A Significance They No Longer Possess

This is the first of possibly several off-topic posts here at The Lovely Mrs. Davis Tells You What to Think. I've been inspired to Tell You What to Think about so many new and different things lately, I just can't hold back.

New Year's Eve, I caught a glimpse of the future that was so disturbing, I've continued to ponder it ever since. Throughout the late evning, my husband and I were flipping channels between MTV, ESPN (yes, they had a New Year's Eve special), and New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC. We saw Dick Clark's return to television, which was disturbing in itself (the best description I've heard was when Glenn Beck called it "heroic and sad"), but a commercial that soon followed is what really made me stop and think about the new year that was beginning.

Within moments of Clark's appearance, I saw a commercial for Ameriprise Financial which tells me: "This year, the Baby Boomers start turning 60. Some might say that's the end of an era. We say it's just the beginning."

Holy crap, I said out loud.

How frightening to think that the Boomer generation, which has lived as if it is the center of the universe since the 1950's, is going to continue to do so, even well into the retirement years. I wanted to jump up and scream at the TV, "It's not about you!" and I may have even done so. Two other very important generations - Generations X (for which I could have been the poster child in my early 20's) and the Millennial Generation (or Generation Y) - are now impacting our culture in very important and positive ways, yet all we continue to hear about are the Boomers. X'ers and Millennials are highly present in the workforce and the marketplace, yet all we hear about are Boomers who are scrambling to save enough to retire soon. Many X'ers are parents and Millennials are just becoming parents, and both are doing some unique things to change the work-family balance in our society, yet we hear more and more about Boomers discovering their role as grandparents. As they begin to retire, Boomers are leaving the X'ers and Millennials a humongous mess to contend with, yet our society continues to celebrate them as if they invented sliced bread. (I had to look that up, just to make sure a Boomer didn't invent sliced bread, since it seems like they've gotten credit for darn near everything else that's good and right.)

For every step the Boomers have taken in life, our society has reacted as if Boomers were the first to do it - going to college, getting married, having children, sending kids to college, and now turning 60 and preparing to retire. In the first two weeks of 2006, there were numerous news features on the Boomers turning 60, including a series on ABC World News Tonight called "Boomer Breakthroughs." I hope sometime later this year, the media can give a little attention to the rest of us. The Boomers have made some very meaningful contributions, however, for every Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey there is a Kenneth Lay or Bill O'Reilly. And as the Boomers near the end of their careers, our culture needs to shift focus to the next generations, or we're all going to be stuck watching 60-somethings moving into condos while a group of 30-somethings are changing the world. It's like ESPN staying on the Senior Open when the Cubs home opener is starting.

But even as they enter their sixties, the Boomers are refusing to let go of their younger image. One very prominent Boomer webiste is called Aging Hipsters. That name might sound cute now, but imagine a bunch of gray-hairs surfing over to that site to chat about incontinence or early warning signs of stroke. Some have predicted that the Boomers will make aging "cool" or "hip" - but I think if they aren't careful, they'll come off as kind of pathetic and awkward.

So happy birthday, Boomers, and now please step aside.