Baby-Boomers - "Why So Glum?"

King David, in the psalms, cries out to the Lord, "Why so downcast my soul?" The quote below, from a Pew investigate article, asks a similar examine of the baby-boomer generation, in particular, those baby-boomers who are ages 54 to 62: "Why so glum, you older baby-boomers?"

Why So Glum?

News From Laos

In the end, these survey data do not say definitively why baby boomers are sour compared with other adults, but these numbers and other investigate propose some possibilities. Seven-in-ten boomers say they are dissatisfied with the direction in which the country is going, which is considerably higher than the share of younger adults who say so (54%) and about the same as the share of older adults who do (68%). They are more likely than whether younger or older adults to agree with the statement that the rich just get richer these days while the poor get poorer.

Why so glum, baby-boomer? As an older baby-boomer, I'll tell you why we're so glum. In fact, let me count the ways!

1) "Wars and rumors of wars:" Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Kuwait/Iraq, Iraq #2 (which is still dragging on), as well as forces skirmishes (during the years we were supposedly at "peace") all over the globe.

2) "The Cold War:" In the late 1950s and early 1960s, nuclear ("Nucular") testing was a constant reminder to me and my friends, as prepubescent children, that our families, friends and ourselves could be vaporized at any given moment. Fall-out Shelters were high on the list of priorities for those families who could afford them. We had air-raid drills in elementary school, where we were taught to "duck and cover" under our desks. One major example of this fear and paranoia was the Cuban missile crisis, in the Fall of 1962! I was twelve years old when this occurred, and I can still remember the fear in my parent's faces as they watched the evening news every night for almost two weeks. My mom would cry and ask my father, "Do you honestly think the Russians will strike us with nuclear weapons?" My father never had an answer. I can remember going to bed and staring out the window to see if I could spot an incoming Icbm. I was terrified, as was almost everyone else, along with President Kennedy!

3) Assassinations: John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy. These three men were touted by our parents and teachers, and almost everyone else, as the saviors of our country, and all three of these men would be assassinated within a five year period. These three assassinations would ultimately leave us saddled with the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Richard M. Nixon, Spiro T. Agnew and Gerald Ford. A ten year war, with almost 60, 000 American fatalities, Water Gate and impeachment proceedings would be all that was left of "Camelot," and there would be no political or societal "holy grail" to revive us as a nation!

4) A Divided Generation: All of this turmoil at last would lead to a department in my generation. By the middle of the 1960s, we baby-boomers were divided right down the middle, politically, culturally and religiously. Many of us supported the war and government and would serve and die in Viet Nam and Cambodia. Many of us would reject the war, the government and the values that our parents had all the time held as precious. This caused a rift even in families. I know men who fled to Canada, to evade the draft, that still have no contact with their parents and siblings. Many of us, who chose the radical left position, honestly threw out our traditional religious, public and political beliefs and values with the bath water. To this day, we have never, as a generation, thoroughly recovered from this division, which is evidenced in our current political and cultural climate. We are a nation that is divided and in many, many ways!

5) Two Generations & Two thoroughly Opposite Responses to Major Challenges: Our parents had experienced two world wars and a great depression. These were events which the world had never experienced before, or at least not in the same magnitude. Our parents, as well as the government, had banded together to overcome these huge obstacles, and in doing so they had become very unified as a nation. To my parent's generation, the whole was absolutely greater than the sum of its parts, and they greatly benefited from that perspective.

We (the baby-boomers), on the other hand, would cleave to the opposite way of dealing with major issues and become thoroughly divided and self serving. The sum of its parts had suddenly become, in my generation's eyes, greater than the whole: the "I, me and mine" generation would have a self absorbed and inner focus, which would lead to our inability to settle the major problems that now face us every day!

In my opinion, my generation would have lost the two world wars and never recovered from the great depression! Why? Because, unlike our parents, we no longer have an identity as a nation or individuals. We don't know who we are or what we believe about anything, and therefore, we find it very difficult to come together and solve the major issues which affect all of us: our unresolved economic crisis, the Iraq war and our decline as a respected nation in the world are just three examples of this lack of identity and unified will.

There are other reasons, which are too numerous to count, why we baby-boomers are so "glum," but I'll wait for man with more quality than me to write about them.

Pew investigate Center: Baby Boomers: The Gloomiest Generation.

Baby-Boomers - "Why So Glum?"

Thanks To : todays world news headlines