Baby Boomers and how we/they are perceived in today's world

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Misslizard
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16 Jul 2022, 11:53 am

My bio-mom is a boomer and I was born in the summer of 1964.
I grew up with Sesame Street, MTV in my teenage years, and video games like Pong and hanging out at the Mall.I liked the arcades but the noise was too much.
I don’t identify as a Boomer, all the Boomers I know had different childhood and teenage experiences .
I was hanging out at latch key kids homes and smoking weed and watching MTV when I was a teenager.
Courtney Love, Mark Lanegan , Chris Cornell , Keanu Reeves were all born in 1964 and not considered Boomers.
I would roll the date back to 1960.
If you can’t recall Woodstock, the Kennedy assassinations ,or the Vietnam war I would say the beginning of Gen-X.


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orbweaver
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16 Jul 2022, 1:33 pm

Misslizard wrote:
My bio-mom is a boomer and I was born in the summer of 1964.
I grew up with Sesame Street, MTV in my teenage years, and video games like Pong and hanging out at the Mall.I liked the arcades but the noise was too much.
I don’t identify as a Boomer, all the Boomers I know had different childhood and teenage experiences .
I was hanging out at latch key kids homes and smoking weed and watching MTV when I was a teenager.
Courtney Love, Mark Lanegan , Chris Cornell , Keanu Reeves were all born in 1964 and not considered Boomers.
I would roll the date back to 1960.
If you can’t recall Woodstock, the Kennedy assassinations ,or the Vietnam war I would say the beginning of Gen-X.


Generation Jones! The generation between Boomer and X.


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Misslizard
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16 Jul 2022, 4:04 pm

/\Sounds right.
http://www.generationjones.com/
I remember people talking about Watergate when I was a kid.The Gulf War is the one I’m familiar with ,and the President I saw getting shot was Reagan.
We were all sitting around getting high waiting for the ice cream truck to roll by and no one cared what just happened.
Nothing like the reaction people talk about when Kennedy was shot.We really did not give a $hit.The birth of the slackers.
Our main motivation was to skip a pep rally or assembly, hide in a van in the school parking lot and smoke pot.
Or just skip the whole day and walk around the Mall ,then go to the river for more pot smoking.


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CockneyRebel
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29 Jul 2022, 4:27 pm

They had the best music. I thank them for that.


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StrayCat81
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18 Aug 2022, 5:36 pm

To answer question in the topic, something around "grandiose privileged jerks" comes to mind? A lot of truth in it I would say, just read posts of most of the "old" people :3



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19 Aug 2022, 2:18 am

5 Baby Boomer Characteristics That Anyone Born in This Cohort Will Definitely Have Thoughts On

Quote:
Baby boomers get a bad rap. They don’t understand current pregnancy trends or how millennials parent their babies (even though their own child-rearing habits were pretty out there), they’re ridiculed for their “Live, Laugh, Love” signs and their overuse of ellipses, and they’ve been blamed for everything from ignoring climate change to ransacking the country’s economy. But what is this generation really about? And is all this contempt truly fair? Here, we take a look at some of the most defining baby boomer characteristics to find out more about this mega cohort that is as frequently mocked as it is misunderstood.

1. they’re Optimistic
There’s a reason why your boomer parent is always telling you to look on the bright side (even when you lose your job and get dumped in the same week, thanks mom). This is the generation that was promised the American Dream and compared to subsequent generations, they largely achieved it. Thanks to factors like relatively high wages, less student debt and a high rate of home ownership, this generation is known for their hopefulness and “anything is possible” attitude. In fact, according to a recent study from the University of Michigan, Haver Analytics and Deutsche Bank Global Research, baby boomers are more optimistic than millennials, marking the first time that young Americans have less optimism than those aged 55 and older in the last six decades that the consumer sentiment of these two generations has been compared. And if you think that the pandemic could knock down a boomer’s confidence, think again.



2. they Work Hard…
Your dad doesn’t understand how you’ve had three jobs in the last six years, and don’t even get him started on the concept of “job fulfillment” or “work-life balance.” Boomers have a strong reputation for being hard workers who were/are loyal to their careers and employers. In fact, they even coined the term “workaholic” and are often credited with inventing the 50 hour work week (great, thanks a lot). As such, it’s perhaps no surprise that the baby boomer generation controls about the vast majority of all disposable income in the U.S. (estimated at 70 percent back in 2015). And they’re not slowing down—40 percent of boomers plan to “work until I drop” according to an AARP survey. This hard working and “can do” attitude extends beyond the workplace—while our DIY skills are shoddy at best, we haven’t met a boomer who doesn’t know how to fix a leaky tap or change a tire.


