A Boomer Manifesto: Stop Hating Us!

An Open Letter To Millennials:

Pay attention whiny Millennials.  I'm talking to you 23-to-38-year-olds. Stop scapegoating Boomers.  Boomers left a better world than we inherited.  Yet you complain about your circumstances.  Life is never easy for any generation. Just accept it and get over yourselves. Be happy for goodness sakes.

Many of you moan that Boomers bequeathed you a rotten world.  The climate is a furnace.  Oceans are dirty and choking in plastic. College loans are a financial yoke.  Homes are unaffordable. Child care costs too much. Boomers snatched all the wealth.  The economy is unfair. Life generally sucks.  

Millennials grumble they are tethered to their work.  They're on call 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. Many haven't stepped inside an office in more than a year, but carp about their jobs.  Millennials lament no generation has faced such unrelenting job tension.  There is no escaping work.         

Their rants on social media are epic meltdowns.  "What's it like to be an fossil?" Millennials rage when Boomers challenge their cranky attitude .  If confronted with history and facts, they are dismissive: "Okay, Boomer!" Blaming other people for your plight will be the epithet for your generation.  

Millennials voices are suddenly trendy because they have surpassed Boomers as the nation 's largest adult generation.  Boomers, those born from 1946 to 1964, clung to that distinction for decades until the latest Census data confirmed Millennials outnumber the former by a margin of 72-to-70 million people.

The name Boomer originated from the term Baby Boom, the phenomenon of a sharp rise in birth rates after World War II. Beginning in 1946, there were a record 3.4 million births, the highest ever recorded in a single year.  That was the beginning a population explosion that lasted through 1964.

Counting yourself as Baby Boomer was once a badge of distinction. No longer.  Millennials and their cousins in younger generations feel entitled to free child care, free health care and free college because Boomers have it too good.  Oh, and Boomers should pay for the free stuff.   

Let's acknowledge that stereotyping any group, especially an entire generation, is unfair.  There are many hard-working, very intelligent, deeply motivated, joyously satisfied Millennials.  However, their voices are drowned out by the bellyachers.  Those are the ones that need a history lesson.

Boomers were endowed with paucity.  Most parents didn't graduate college.  They were not hedge fund managers.  We lived in modest neighborhoods. Vacations were a luxury.  Boomers were not gifted a car the day we received our driver's license. Few grew up in affluence.  We were grateful for what we had. 

In elementary school, teachers drilled us on how to survive a Soviet Union nuclear attack by hiding under our desks. Kids had nightmares about the bomb.  Boomers remember the day the world trembled when a Russian fleet headed toward Cuba. A bloody military confrontation appeared imminent.  

We dealt with the fear of polio, a crippling disease that struck children. We wept the day a U.S. president was shot and killed.  The news about the assassination broadcast over school public address systems stunned us.  How could anyone murder a president of the strongest nation on Earth?   

Those events shook us to the core.  Our world felt unsafe. There were no counselors to help us deal with the trauma. Our parents example of grit and determination in the direst times gave us strength. Taught us how to deal with adversity.  The lessons proved invaluable once we were on our own.

Boomers earned the title of the most educated generation, many becoming the first in their family to be awarded a college degree. College was certainly not as expensive as today, but household incomes were far less too.  Many Boomers worked in the summer and during college to pay the costs.  

During that time the Vietnam War was raging in Asia.  Thousands of students were drafted and sent to the jungles in Vietnam.  Boomers served with distinction but were unwelcome when they returned home.  Anti-war protests, led by Boomers, roiled campuses and changed public opinion against wars.

After college, jobs were not as plentiful as post-World War II.  Job competition was fierce. Those who had jobs worked long hours. There were times we slept at the office and toiled on weekends. While iPhones were not welded to our hands, bosses used landline phones to keep us connected to the office. 

Boomers didn't break America, we tired to fix it.  We embraced civil rights long before Black Lives Matter.  Boomers were on the front lines of marches for equality.  Dr. Martin Luther King found disciples among white Boomers.  Boomers were the first generation to attend desegregated  schools.

Boomers kickstarted environmental activism.  We were the first generation to spearhead cleaning up  polluted lakes and rivers.  We joined organizations dedicated to the environment. Boomers were the force behind recycling. No past generation had been willing to tackle environmental issues.

Boomers, often branded the "me" generation, answered the call to join a new outreach program called the Peace Corps.  Thousands volunteered to work in the U.S. and overseas to help others in need. Over the years, Boomers embraced volunteerism as part of every American's civic duty.

Boomers give the world the Internet, which linked the entire planet. They invented an ingenious device called the computer. Boomers also created wireless communications, including the iPhone. They designed computer software.  These discoveries ushered in a new digital era that thrives today.

We huddled around television sets to watch the U.S. land on the moon in 1969, spurring a generation's interest in space, science, math and technology.  This unimaginable feat left an indelible impression on Boomers, imbuing a whole generation with exuberant optimism and self confidence.    

With every passing year, Boomers are now mocked for driving up the costs of Social Security and Medicare; benefits we paid for in taxes. Instead, Millennials should thank us. Boomers started the fitness craze which evolved into a healthier lifestyle, resulting in extended longevity.  

