BABY BOOMERS: It's all our fault.

Dear Ms. Liberty,

Over ten years ago, there was a trend among young professional white-collar men with heads shaped like big toes (Charlie Kirk) traveling the college circuit who made money spewing crap about the bad Baby Boomer population taking away their opportunity to make money. Irony?

So, what is a Baby Boomer, known as a Boomer for short? According to AI, a  Boomer is a person born between 1946 and 1964, a period following World War II. This generation, named for the "baby boom," a significant increase in birth rates that occurred during this time, is currently in their early 60s to late 70s. Therefore, Boomers are preceded by the Silent Generation and followed by Generation X. 

Yes. I am a Baby Boomer. 

Baby Boomers grew up in an era with parents and grandparents who endured the profound upheavals of the Great Depression and/or World War II. Since many of us were raised by veterans, we were taught to function in hierarchical environments, which instilled in us a goal-oriented mindset. Yes, I was raised by an "old soldier" who pulled duty in a prison camp guarding captured German soldiers. I recall home inspections, "Schnell! Schnell!" before school and before visits to restaurants and events; ensuring our hair was combed, our necks, ears, and fingernails were clean, and we were reminded of our manners. Traditions such as flying the American flag, family dinners around the table, Christmas trees, a new Easter dress or sport jacket, and Walter Cronkite's newscasts were a way of life. 

Boomers are told by the generations born after 1964 that we're spoiled, a threat to their generation, and that every "hardship" that the younger generations endure, the Boomers are at fault. We are aware of the comments being made about us as we read online magazine articles (yes, you heard me right, online, not hard copy). It's unfortunate that the reader only gets one side of the life of a Boomer, especially the young lives of Boomers. 

We grew up during the height of the Cold War, a period of geopolitical tension and rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Cold War students in the US participated in "Duck and Cover" drills, a useless attempt and waste of tax dollars to prepare us for a potential nuclear attack. Our desks were to protect us from falling debris and the harsh effects of a nuclear blast. There were also interruptions during school, with the town's siren blaring at noon, and the teacher instructing us to run home as quickly as possible. Our parents were supposed to be waiting at home, timing us on how long it took for their kids to make it home "safely." Sure, these drills were intended to offer a sense of security, but instead, they created fear and anxiety. Today, we have empathy for our current schoolchildren who undergo active shooter lockdown drills, but the potential for these drills to be used is unfortunately very real. 

Many of us Boomers worked hard to get where we are now. What you have to remember is that we lived in a structured environment; therefore, we set goals. Unfortunately, our goals were sometimes interrupted. The younger generation that yells how "easy" the Boomers had it did not have "The Draft," meaning that all male U.S. citizens, even those residing abroad, and all male immigrants, whether documented or undocumented but residing within the United States, were required to register with the Selective Service, and then you became a number. 

In short, during the Vietnam War, when your "number" was called within "The Draft," the law was that during wartime, if you were between the ages of 18 and 25, you went to the battlefield, regardless of whether you had plans for college, a career, job training, to be a groom at your wedding, or a young father waiting for your wife to give birth; your life was interrupted to serve in the US military. 

If you were lucky, you came home from Vietnam alive and not in a box. If you were lucky, you came home with all of your limbs. There was also the POW/MIA issue with the United States, which listed 2,646 Americans as unaccounted for, including about 1,350 prisoners of war or missing in action and roughly 1,200 reported killed in action and body not recovered. The Draft ended in the spring of 1973, and the Vietnam War finally ended in April 1975. 

Tell us again how easy life was for the female Boomers. As little girls, we had to wear dresses through grade school - even during the worst of winter weather. With permission from the school admin, we could wear pants only under our dresses during recess, but in the classroom, the pants had to be removed.

Later in junior high (middle school), we were taken out of the classroom to have our "skirts" measured, which meant a male teacher or principal would kneel down with a tape measure and measure our skirt lengths. Often, a female instructor would be standing by. If the skirt/dress was too short, we were sent home. After all, wearing our skirts too short meant we were responsible for the boys' erections.

We could wear "nice pants" during the worst of winter weather, but only after the school admin gave us permission. This continued until 1971, when girls were finally allowed to wear pants, including jeans, as long as the jeans weren't ripped or had holes. So, we added colorful calico patches and embroidery instead to personalize them. 

Women were also restricted in terms of their access to higher education. For example, Harvard University did not admit women until 1977. In high school, many women wanted to take shop classes, which involved working with tools, machines, and various materials and hardware. Instead, women had to take courses in homemaking, cooking, and childcare. The truth? Men and women should have taken all of the classes from wordwork to cooking. The attitude regarding a woman who didn't make it into college was instead "C'est la vie. There's always your MRS degree." 

When the female Baby Boomers entered the workforce for the first time, they typically received 59 cents for every dollar their male counterparts received, despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. They later received 75 cents for every dollar their male counterparts received. So, shouldn't that keep the "little lady" happy?

[It's essential to recognize that younger women, who received 59 cents for every dollar their male counterparts received, were also affected by this disparity of inequality in their social security payments as they approached their senior years.] 

No, as often extra duties were required of females than males for the same position, especially in food service or office work. Sometimes older women were told they didn't get the same amount of dollars as their male counterparts because the male "had a family." Often, single, divorced, or widowed women could not have the first choice of vacations because they "didn't have a family." And the thought of two female or two male partners buying a house together was unheard of. 

Today, the younger generation tells us how difficult it is to buy a house. It's always been difficult. Today, if you're a woman, at least a banker/mortgage broker will pull up a chair to visit with you. Single Boomer women couldn't buy houses due to their wages, for one reason. There was no such thing as a single woman owning a house unless she was a widow or inherited the house from her parents. 

If you were a woman, purchasing a vehicle wasn't much easier if you wanted to finance it. It was advised that the head male of your family should co-sign for you, whether it was your father or husband. If you were married and wanted your name solely on a credit card or even a savings account, you often had to get "permission" from your husband - first. 

Women of the 1960s and 1970s marched, and many of them still march today. No generation has had it easy, whether in the past or in the present. We've all had our roadblocks. With each generation, those roadblocks take different shapes, but they remain roadblocks nonetheless. It's your choice to proceed ahead or stay back and blame others. 

For all generations, from Baby Boomers to Generation Z, the next time you feel like taking a moment to reflect on your life, pack a picnic lunch and visit a cemetery. When you feel that life is mistreating you and your generation, be seated next to a grave of an old pioneer family where the children succumbed to diseases like cholera, measles, smallpox, and dysentery. Rest in the Veteran's section by the grave of a Vietnam veteran who was promised a white picket fence and instead came home to a white headstone. 

Forever grateful to you,
C~

Flower Power Protest (1967)