) and encompass people who were 20 years apart in age. It didn’t compute to have those born in 1964 compared with those born in 1946. Life experiences were completely different. Attitudes, behaviors and society were vastly different. In effect, all the elements that help to define a cohort were violated by the broad span of years originally included in the concept of the Baby Boomers. The first Boomer segment is bounded by the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, the Civil Rights movements and the Vietnam War. Boomers I were in or protested the War. Boomers 2 or the Jones Generation missed the whole thing.

Boomers I had good economic opportunities and were largely optimistic about the potential for America and their own lives, the Vietnam War notwithstanding.

Boomers II or Generation Jones
Born: 1955-1965
Coming of Age: 1973-1983
Age in 2004: 39 to 49
Current Population: 49 million
This first post-Watergate generation lost much of its trust in government and optimistic views the Boomers I maintained. Economic struggles including the oil embargo of 1979 reinforced a sense of “I’m out for me” and narcissism and a focus on self-help and skepticism over media and institutions is representative of attitudes of this cohort. While Boomers I had Vietnam, Boomers II had AIDS as part of their rites of passage.
The youngest members of the Boomer II generation in fact did not have the benefits of the Boomer I class as many of the best jobs, opportunities, housing etc. were taken by the larger and earlier group. Both Gen X and Boomer II s suffer from this long shadow cast by Boomers I.