Baby boomers get blame for climate, bell bottoms

Nell Musolf

Although it's been on the rise over the past few years, baby boomer bashing seems extra popular lately, even more so than pickleball.

I don't know why our culture insists on naming generations in the first place. I suppose because it's easier to lump groups together when you want to talk about them behind their backs. It takes less energy to say things like "All Gen Z-ers would rather game than work," or "Those millennials sure don't know what a turn signal is, do they?" and, of course, "OK, boomer."

I am sure I would be guilty of lumping generational groups together if I could ever remember which age group belongs to what label, but since I never do, it's much simpler to roll my eyes and mutter "Young people!" when I spot a twentysomething dropping an empty water bottle into a paper recycling bin instead of correctly sorting it like we of the 1970s almost always do.

But it does seem like boomers are taking the heat for almost all of society's ills more than ever before. Boomers get blamed for everything from climate change to the imminent demise of Social Security, a rumor this boomer has been hearing for the past 40 years that still hasn't happened and hopefully never will.

Boomers slow up lines at the grocery store by writing checks. Boomers ruined the economy by refusing to raise the minimum wage. Boomers never stood up for anyone or anything other than themselves.

What none of the boomer bashers seem to realize is that simply because there are so many boomers, most of us never had the power to change anything other than our socks. Very few of us were trust fund kids, and we’ve slogged through life working toward the same things our children are working toward — a home, a hearth and a little security.

Your average boomer isn't inherently evil. More like inherently addled thanks to all that time logged in front of shows like "Petticoat Junction" and "Mork and Mindy" while ingesting Tang and Sugar Babies.

Someone said to me just last week that all a boomer is good for now is dying, a remark I found rather harsh, not to mention hurtful. Boomers have even been tagged the "Worst Generation Ever." Give me a break. I’m sure Attila the Hun's generation had to be worse than the baby boomers.

Labeling, pigeon-holing and generally categorizing people according to when they were born is silly, not to mention ageist. It reminds me of the Chinese horoscopes that go by year so everyone born in the Year of the Rat, or the Year of the Monkey theoretically share the same personality traits which means that everyone born in 1964, the Year of the Dragon, is charismatic and intelligent.

Just for fun, I Googled "people born in 1964" and it turns out there were a lot of charismatic people born that year, so maybe I’m wrong, still it's important to remember that among the babies were born between 1946 and 1964, the Boomer years, there were some pretty diverse personalities including Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Cher.

I’d never say this to a millennial, but methinks the generations that came after the boomers are simply jealous they didn't grow up with free television, the Beatles, and Creepy Crawlers. They wish they’d had moms who drove Mustangs and dads who wore bell bottoms.

Well, guess what, kids? It's your life and you get to shape it. You can even go out and get a Mustang and bell bottoms for yourself. But speaking for my fellow tail end of the baby boomers, we’d appreciate it if you’d stop picking on us.

We survived mercury fillings, the big hair 80s, and that long, tense summer after a supposedly dead Bobby Ewing appeared, very much alive, in the shower on "Dallas" only to learn it was all a dream the following fall.

I think that's enough for any generation to handle. Even the tail end of one.

Nell Musolf is a freelance writer based in Mankato, Minnesota. She can be reached at [email protected].

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.