Have Baby Boomers Prepared Generation Y to Act Responsibly?
Does Generation Y Have the Ambition to Take Fix What Their Parents Broke?
Mine was the generation of rebellion, experimentation and discovery. We protested policy, danced to rock and roll and became the desired target of advertisers because we had money and loved to spend it.
We saw heroes killed, presidents fall, and Americans put on trial. We promoted free love, experimented with drugs and broke with traditions. We Baby Boomers were the first generation to watch television, let our hair grow and question authority. We watched men walk on the moon and saw their brothers and sisters explode upon take-off from Earth as well as on their return.
In the novel "Moondust" by Andrew Smith, it is written that "Baby Boomers have the unique distinction of pissing off both their parents' and their children's generations." I agree that this would have been a possibility if we would have been parents to our children instead of their friends. Most of us simply pissed off, or at least disappointed, the generation of our parents. At the same time we've simply failed the generation of our offspring.
Yes, we wanted our children to have it better than we did when we were growing up. In our attempts to give them the things we never had, we gave them instead an overwhelming feeling of entitlement. We protected them from adversity and criticism and as a result, they can not deal with either. We made excuses for their lapses in judgment and failure to follow the rules. Because of that, our children don't know the importance of accepting responsibility or what constitutes character. When they got in trouble at school, the Baby Boomer parents marched right into the school and chastised principals and teachers for having the nerve to accuse or discipline our children. This created children that exhibit no respect for others.
Generation Y is the first generation to be diagnosed with an alphabet disease that caused them to under perform or over act. They are promptly prescribed a pill that will supposedly treat their laziness, puberty, sloth, lack of interest and confusion. Today there are things called ADD, ADHD, OCD, BPD and a slew of different types of depression. Baby Boomers on the other hand were just badly behaved, easily distracted, sad or moody. I wonder what we could have accomplished had we been diagnosed and properly medicated.
We Baby Boomers were the last generation to go out behind the barn and cut a switch because we mouthed off to our mothers. I always thought the actual act and time it took to go get the very instrument to be used for our correction was much worse than the physical part of the discipline. We remembered the entire episode the next time we thought about saying "Do the dishes yourself." The children belonging to Generation Y would quickly remind us that charges will be filed or they'll suffer mental anquish if they are so much as verbally reprimanded.
We were the last generation to know the taste of a bar of soap for letting the new words we learned at school slip out during a tantrum. When we got in a fight, our parents stood by and made sure it was a fair fight and no one got more than a bloody nose, split lip or bruised eye. This is how we learned to take care of our own disagreements. More often than not it seems, Generation Y resorts to lawsuits and drive-by shootings to settle a score. Although there hasn't been enough time to identify a trend with Generation Z, I fear it will be worse if nothing is done.
This is not intended to imply that the Baby Boomer generation was made up of saints and philanthropists. To the contrary, we are the generation that grew up with the likes of Charles Manson, Senator Joe McCarthy, Disco music, O.J. Simpson and women's lib. We were the Cuban Missile Crisis, Watergate and the assassinations of JFK, his brother, Robert, and Martin Luther King, Jr. We created Generation Y.
This is intended to bring the Generation Yers to their senses. This is meant to prevent the snowball effect that could so easily result in the greatness this country has enjoyed, to be reduced to nothingness. This will hopefully incite someone, somewhere, to make a real effort to stop the madness.
In most cases, each individual is solely responsible for the amount of success they enjoy in their lives. The person in the mirror has the capacity to be extremely happy and productive. This is also true of the opposite. If you want, you can be as miserable and as big of a failure as you desire. You alone are responsible for where you are and where you are going, so quit blaming everyone and everything else.
The bottom line is this: It's no one's fault but your own, so accept responsibility. If you don't like where your life is, change it.
Published by Sundance McGee
I write, I speak, I laugh. Public Relations/Communications professional that defies political propaganda and rhetoric. Political critic. Public Advocate. Former U.S. Navy Broadcast Journalist. Award Winnin... View profile
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24 Comments
Post a CommentKudos! I love this article you have written from your point of view as a boomer. You took the words outta my pen when you said several things I really can relate to and would have written myself! I loved it when you said what you did concerning the dis -EASE [disease] labels of adhd, etc...I agreeeeeeeeeeeee! SO much!
