Milennials

Perhaps you’ve noticed… an increasing number of notable bloggers are yelping about how unfaiiiirrr it is that we Boomers refuse to retire, purportedly keeping the unemployment rate high as a result, and some news sites are now jumping on the whine wagon.

Then, there’s Congress, bemoaning our life expectancy as ruinous to Social Security; if we’d just die sooner all would be solvent! By the way, this one would be laughable given that a majority of Congressfolk are Boomers, except they don’t have to rely on SS so they really don’t care…

Hmmm…. so unless we head on down to FL for early bird specials, or better yet, head on up to that big early bird special in the sky, we’re (fill in the blank):

greedy
selfish
uncaring
unscrupulous
thoughtless
all of the above

Well, kids, bloggers, pundits, Congress, and news folks, here’s another take for you to ponder…and write about if you’re feeling generous:

over 60% of Boomers are supporting their grown children in one form or another…you sure you want us to stop working?
If you paid as much into the SS system as we did over the last decades, just to have the fund raided by Congress year after year, which is the only reason it’s not solvent (back in the ’80’s President Reagan even made sure that preparations were made for the influx of Boomers he knew to be coming…), and then be told that you really ought’n to expect the return you paid for, you would no doubt really be whining
oh, and keep complaining….that’s the way to get an inheritance….or our vote.

We’re here.

For many a year.

Working without fear.

Get used to it.

A while back, a lovely young lady (very young…college aged) wrote to our local newspaper begging for real leadership from the adults running her world. Here is my response…

Dear Ms. Scofield:

Since it is we Boomers who are the leaders right now, it is us who owe you the kind of thoughtful, quality leadership you so dearly want, and who have so disappointed you.

And ironically, you have asked of us the kind of leadership we asked of our leaders in our day. It is our generation that began the environmental movement – “sitting-in” and demonstrating our little hearts out against “the man” and the status quo he represented (corporate greed, pollution, segregation, few rights for women – sound familiar?) when we were your age!

Yea us!

Except that once we became “the man” we happily backtracked on all that we believed as youth: we have been the main polluters with our gas guzzling cars and 3 homes; we are the CEO’s of the companies that ran the economy into the earth’s core and made decisions based on fattening our wallets vs. caring for our customers/planet; we abandoned the equal rights bill so women still make significantly less than men for the same job; we are many of the legislators unproductively growling dogma along strict party lines or to ensure our re-election rather than doing what’s best for the state/country and our legacy. We are doing exactly what our leaders were doing that we so abhorred.

I am so very proud of you. And I am so very disappointed by the failings of my generation after such a slam-bang start.

So you and your peers keep up the pressure – and add to it that no one knows better than Boomers what is needed to take care of our state and the world. Remind us of that for which we once fought. And don’t stop until we blush and capitulate.

It’s the least we can do after all these decades of betrayal to our roots.