The greediest generation
Nick Kristof said it, not me:
As a baby boomer myself, I can be blunt: We boomers won’t be remembered as the “Greatest Generation.” Rather, we’ll be scorned as the “Greediest Generation.”
Our influence has been huge. When boomer blood raged with hormones, we staged the sexual revolution and popularized the Pill. Now, with those hormones fading, we’ve popularized Viagra.
As we’ve aged, age discrimination has become a basis for lawsuits, and the most litigated right has become the right to die. The hot issue of the moment is Social Security, and the newest entitlement program is a prescription drug benefit for the elderly.
Our slogan has gone from “free love” to “free blood pressure medicine.”
But I fear that we’ll be remembered mostly for grabbing resources for ourselves, in such a way that the big losers will be America’s children.
(Story.)
Speaking on behalf of the generation right behind the golden children of the ’60s, the Xers who have been drowning in the Boomer wake our whole lives, let me applaud Kristof for finally saying what we’ve known for years. I guess I should still hold out some faint hope for revolutionary change, because I have a lot of Boomer friends and they tend to be thoughtful, conscientious people.
The question, though, isn’t what kinds of individuals they are, but what they will leave behind as a collective legacy.
Perhaps some of our Boomer readers can be persuaded to offer their takes?
lullaby pit 
How is it that generalizing about boomers is now a national sport? (And yes, I am a boomer, so I’m biased.) One figure I just spotted says there are 75 million of us. We were born in a stretch that covers almost 20 years. Are we really that much alike? I’d argue the other way. I (middle of the boomer pack) have a different outlook in many ways from my husband (early boomer) and a friend (late boomer). All three of us seem to have been shaped far more by things like family and the places where we grew up than by the year we happened to have been born. The legacies we’re likely to leave will look different as well.
And I note the Generation Xers and Yers resent sweeping generalizations about what they’re like and what they’re likely to offer to the world over the years…
Many Xers resent the label itself. But the fact that there are exceptions doesn’t mean there aren’t notable trends, pattern, similarities, etc.
And I’m not only an Xer, I’m one of the very first Xers. You have to generalize a bit to talk about any kind of broad dynamic…..
There are actually two different term, “gen-X.” One is the term coined, IIRC, by Douglas Copeland for describing those born in the decade or so following the end of the Baby Boom.
The second definition, used more frequently by those born before 1964, is “Anyone who makes me feel old.”
(It really irks me when someone born in the 80’s gets called “gen-X”. gen-x went to college in the mid-late 80’s.)
Yeah. If you were born in the 80s you’re a Millennial. And that’s pretty much the OPPOSITE of an Xer.
Gen-Xers are the greed machine
Sam,
I think the Gen-Xers are the greediest. Research says they came out of college expecting record pay and wanted to work a 4-day week. They resent working on Fridays and overtime…well, forget that!
They all want to be the Donald, and some did it by creating useless dot com disasterous failures. Now the Gen-Xers know what their profs meant when they said “begin with assets.”
Babyboomers love their Beemers, but they also are good givers. The boomers have been good at serving nonprofits. The Gen-Xers don’t even know what volunteerism is….does it mean offering to stand in line for your friends when the hot new band comes to town? Let us call a greedy one as they are! Some earlier boomers created them, so I guess they have some ownership!