Bertram's Blog

I don’t understand the whole “naming generations” thing. It seems to me it would make more sense to go by decades — for one thing, no one would have to remember the names; for another, people at the beginning of a decade often have more in common with those at the end than they do with their own named generation.

For example, the boomer generation is considered to be 1946 to 1964. There is a vast difference in the lives between those born at the beginning of that so-called generation than those born at the end. At its most obvious — the oldest boomers are just turning 80. Most are in their 60s and 70s. The youngest still have two to three years to go before they retire. Do people who trash the “boomers” even realize that?

I’ve been seeing a lot of envy from younger generations because they’re told that boomers hold more than 50% of the wealth, and they want a piece of it. Some will get it when the boomers die off. Although a lot of the boomer wealth came from real estate investment, a portion was inherited, and unless the state takes a greater portion of that inheritance than they did in previous years, the next generations will end up with it.

Something people don’t understand is that for many of the boomers, their real estate investment wealth is their home. One couple I know bought their house decades ago, it’s now paid off, and is worth considerably more than when they bought it. But they are still working since they haven’t hit retirement age yet, and like everyone else, they are struggling to figure out how to support their old age since that house is their main investment. So, they can live there after retirement and work part time to pay the bills, or they can sell the house, realize the profit, and hope they can somehow find something cheaper to buy that leaves them enough to fund their living expenses. That doesn’t sound like boomer wealth to me.

As for that wealth — according to Pew research, 10% of boomers hold 71% of the generational wealth. Although on average, boomers hold more wealth than the previous generation at the same age, a good percent of those folks are no better off than their parents.

So what brought this on? I saw an article — the article wasn’t even a rant, just a supposed explanation of why boomers had it so much better than subsequent generations — that said that in the mid-1960s, boomers could still buy a house with a single income. And yes, in the mid-1960s, people could buy a house with a single income, but those house buyers weren’t boomers. They were the previous generation. In 1965, the oldest boomer was still a teenager, the youngest, a toddler. Unless there were a lot of really precocious babies back then, they weren’t buying houses.

What people don’t seem to realize is that by the time boomers were old enough and had enough money to buy a house, the housing market had changed and suddenly it took two incomes to afford what the previous generation could do on a single income. (I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that feminism grew considerably around that time. Did the need for two incomes fuel the movement, or did the movement somehow fuel the need for two incomes?)

Another thing that people don’t realize is how few basic things were necessary back then. Cable was just coming into prominence in the mid1970s; before that, television was free. There were no cell phones for each family member but a single phone, with perhaps an extension, plugged into the wall. Designer clothes were the privilege of the rich. Middle class women might yearn, but never assumed those clothes were for them. As for the whole “cute” shoe fetish and brand-name bags? Again, saved for the rich. It wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that logos and brands became global status symbols. People today seem to think that fast food and take out were always available, and yes, there were a few fast-food outlets, but they were a special treat rather than a staple. Takeout was pretty much restricted to Chinese food, and most supermarkets didn’t even have delis.

As the pace of life speeded up, with the need for two incomes to support a family, the idea of cooking at home every night was overtaken by the prepared food market, which added considerably to the family food budget.

People complain that boomers are too ignorant about technology, and admittedly, now and again, you do come across a person in their late 70s who fumble with phones and computers, but most of the boomers, though not born with a phone in their chubby little hands, had to learn about computers to keep their jobs. Most boomers have been into technology for the past thirty years. It’s the previous generation that has a hard time with phones and computers, mostly because they didn’t need to learn until their grown children talked them into it.

As for those who complain about too many boomers in the House and Senate? Nope, again, those ancient folks aren’t boomers. They’re part of the never-silent “silent generation.”

And lest you think these ideas are limited to a single demographic, back then, before the government decided to get in on the act, people were doing just fine by themselves, naturally integrating into better neighborhoods.

Did the boomers have it better? I don’t know. I do know that the air was cleaner, the streets quieter (fewer two-car families and people worked closer to home so commutes were shorter), kids could play outside and had a lot more independence than kids do nowadays. Although health insurance was affordable, one could get by without insurance since doctors’ fees didn’t include exorbitant malpractice insurance rates. Because of the 1976 gas shortage, cars were smaller, more efficient — the boom in SUVs came in the 1990s.

Although boomers were able to buy their houses earlier than later generations, I have to wonder how much of that had to do with the money saved by having fewer necessities to buy, but whatever the reason, I do know that most homeowners were able to buy a house at a much younger age than I was.

Not that any of this matters. People will think what they want, though it’s never a good thing to compare yourself with other generations. It’s all about making the best of the world you live in, whatever generation it might be — and whatever name it might have — because the past (and lamenting the past) can never change what is now the reality.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One