Baby Boomers Ruined Everything

That's pretty much the gist of a recent Washington Post article. Blaming a group of people for the world's ills has always in fashion. I don't buy it.

The baby boomers are a huge demographic. Such a dramatic spike in population is bound to have an effect on just about everything. We hear about all the advantages we had. Yes, we grew up during a time when there was a lot more resources available to us. Yes, we used them, but that's we learned to do from the generation before us. They wanted us to have a lot of stuff. Who'd say no to that?

It wasn't all advantages either. I remember being in classrooms of 40 students. For a while there were two shifts of students. One class started early in the morning and a second was held in the afternoon. It's not exactly an ideal learning environment.

There was also a big difference in the experiences of the leading edge baby boomers and the trailing edge. Those of us at the end sometimes found all the good jobs filled up. I noticed it locally. Those good blue collar jobs lasted long enough for people to retire, if you were on the front edge. Those at the end of the boom found themselves in their 50s and out of work.

Lumping a whole generation together really ticks off those of us who did follow the herd. For example, don't blame me for the ills of Social Security. I'm not even in the system.

Pitting one generation against another keeps us all from working together. Every generation has something positive to contribute.

-Sixbears