Boomers vs. Millennials

Apparently, there can't be two demographics of Americans who aren't debating each other. This after coming across multiple articles recently that either feature millennials disparaging boomers as the recipients of unending wealth and good fortune or ones that are pleas to the world at large to understand and stop trashing millennials.

In response, I offer this.

When I'm not apologizing to millennials for allowing global warming to happen, I do things they don't.

Like not spend my workday breaks sitting in an idling car as I update my social media accounts and look for revenge porn.

(We all appreciate the generous contribution of extra greenhouse gases. But um, don't expect a thank you note.)

Or vote.

Finger-pointers that they are, millennials have identified baby boomers as the generation we should loathe. Boomers have lived a life of ease while theirs has been a ceaseless struggle to survive.

Fine. If you must.

Despite your compulsive need to be and do things differently, you're just like us.

I can safely say that at a certain age, yes, we disrespected the previous generation, too. We ignored their accomplishments and instead, focused on how unlike us they were (as if that ought to mandate a stretch in prison).

By our standards, they were racist and sexist and hideously unevolved. What was their problem, anyway? Ignorant of history, we ignored their evolution from the generation which proceeded them.

Sorry to again make you seem less-singular and amazing than you are, but does that sound familiar?

Yes, you have been buffeted by two economic maelstroms, the Great Recession and now the fall-out from the COVID19 pandemic. And yes, it sucks.

But you know what? Thousands of boomers graduated straight into the Reagan recession of the early-eighties. And if someone with a degree in accounting or education was having a tough time landing a job, imagine the uphill climb of someone armed with an English degree.

And as you are (presumably) so well aware, job gaps scare would-be employers even more than unannounced IRS audits.

Despite being a boomer, another downturn occurred in the early-nineties. And another one following 9/11. You of course remember the Great Recession.

So. Let's see, that's one, two, three, four, FIVE recessions my fellow boomers and I have had to gut out.

If that's your definition of a life of ease, fine.

It's not mine.

Want to hear about how my life as a college-educated candidate for living-wage jobs ended at fifty because I happened to have been in the middle of a cross-country move and was thus unemployed when the recession hit in 2008?

Didn't think so.

Want to hear about the jobs I've had since? Or about the humiliation I endured watching sitcom after sitcom making the same insipid joke about people living in their parent's basement (which my wife and I were sadly forced to do)?

Yes, we had affordable college tuition and childhoods in which we played freely in parks with whomever happened to be there, because our parent's lives were blissfully free of the fear and suspicion incubated on social media.

We enjoyed affordable concerts and sporting events. Ditto family vacations, which we somehow survived without individual DVD players or the joy found in mindlessly scrolling through a phone.

We didn't suffer the insidiousness of social media cruelty when classmates found us not sufficiently identical to them.

Yes, your college tuition is absurd. Your debt load an outrage. And life without a degree has gotten tougher. Owing to ever-increasing levels of automation and the off-shoring of jobs, finding living-wage work that doesn't require a college degree is harder than locating a reasonable Trumper.

But you can blame almost all of that on the Republicans you can't quite motivate yourself to vote against.

True fact: the meteoric rise in college tuition began with one Ronald Reagan, whose conceptualization of the presidency was to cut spending. And he kinda sorta did. Yes, he indulged every Star Wars-inspired defense scheme presented to him by our selfless defense contractors, but he did slash federal support for higher education, too.

And that set a long line of dominoes falling leading to our current outrageousness.

So that's a good thing, right?

(Don't forget: this is the same guy who had ketchup declared as a vegetable so federally-funded school lunches would appear more healthy than they actually were. Beginning to see a pattern here?)

But I digress.

So. Where were we? Oh yeah. Your life sucks. And mine has been a magic carpet ride.

You have been showered with expensive gifts from overly-indulgent parents all your life: cars, computers, cell phones, video gaming devices, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

When you were in high school you “slept” (wink wink) with your girlfriend under her parent's roof.

Seriously?

Ever try to have sex in a car when you're 6'3” and it's twenty-two degrees out because there was no where else to go?

You're gay? Bi-sexual? Suffer from gender identity issues or are polyamorous? Wow. You get a parade. We were faggots, dykes, queers, transvestites, sluts, whores et. al.

You got a trophy for going to school? Really?

Speaking of which, did you ever walk there?

Millennial males never had to learn how to seduce a woman. They simply dumped something in her drink while she was in the ladies room and voila! Compliant (if unconscious) partner.

(Which isn't to infer that I in any way, shape or form endorse this or envy you. I don't. Those of you who partook in this are feral sub-humans.)

Your mommy and daddy sued your teacher, the school district and the district's superintendent because you didn't get an 'A' in Applied Physics?

I got yelled at and was told to shape up or prepare for a life busing tables.

There was the millennial female who shone a brief ray of light by suggesting that boomers were too materialistic and should value experience over stuff. Alas, she said this while camping out overnight at an Apple store waiting for the next generation iPhone.

Sigh.

Dear millennial, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I'm sorry you feel another generation had it exponentially easier than you. That must make getting out of bed really hard.

Yes, your lives are fraught with insecurity and uncertainty. Global Warming alone is a game-changer.

But you have to admit: you're awfully faint-hearted when it comes to voting. No, Democrats don't have all the answers. But they're certainly less-toxic than the vermin on the other side of the aisle.

Instead of focusing on which generation is most-deserving of your contempt, why not puzzle-out the answer that will unite Americans in a concerted effort to preserve the radiant blue-green jewel we call Earth?

Change the culture!

Should you prove to be the better generation at getting that done, no one would be happier than I.

Have at it.