Why baby boomer culture needs to change to reflect modern life’s urgency
Posted by RitaR on August 20th, 2009By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist, Blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide
Baby boomers have their last best shot at helping to straighten out the mess they helped make.
That’s the opinion of Kurt Andersen, author of the book “Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America,” writing a four-part series in Time.
In part three of the series, “Boomers: Older and Maybe, Finally Wiser,” Andersen said the postwar generation was the first to refuse to grow up, but Gen-X and the rest have followed in their footsteps.
“And the selfish, heedless, if-it-feels-good-do-it approach enshrined by young boomers subsequently enabled the risk-taking, party-hearty paradigm that has governed so much of American life, economically and otherwise, for the last quarter century,” he said in the article.
In their empty-nested years, perhaps boomers can channel some of the vast energies and micromanagement they lavished on their children to pro-social enterprises and volunteer work, Anderson added.
It’s a series worth reading especially if you think like I do that we need a new economic model. The financial crisis presents an opportunity to change our economy and spending habits to create a more sustainable economic system.
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Interesting blog, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report forecast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here’s a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Here is an op-ed about GenJones as the new generation of leadership in USA TODAY:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
Hi hyr55,
Thanks for your comment about who is a boomer and for the links.
I don’t agree that Generation Jones is a viable demographic category. It was coined by Jonathan Pontell, and, although it has a following, it hasn’t been accepted by the U.S. Census Bureau as a statistical group.
I do agree, however, that there are differences between older and younger boomers. These are important to marketers and sociologists.
President Obama is a baby boomer, but he chooses not to be associated with the boomer era. He can do that if he wants, but he is a baby boomer.
See my article, “Barack Obama IS a Baby Boomer,” at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com/the_survive_and_thrive_bo/2008/11/barack-obama-is-a-baby-boomer.html.
Rita