Don't hate Boomers because we are hard-working, industrious, competitive and have pursued the American dream. Yes, Millennials, there are obstacles to the life you seek.  They may seem insurmountable. Economic circumstances, work demands and life choices are arduous.  

But Boomers want you to succeed.  You are the future of this country. We are sympathetic with your trials and tribulations.  But you can learn from our experience. Embrace the current challenges and rise above them.  Create your own future. Pity parties are not productive. 

One day Millennials will be judged by younger generations too.  What will they say about you?  You can start today by turning down the volume on the litany of complaints and forge ahead with renewed determination to become the greatest generation ever.   

Unhappy Crowd: Spare Us the "Woe is Me" Lament

Squawking about America has never been shriller.  Gun violence is spiraling out of control.  Racism is seething.  Trade wars are spiking prices.  The nation's political climate is toxic.  Homeless people are camped on streets of cities.  The whole country is a rotten stinking dung heap.

Day after day the piercing chorus is deafening.  For many Baby Boomers, including this writer, it has become nauseating.  The contempt, disgust and loathing from our fellow Americans is too much to stomach.  This country needs perspective, a quality missing in today's warped media reporting.

If you honestly believe America has never been this foul, you just haven't lived long enough. Not too many decades ago, this country was in the throes of race riots, soaring interest rates, double-digit inflation, high unemployment and one of the deadliest wars ever fought by our military.

Americans, especially Millennials, have either forgotten or never been taught American history.  As a timely reminder, here is a refresher on the turmoil that roiled the country from 1962 to 1981, a period that included political assassinations, cities in flames, an oil embargo and economic Armageddon.

During the Cold War with Russia in the 1960's,  President John F. Kennedy advised Americans to build bomb shelters as a precaution.  By 1965, 200,000 underground shelters speckled the American landscape. As school children, we were drilled to hide under a desk in the event of a nuclear attack.

Tensions boiled over in October 1962 when the U.S. discovered Soviet nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba.  The military blockaded Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from reaching the island.  Nuclear war appeared imminent. After a nerve-racking 13-day standoff, the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles.

Not long after, President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 by a gunmen who had visited Russia.  Less than 20 years later, President Ronald Reagan was shot, the bullet just missing vital organs sparing his life.  If a closely-guarded president could be killed or wounded, none of us felt safe.

During the period after 1963, ugly race riots broke out in major U.S. cities as African-Americans battled police in the streets.  National guard units had to be called up to restore peace.  Historians have called the riots the "most serious and widespread" ever in the U.S.

The social unrest flared in 1968 after civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King was struck down by an assassin's bullet.  The news ignited riots in 110 cities across the country in a single night.  That same year Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy was murdered.

His death and the simmering anger over the Vietnam War combusted into the worst incident in American politics. At the Democratic Party convention in Chicago, violent confrontations exploded as police and protesters fought.  Demonstrators were beaten and tear gassed on national television.

The unpopular war in Asia, which lasted almost 20 years, ended with 58,220 American military causalities.  Another 304,000 soldiers returned home with crippling wounds. Many of my generation lost college mates, friends and family members.  Too many died forgotten in a war run by politicians.

For perspective, only the Civil War, World War I and World War II, eclipsed Vietnam as the deadliest conflicts in our history.

On the heels of the war, impeachment proceedings were launched by the House Judiciary Committee against President Richard M. Nixon, who was implicated in the break-in at a Democratic Party facility in the Watergate Hotel in Washington.  Under pressure, Nixon was forced to resign in 1974.

The nation barely exhaled when a Middle-East oil embargo kindled a gasoline shortage in the country.  Prices quadrupled at the pump overnight, shredding family budgets and triggering a nationwide panic.  Stations ran out of gas.  Fuel-starved cars were abandoned on the road.

During the height of the crisis, price gouging was rampant.  We waited in long lines of cars idling on roads leading to stations, snarling traffic and shortening tempers.  Mandatory limits of five-gallons of fuel per car were imposed by gas stations.  Daily commutes were often sidelined by empty gas tanks.

Then galloping inflation and high unemployment detonated.  From 1976 to 1980, car prices zoomed 72%.  The cost of new homes soared 67%.  In a single year 1979, gasoline prices rocketed up 60%.  Inflation spurted to 12.4% in 1980.  The prime interest rate topped 21% that same year.

Unemployment jumped to 9%.  Many firms laid off workers.  A new term was coined, The Misery Index, to quantify Americans' fears and anxieties over the economic morose.  Government wage and price controls, introduced to stem inflation, instead stunted an economic recovery.

During this era in the 1970's, the nation recorded the worst crime rate in its history.  There were 115.2 million crimes reported in that decade.  The highest murder rate in the country's history was in 1980, far outdistancing today's FBI homicide rate-per-population.   Crime became a hot political issue.

Perhaps, this brief history lesson will remind all Americans that our country has undergone more dire economic, political, race and violence-marred eras. That doesn't mean we should be sanguine about these times.  However, today's Americans deserve to have current events put into historical context.

It may not be the best of times but it certainly isn't the worst.  Not even close. Someone has to spread that message to quell the incessant wallowing in self-pity.  The media will not.   We must do it.