This pseudo-documentary, produced by KQED in San Francisco, is just another rehash of opinions, most of them negative, about Americans born between 1946 and 1964.
Being one of the notorious Boomers, it always fascinates me that retrospectives don’t talk about the impact of the following, which were certainly a bigger part of my youth and young adulthood than Haight-Ashbury:
- The over-competitiveness in schools and colleges after Sputnik that led to breakdowns and suicides;
- Mortgage interest rates in the double digits;
- Housing as a whopping percentage of take-home pay;
- The verbal cr*p that women had to put up with simply by walking to work;
- A law enforcement system that in many parts of the country never prosecuted criminals for rape;
- Racism of Caucasians against other Caucasians because of national origin.
I am not elegiac for those days and, for whatever it’s worth, I think in many respects, especially financial, the current times are even worse for our kids.
I don’t find the Boomer phenomenon fascinating, except for the bewildering fact that advertisers seem hell-bent on ignoring our substantial purchasing power: 50% more than the coveted 18-34 market.
I don’t know many, if any, Boomers who are selfish and self-absorbed, but I know plenty who are hard-working, civic-minded and generous to their kids and parents.
As for Botox and fear of growing old: I have one friend who’s had “work done”. One.
Has to be that most of the Boomer stereotypes live in San Francisco.