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A Boomer’s Journal

There seems to be a new reality rising on the American scene. And that is the reality that the Baby Boomers are no longer the largest generational block in our nation. According to a recent report from The Pew Research Center, the generation known as “Millenials” has hit the 75 million mark, usurping the long reign of my gang, those born between 1946 and 1964.

Now a lot of this depends on how these Pew guys determine generations.

They give a demographic group between  10 and 20 years to come into this world. The Boomers had 18, and have even been divided into a “Boomer I” (’46-’55) and “Boomer II” (’56-’64) category. My brothers and I are in that span with birthdates of 1949 and 1952 (Boomer I) and the youngest brother Don being born in 1960. Rick and I had vastly different early-life experiences than our ‘little bro.” So I guess the Pew’s I and II designations fit.

Then came the resultant groupings of Generation X, Millenials and Generation Z. The literature is a bit unclear as to what happened to Gen Y, but most sources put them in with the Millenials. Which might be why they (the Millenials) are kicking Boomers out of the top tier. Clear, right? Well, this could explain why demographers are considered theorists, anyway.

Some observations are in order here, even as we try to find the right dates for each grouping. The Lovely Jill and I did our best to over-populate North St. Louis County from 1974 to 1991, spanning two of those generations with our six kiddos. So as Boomers, we ‘begat’ with the best of them. However, according to the experts, we were more the exception than the rule.

Our parents created, literally, the Boomer Generation. Large-ish families were common, prosperity fueled growth, things were relatively calm and rosy, peaceful for the most part in post-World War II days. I don’t discount the rise of the Soviet Union or the Korean War horrors by any means, but generally, this was a time of simple growth in the United States. Then came the Crazy ‘60s, another war that would drag on and on, three assassinations in   two years, and Watergate. A certain skepticism had begun to creep into the ‘Peace and Love’era.

The result was that many of the Boomers showed less ‘boom’, at least as their child-bearing was concerned. Was their reputation as “The Me Generation” going to backfire on them? But then the next generation, those at the tail end of Gen X and the beginning of Millenials, showed a growth, partly fueled by immigration to the US from those fleeing dangerous and troubled parts of the globe, and partly by the new prosperity and peace that came in the late 1980s through the ‘90s. So this gang of people coming into their late twenties and early forties have made their way to the top of the population heap. Call them ‘The Millenials’ if you will… I call them the future.

These are the kids weaned on Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, MTV, trips to DisneyWorld and relative prosperity. Technology is an excepted matter of daily life, but their world also includes the bitter taste of terrorism, market calamity, AIDS, climate change, drug overdoses, social-sexual confusion, a catastrophic national debt, and being stuck today with a set of aging candidates for the Presidency (Boomers last gasp?) who don’t come remotely close to reflecting their generation.

I can’t say that we Boomers have left these guys with an easy task of piecing together a future that can positively address these things. That remains for future historians to discern.

But as our number diminishes, so theirs advances. The ball is in their court now. I wish them the best of luck. They’re gonna need it.

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