My Letter to Fellow Boomers
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y dear fellow Boomers,
Well, if there’s one thing our group has learned, it’s how to take a punch, right? You don’t get as far as we have without learning what bad luck and bad choices can do to a lifetime. Inside and out, we’ve got the scars to prove it. Along the way, we’ve lost parents…maybe siblings—and worst of all, maybe we’ve had to say goodbye to a child.
Yep, there are scars.
We grew up sometimes hearing our parents and their friends reminiscing about their shared sacrifices during World War II. We saw what the shared grief of a Great Depression did to our grandparents.
But all that was going to disappear with us. There were such high hopes for all of us Boomers. Beyond the wars and the worries of the past, we would excel. Remember when we dreamed about what our future would hold?
Well, for us, now there’s not much future left. We know exactly what’s ahead. Successively, our ranks will dwindle. The Millennials just surpassed us in total number; they’ve inched past our 72 million. If you’re lucky (?) enough to make it to mid-century, you’ll be one of only 16 million Boomers left.
From this point forward, the exit aisles will remain full.
o, what do we have to say for ourselves? We hardly see eye-to-eye on politics. But we Boomers can agree on one thing—we had the best music, didn’t we?! Look, I’m not saying there’s been nothing good since the 60’s to mid-70’s, but come on! Let me put it this way to the X’ers and Z’ers and Millennials. Why don’t you pull up a chair and let us hear your favorite playlist. We’ll listen. Then we’ll show you what we’ve got from 1960 until the dreaded scourge of Disco in the late 70’s. I’m sorry, but you’re gonna get smoked!
OK, I’ve laid down this somewhat tongue-in-cheek challenge in order to find something that binds us Boomers. Because in reality, we’ve never been culturally or socially or politically aligned the way our parents were. And we certainly aren’t now.
Older Boomers, those who remember the 50’s, didn’t much realize the bubble that protected our youth. Nothing was impossible--no dream too large. We would perfect our world…and then walk on the moon. The 70’s group Steely Dan captured that sunny outlook with their hit I.G.Y., set in the International Geophysical Year of 1959: “we’ll be clean when that work is done. We’ll be eternally free…and eternally young…”.
Then our figurehead, the youthful JFK, was destroyed by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas. A few years later, Martin Luther King, Jr., was executed on a motel balcony in Memphis. Then that President’s younger brother was felled by another gunman as he walked through a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles. All gone; all innocence gone.
It was the Vietnam War and the civil rights violence and those assassinations that pushed us into rival cultural camps. And for the most part, we’ve stayed put ever since. There’s not much time for us Boomers to come together on the issues, even if we wanted to. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
So, is that it? Is that all? Is it only the old music that binds us together?
Nope. There’s one more thing.
Boomers vote. We always vote.
The younger folks aren’t much like us—at least to this point. They’re more liberal, less religious, less racist and genuinely pessimistic. And they’re not too happy with us. Our parents set the table for our futures. The ones younger than us feel like we’ve cleared the table of everything but a few scraps.
Millennials were asked if they thought Boomers made the world better or worse for them. Half—51%--said “worse”. Only 13% said “better.” I don’t have much to counter that. Do you?
Consider the following table. Over time, it shows the share of U.S. wealth by age group:
Young people have never had a lot of money. (We remember that, right?) But if anything, it’s gotten worse. And if you’re one who writes all this off to “young slackers”, look what’s also happening to the older Gen X’ers (red line) in their “high earning” years. Falling off a cliff.
It’s us Boomers who’ve made off with the loot—look at that dark line at the top. Not hard to figure Boomer resentment, is it? One website recently ran an article entitled, “Baby Boomers Still Somehow Control Everything, Even Though They’re Afraid of the Internet.” Pretty much says it all.
And remember—none of this data takes the pandemic into account. For us Boomers, the Social Security checks will keep on coming and Medicare will be there. For those fortunate enough to have put together savings and careful enough to invest prudently, most of that money should also remain. To be sure, many of our Boomer brothers and sisters will be scrambling. However, as a group, we’re well off.
For everyone younger? Forget it. Right now, their future has no dimension.
o, that brings us to the essential question. Do we owe them anything? After all, we made our own way. “The record shows, we took the blows”…yada, yada, yada. Let them figure it out for themselves.
This may seem ridiculously cynical to some. Perfectly logical to others. Like I said, we’re not going to agree on everything.
But I want to give you my judgment on this “go figure it out yourself” sentiment. Not only do I understand it—I actually endorse it. It is their time to do things for themselves...and by my thinking, they’re pretty well equipped to do so.
However…for that to happen, we Boomers have to agree to do one simple thing. We need to get the hell out of their way.
At inauguration next year, the President will be either 74 or 78. Nancy Pelosi is 80. Mitch McConnell is 78. The youngest Supreme Court Justice is in his mid-50’s; two were born in the 1930’s.
Even if we believe that wisdom comes with age, our age is over. It’s time to step aside.
In the wake of the pandemic and the social justice protests, there’s a reinvention required in America. And that should be imagined and implemented by those who will live through that future.
And that ain’t us.
After all, if we really knew how to fix things, we would have done it by now.
K, so what action is required? What am I recommending?
It comes down to November and your vote. Look, there’s always going to be disagreement among voters. Not just us; among young ones, too. It’s always been this way. No candidate has ever reached even 61% of the popular vote. So, what now?
I think I can dispassionately draw a distinction between Trump and Biden this fall on one point. Trump reflexively wants to take us back to the “good old days”—Make America Great Again, and all that. Even if this were physically or even psychically possible, we’ve got to remember that the good old days weren’t very good at all for a hell of a lot of people. It’s the wrong message.
Biden promises a look to a better future. Of course, along the way, plotting a different future includes a lot of things going wrong. But to repeat, that future should be determined by the people who’ll live through it. And to be clear, I’m also talking to folks who swing from the GOP side of the plate. Give a closer look to a Young Republican-type newcomer over some 12-term mossback Congressman. Everyone, let’s help the young folks open things up and then see what happens. It’s long since time for a change.
They’ll make mistakes, just like we did. But let them have the stage. Don’t cast your vote for anyone—Republican or Democrat— who promises to take us backward. That’s not going to work. Give change a chance
et me close by going back and considering Boomer music—actually, one specific song. In 1970, Crosby, Stills and Nash recorded, Teach Your Children. It opens with a stanza suggested by the title, sung by a parent to a child coming of age…
You, who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so, become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye…
It’s their road to travel now, and their decision what code to adopt.
Later, the parent concludes on a confessional note…
And you, of tender years
Can’t know the fears that your elders grew by.
And so, please help them with your youth
They seek the truth before they can die.
Don’t you ever ask them, “why?”,
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh…
And know they love you.
It’s time to let them drive—hand over the keys to this world.
Our Boomer votes should go not to those who promise to resurrect a former world; but to those who are charged with rebuilding the one that Covid has already shattered. It’s required that things will be different. It should be their “different”.
To our children and grandchildren: please know that we Boomers understand that we did some things right; maybe more wrong.
Please know we trust you to do better.
And above all, surely know we love you…
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