Things were so different in the 70s when I was a teen. Peace, love, and rock and roll forever! LOL
Thanks for letting me share. Kat
"...and I think The Silent Generation is in general parents of Generation X. Many Gen Xers seem to be confused in that department. As many Boomers didn't think about starting families until they were all colleged up (ok I made my own word up...) and partied out and then decided to start having families in the late 70s to mid 80s."
Why is it these "Baby Boomers" that think they are the only ones that count (wealthy onwa) think they know about everything...?
I was born in '50. I am definitely a Baby Boomer. I didn't get all "colleged up" because we were poor, and I didn't get partied out, becaue I was married young, like my parents (in this silent era you speak of), so my children born at the end of the Baby Boom, and before GenY, are the X-ers, which have been forgotten because they did not have enough of them, nor did they make a significant contribution to the rich Baby Boomers, who needed a group to suck off of...like Generation Y, now.
There is a Generation X. It's not the bi
Cici I think you're really bad at addition and comprehendings lol or just really tired and confused when you wrote that....
Your mama born in 1942 is apart of The Silent Generation.... You, born in 1962 (my mama was born in 1961) are the last helping of The Baby Boomers. Your daughter born in 1985 (I was born in 1984) is Generation Y. Get it now? The Lost Generation (those born in the 1920s) are the parents of boomers and Silent Gen-ers and I think The Silent Generation is in general parents of Generation X. Many Gen Xers seem to be confused in that department. As many Boomers didn't think about starting families until they were all colleged up (ok I made my own word up...) and partied out and then decided to start having families in the late 70s to mid 80s. That's just based on an obervation or my peers and their parents.
I agree. My mother is a baby boomer (1942) and I am a baby boomer (1962) and my daughter is Gen X? (1985). I feel lost. How did I get into the same generation as my mother?? She wore poodle skirts and I wore bell bottoms (well so did she, trying to be hip). Her yearbook was filled with pages of girls/boys in suits and perfectly coifed hair and cat eye glasses making them look much older than their years. My yearbook was filled with a much younger looking version. My mother is has been classified as "senior" in the grocery stores for a long time and me?? I'm dreading the AARP application that's going to come in a few years! All the while waiting for TV Land to put Starsky & Hutch reruns on!!! Oh and BTW, I did teach my daughter manners and the difference in right/wrong, but the counselors at school still said she had a attitude of entitlement!! She was always very angry with me because I refused to keep up with the Jones' and buy her cell phones and all the latest fad fashions an
we as the boomer generation,have given our children the values of greed.what has the boomer generation acomplished or created as a legacy we watched and read of the acomplishments of the greatest generation as they like to term themselves(the last of the colonial generation)
but what have we done I look out my window at all the cars on the street and wonder in the looming energy and enviromental crisis and we as a generation are not doing anything but doing things the same old greedy way.air travel for our granchildren will be a thing of only the richest,no north american commuter rail system to travel on a road system that no one will be able to afford long distance travel
but still the question what has the boomer generation (greedo generation) done of lasting glory
probably in the lore of history the most memorable single act of my generation will be the looting of the great library of Baghdad(the The looting of Baghdad's museum and library) the savior of the dark ages
There are distinctions between the babyboomers and their progeny that are far larger than societal sensibilites. I will draw 3 major ones as food for thought.
1) Demographics. baby boomers will consume over 40% of the entire federal budget as they retire. Due to their large population, they also constitute the largest voting block and will remain the focal power in political and economic policy for the next two decades due to extended lifespans, early retirement and large population.
2) Gen Y is the first generation in US history that is poorer than their parents. This is not work ethic - in fact many more Gen Y people have to have dual incomes than Babyboomers did. The real issue is that Gen Y thinks there is as much wealth available to them as their parents, it simply isnt the case. Look at household debt (and other stats) and behold the truth.
3) Gen Y has no rallying call. Earlier generations had a unifying experience that really brought them together. The war on
Michy--you and I are in the same boat..I call us the "lost generation".
Very interesting - I'm slightly too young to fit into the Baby Boomers (My mother was born in 46 though), and I'm way too old to be a Gen Y - I think they called me a Gen Xer, but if I remember correctly, my age was one year short of that too. I have no generation into which I fit! I feel so left out now.
Well even though I am technically a GEN Y my morals and upbringing make me more of a boomer. My kids being a GEN Z world scares the hell out of me...
I apologize for all the errors in my last comment. I was in too much of a hurry.