3. …but Aren’t Afraid To Call It Quits

Baby Boomers have the highest divorce rate in history and the highest rate of second marriages. This actually isn’t so surprising, considering that this generation is also known for resisting traditional social constructs and pushing boundaries (more on that below). Particularly when compared to their parents’ generation, boomers were no longer expected to put up with unhappy marriages and stick it out through irreconcilable differences. So, what brought this change in relationship expectations on? Well, some experts cite boomers’ individualistic attitude as a reason for the high divorce rate, while others point to The Family Law Act of 1969 which introduced the concept of no-fault divorce (i.e., ending a marriage just because you want to, without providing cause

4. they May Not Be As Conservative As You Think
Boomers get a bad rap for being close-minded, condescending and resistant to change (hence the “OK boomer” meme, a verbal eye roll that originated on Reddit in 2009 and went TikTok viral in 2019). And yes, in terms of political attitudes, they’re more conservative than younger adults, according to a 2010 Pew Research report. But the reality is that this was the generation that experienced enormous social change, including the women’s rights and civil rights movement, not to mention the anti-war movement and the sexual revolution.

5. they’re Super Competitive
Chances are your parents didn’t just want you to do well in school, they wanted you to be the best. And as stressful as that might’ve been for you growing up, it’s kind of not their fault. As the second-largest generation of all time (millennials only surpassed boomers in 2019), boomers had to compete for their place in the world. This is especially true in the workplace since hardworking boomers consider their jobs a central component of their identity. Which might explain the stereotype that boomers make fun of millennials who expect “participation trophies” for doing the bare minimum. Many boomers might not actually feel this way, but you can bet that they didn’t give out seventh place awards back in mom’s day.


Number 1.
I'm a pessimist by nature. One more reason I have always felt different than my peers. However, I have always thought it was more of an American thing than a boomer thing. Our parents, and grandparents were even more optimistic than us having survived The Great Depression and winning WWII(they might have felt differently if America was bombed to bits like so many other including other winning countries)

Number 2
Yes, I worked hard, and long hours. While I did not drop Autistic burnout and age discrimination ended that much earlier than I expected

Number 3
Good thing, but we and I were too stubborn, to our detriment.

Number 4
We don't seem conservative to ourselves but compared to Millennials and especially Gen Z we sure are. The hippies and New Left are often wrongly conflated with the entire generation. We mostly voted like our parents if we voted at all. We did do things substantially different than our parents but it was mostly to fix what we believed to be good but what had gone horribly wrong as compared to the whole thing is systematically flawed. The social changes in our era were far from nothing burgers but can't compare to the gender identity revolution Gen Z is doing

Number 5
This rings the most true. Just by our numbers, we were overcrowded in most situations, so it was and still is be competitive extroverts or be ignored and run over. Even with all that getting and keeping a job was much easier if you were qualified and willing to work. Even if you just did the job without extra effort while not advancing you could keep your job. And boomers are competing with the younger set not only because of a "work to you drop" attitude because despite the stereotype often the financial security is not there or if it is there there is no guarantee it will be there.

Not mentioned in the article but what about that nickname Tom Wolff gave us "The Me Generation"?
This thread, enough said.

Baby Boomers more likely to have multiple health issues than earlier generations
Quote:
Baby boomers are more likely to live with numerous chronic health conditions than earlier generations, according to new research from Penn State and Texas State University.

Study authors warn that the growing rate of multiple chronic health conditions (multimorbidity) among older Americans represents a real health threat to the nation. If it continues, this trend will almost certainly place increased strain on the well-being of older adults, medical infrastructures, and federal insurance systems. On a related note, the amount of Americans over 65 is projected to increase by an astounding 50 percent by 2050.

Researchers note that this isn’t the first study to indicate greater health deterioration among today’s older adults.

Study authors analyzed data on adults aged 51 years and older originally collected by the Health and Retirement Study, which is a a nationally representative survey of aging Americans. Multimorbidity was measured by looking out for nine chronic conditions: heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, lung disease, cancer (excluding skin cancer), high depressive symptoms, and cognitive impairment. Variations in the specific conditions driving generational differences in multimorbidity were also investigated.

Notably, sociodemographic factors also appeared to affect the risk of multimorbidity among all generations. Examples include race and ethnicity, whether the person was born in the U.S., childhood socioeconomic situations, and childhood health.

The most common conditions seen in adults with multimorbidity (across all generations) were arthritis and hypertension. Additionally, some collected evidence suggests both high depressive symptoms and diabetes contributed to the observed generational multimorbidity risk differences.

Study authors say there are multiple potential explanations for these findings.

“Later-born generations have had access to more advanced modern medicine for a greater period of their lives, therefore we may expect them to enjoy better health than those born to prior generations,” concludes Nicholas Bishop, assistant professor at Texas State University. “Though this is partially true, advanced medical treatments may enable individuals to live with multiple chronic conditions that once would have proven fatal, potentially increasing the likelihood that any one person experiences multimorbidity.”

Prof. Bishops adds that today’s older adults have had “greater exposure” to health risk factors such as obesity. Also, health issues are more likely to be diagnosed in older adults nowadays thanks to improvements in medical technology.

So much for all of those health fads.


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11 Dec 2022, 4:33 pm

STORY: Millennials’ Jobs Mostly Baffle Baby Boomers:

https://www.avpress.com/opinion/millenn ... 00474.html