Don't Trust a Baby Boomer
On the Retirement of the First Baby Boomers: Gotcha
When I was sixteen and back from Woodstock I was told never to trust anyone over thirty. We were the Love Generation and they were just too uptight. The Man was about war and death we were – hey man, don’t let that go out—about Love.
That was a mistake. Sure, my parents’ generation yelled at us and spanked us, before my generation defined that as abuse and outlawed it. My parents’ generation also drank highballs too often and smoked cigarettes too much. But even drunk and pre-cancerous they gave us real guidance, real love and real protection from the Nazi’s, the fascists, the Stalinists, the Maoists, and THE BOMB.
Anyone under 30 today, however, who is foolish enough to trust anyone of my Love generation is simply a fool. And that is not a mistake, embarrassing as that may be for me to say. Never trust a Baby Boomer. Really, never do.
We moralizing Baby Boomers have primarily given the generation entrusted to us the joy of victim politics and an enormous price tag for it too. We Boomers standardized divorce, fatherless families, Ritalin, atheism, extortionately priced higher education, inadequate public education, government programs and the pornography net. We Boomers traded traditional religions for armies of social workers, legions of psycho-babblers and innumerable platoons of professionally outraged quasi-militants of all stripes and varieties. But God (who we know does not exist!) knows we Boomers are far from done. We are now working assiduously hard to make sure our kids --YOU-- foot the bill for our Social Security while we make absolutely sure you are not allowed to save for your own social security. Ask AARP their position on allowing Social Security savings plans for you whippersnappers. “No the youth simply are not enlightened enough to save effectively without government aid.”
Perhaps most perfidious, however, we lovey dovey Boomers even gutted the word “love” itself of sacredness. We spent your inheritance moaning endlessly to our therapists about how our parents never told us they “loved” us, until we inevitably reduced “I love you” to a synonym for “Hi,” consequently emptying that once only whispered word of any profound meaning at all. My dad never told me he loved me, and yet I never ever doubted that he did. Had he ever felt forced to say it I would have known his or my own death was immanent.
If you imagine I am overstating things let me describe my academic past, and then tell me if you children of Boomers could have had the luxury I had: When I was an undergraduate I easily earned enough to pay for my college by working a summer job, as a laborer. Could you? When I went to get my Masters Degree, I sold firewood for one year and thereby made enough to complete my second degree, debt free. And you? PhD? Free! Sure, I ran up some college debt. My trips to Italy and Greece and my car and my computer were more expensive than I could afford out of my own money. Could you do this? No, you cannot.
There is no reason for College to cost so much other than the fact that my generation has now begun gouging your generation. And why not? Our parents are dead, and now we only have our kids to carry the burden while we continue to moralize and continue to play the victim on your dime, that is, on your exorbitant school debt.
When I was sixteen and back from Woodstock I was told never to trust anyone over thirty. We were the Love Generation and they were just too uptight. The Man was about war and death we were – hey man, don’t let that go out—about Love.
That was a mistake. Sure, my parents’ generation yelled at us and spanked us, before my generation defined that as abuse and outlawed it. My parents’ generation also drank highballs too often and smoked cigarettes too much. But even drunk and pre-cancerous they gave us real guidance, real love and real protection from the Nazi’s, the fascists, the Stalinists, the Maoists, and THE BOMB.
Anyone under 30 today, however, who is foolish enough to trust anyone of my Love generation is simply a fool. And that is not a mistake, embarrassing as that may be for me to say. Never trust a Baby Boomer. Really, never do.
We moralizing Baby Boomers have primarily given the generation entrusted to us the joy of victim politics and an enormous price tag for it too. We Boomers standardized divorce, fatherless families, Ritalin, atheism, extortionately priced higher education, inadequate public education, government programs and the pornography net. We Boomers traded traditional religions for armies of social workers, legions of psycho-babblers and innumerable platoons of professionally outraged quasi-militants of all stripes and varieties. But God (who we know does not exist!) knows we Boomers are far from done. We are now working assiduously hard to make sure our kids --YOU-- foot the bill for our Social Security while we make absolutely sure you are not allowed to save for your own social security. Ask AARP their position on allowing Social Security savings plans for you whippersnappers. “No the youth simply are not enlightened enough to save effectively without government aid.”
Perhaps most perfidious, however, we lovey dovey Boomers even gutted the word “love” itself of sacredness. We spent your inheritance moaning endlessly to our therapists about how our parents never told us they “loved” us, until we inevitably reduced “I love you” to a synonym for “Hi,” consequently emptying that once only whispered word of any profound meaning at all. My dad never told me he loved me, and yet I never ever doubted that he did. Had he ever felt forced to say it I would have known his or my own death was immanent.
If you imagine I am overstating things let me describe my academic past, and then tell me if you children of Boomers could have had the luxury I had: When I was an undergraduate I easily earned enough to pay for my college by working a summer job, as a laborer. Could you? When I went to get my Masters Degree, I sold firewood for one year and thereby made enough to complete my second degree, debt free. And you? PhD? Free! Sure, I ran up some college debt. My trips to Italy and Greece and my car and my computer were more expensive than I could afford out of my own money. Could you do this? No, you cannot.
There is no reason for College to cost so much other than the fact that my generation has now begun gouging your generation. And why not? Our parents are dead, and now we only have our kids to carry the burden while we continue to moralize and continue to play the victim on your dime, that is, on your exorbitant school debt.
posted by James D. Carmine PhD at 3/01/2006 04:43:00 PM
1 comments
