Baby Boomers – from first to last
Since I’m at the leading edge of Baby Boomers (just turned 60; my husband is nearing 62), I’ve wondered about people at the other end of the “generation.”
Now I have my answer: They don’t identify themselves as Baby Boomers. Frumpyhausfrau recently wrote a blog post about this. She says those who were born in 1964 don’t feel like boomers.
Were you one of the “last of the baby boomers”? Do you feel like you have anything in common with those of us who are the first?
14 Comments
I’ll give you another one – how about those at the beginning? My mother, born in 1945, right before the official baby boomer demography, often finds it difficult to identify with the official “baby boomer” mindset and yet is still lumped in that category.
I am on the back side of this tsunami at 45 but have always identified myself with the Boomers. There is no one definition of the Boomer experience because our age range is so vast. My Mother, for instance, is only 64. there are easily hundreds of thousands of those who include both parents and children in the same generation.
Woodstock happened when I was in the third grade and I don’t remember where I was when JFK was assassinated (one year old) but that has never stopped me from being a Boomer. My experience was just different from yours. I’m still struggling with what to do with my second-life. Change careers, give back to my community, have more free time… see, we’re not as different as you may think.
I just did a series on prescription drugs on my blog for boomer consumers at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com.
The research was fascinating. It would be of interest to older and younger boomers.
Jean, I am currently struggling through a dense and intense book “Generations” written back in 1991 by William Strauss and Neil Howe.
It denotes generations as approximately 22 years but as few as 17 (according to historical events and circumstances )and from that standpoint it puts the boomer group at 1943 to 1960.
The book also defines and discusses peer personalities of generations. Certainly someone my age born in 1949 is much more likely to exhibit a “Boomer” personality that someone born in 1964. The Generations book refers to those born after 1960 as the 13th which has a much different peer personality than Boomers.
Rich
Hi:
I agree. The numbers say one thing but people older, say up to 65, identify psychologically with being a baby-boomer. I’ve written a book, The Laughing Boomer, and in doing my research I found that many pre-boomers consider themselves to be boomers, but those at the other end do not.
Thanks to all for your comments. I’m checking out the “thrive and survive” website, as well as the “Generations” book.
What Mahara says is echoed in what I have found – that younger boomers don’t include themselves in the ‘boomer’ designation.
Thanks for picking up my article – but I hope I do not sound like I am trying to speak for everyone in my age group. There may be many who feel differently than I – but I remember when the topic was covered in school, that we were told that the Baby Boom generation referred to the post WWII high birth rates when the soldiers came home from the war. That was a pretty small window, so to hear it is considered to run through 1964 was a bit surprising (ok, I lead a sheltered life!). No disrespect intended to people on the other end of it!
I never thought of it that way, Laura. Certainly, the soldiers were only “home from the war” for a few years. Wonder who decided that the “generation” lasted so long.
I think the term ‘Generation’ is used very loosely in this instance because the Boomers are actually two generations. It’s more of an ‘Era’ of time.
I agree. I am sure that some marketers thought this one up.
I was born December 25, 1964 which technically puts me in the very last week of the baby boom.
Do I feel like I belong to that demographic group? NO! NOT AT ALL… I feel like I’m in a different group….by the time I’m to begin recieving social security, they project the current system to be bankrupt. I will turn 67 in 2031, and feel that the boomers will have evaporated my benefits.
War Babies/Baby Boomers
Perhaps some of this confusion could be clarified by remembering the distinction between War Babies and Baby Boomers. The mid and early 40’s were a “baby bust” known then as War Babies. I was born in 1944 and the adults treated me and my childhood friends as very special rare commodities. They also told us at the time that we were War Babies. Today, it seems only the Federal Gov and University websites seem to remember this distinction. The start of the BB demographic started about 1949-1950. The soldiers did not return immediately. They were held in Europe and Japan for establishing peace and order (I also don’t think America had places for so many returning servicemen – remember the housing crisis?). I think of my demographic group as the thin edge followed by the huge wedge behind it. My husband (b. 1943), I and our age group graduated college (mid 60’s) when an advanced degree was still a ticket to great employment. We became a Corporate Fortune 100 couple when employment/benefits were secure. By the 80’s the market was flooded with Baby Boomer college degrees (student loans had become available – no offense intended – it’s just the realities of supply and demand) and Corporate America found it could get more and offer less. Education inflation and graduate degrees became standard. We were also the cutting edge (and final group) to suffer what had been the shame of being fired. By the 90’s, employment security and company loyalty was a thing of the past; being let go or leaving a company was no longer a stigma on one’s work record. So what is my point? Those born prior to 1950 are really not baby boomers. The influences/expectations that shaped us from childhood to adulthood were different (tight war time economics, company loyalty/security, rarity and expense of college dgrees, are some). Our parents were either older or 4F. They had weathered the Great Depression 5-10 years earlier. As children, we were more serious – older than our years. If you remember seeing a government ration book, squeezing yellow dye into bags of Oleo, or empty sugar shelves of the mid/late 40’s, you are definitely not a Baby Boomer. The war baby childhood was not the childhood of our younger BB cousins who grew up in Levittown suburbs, and an economic post war that we all thought would go on forever.
[...] Baby Boomers – from first to last Since I’m at the leading edge of Baby Boomers (just turned 60; my husband is nearing 62), I’ve wondered about people at the other end of the “generation.” [...]
Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. That’s how boomers are counted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Yes, there are differences between older and younger boomers, and some younger boomers don’t like to be included in the boomer category.
Generation Jones is a term coined by Jonathan Pontell to describe the generation of people born between 1954 and 1965. Although the term has a following, it doesn’t have official meaning.
Rita blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide