Babyboomers.com

I thought the Brokaw program was a puff piece. Having people like Hanks and Clinton on it made it silly. How could either of them represent the common experience of boomers? When Brokaw was asked at the end of the show by the Michigan boomers what he thought of us he said never fulfilled their promise. I think that’s a bunch of bull.

Boomers have made America the greatest economic power in the world and have brought untold number of scientific achievement to people throughout the world. One thing that especially bothered me was the assumption that we as a generation are hung up on material things. What Brokaw and others seemingly constantly forget is that it was our parents, the Greatest Generation, that gave us everything, made sure we were spoiled, and gave us the sense that if we had the money we might as well buy the toy. I think boomers as a whole are probably no more materialistic than any other generation. We’ve just had more chance to accumulate.You want spoiled, look at the generation we raised. We gave them things even we could never think of having.

That program left out a whole lot of things about being a boomer. It glossed over the overriding fear of nuclear attack we grew up with. No other generation in America’s history ever grew up under a constant threat of attack from a hostile power. We had to live with a mess of a world that Brokaw’s Greatest Generation left behind for us. We dealt with racial integration, we ended the cold war, we opened society up so that women had more opportunities and we dealt with the sudden complex emotional situation that the pill and later AIDS brought about. Brokaw should look in a mirror. His Greatest Generation lived most of their lives without protesting segregation or the inequality of the sexes. His Greatest Generation may have lived through the Great Depression as children when they weren’t responsible for putting food on the table or sending children to school. We lived through the economic malaise of the 70’s just as many of us entered the workforce and now our present economic troubles just as many of us prepare for retirement.

All-in-all I think we’ve done an admirable job in changing the world and making it more equitable not just in America but around the world. We’ve always had a bright future. We still do if we can set aside the doomsayers. Some said our revolution during the 60’s would fray society. It didn’t. It made us stronger. A minor economic setback shouldn’t get us down especially the generation that knows better than any that it isn’t material goods that make us who we are. “All we need is love.”

-From BabyBoomers.com member Wizard13