Boomers. The selfish generation.

Ok, Boomer. I have appointed myself as a spokesperson for my guys, Generation X. You were our parents. We were born between ’65 and ’80. I was there and saw what you did. I am still seeing it with my own two eyes. Credit goes to Phil Collins, Boomer. We all have our mommy and daddy issues passed on from the previous generation. More on that later. I certainly have a few things to say as a first-hand witness to your mischief and self-interested endeavors. Now please understand that this is a general commentary and not specific to any particular Karen or Kevin. I truly hope that you don’t contact the manager but instead lend an ear to what I am trying to convey. The world is heading for trouble, and you guys still collectively hold the keys to the kingdom. It is not too late to help younger generations clean up this mess. The power garnered from easy wealth might be tempered with responsibility and active participation in making the world a better place. To be clear, that means the entire world, not just your world. There is a distinction there. Stop thinking about your best life now and turn your eye towards your progeny in a more involved manner. It is never too late to do the right thing. You can pick up the ball that we watched you drop as we lived out our latch-key existence.

First, we thank you for what you did. You kept us in the game long enough to become parents ourselves. You got us part of the way to where we are today. We do have a greater understanding of what you did well and what you failed at. You raised us to be what we are, at least in part. The other part was us fending for ourselves in a world where we came home only at night after coming home to an empty house after school. Thank you for that, because that formed part of the greatness of our Generation X. We are practical, resilient, and self-reliant. We did not share the entitled approach to life that is still being modeled for us, even today. We did not grow up during the post-war boom of easy housing, good jobs, and affordable living. This is perhaps where the silent generation should not have spoken so loudly. These people did not enjoy easy entitlements as they came up through the Depression and World War II. They perhaps reveled in the new prosperity and opportunity that they had long suffered to bring to bear. I guess a lot of you thought good times could last forever. We all want the best for our children. Why not try to have every bit of the American Dream? The Boomer self-centeredness formed somewhere in that time and remains entrenched to this day. It was easy enough to get and have it all. Luxury, convenience, and capitalizing on the promises given are the general Boomer attitude these days. I mean, you guys deserve no less than that, do you? You had to work very hard to get it.

The Boomers certainly did their work, after all. They worked hard to earn their pensions, Social Security benefits, IRAs, and 401Ks. They ate dogs and climbed ladders. What is wrong with McMansions, luxury cars, world travel, and the best things life has to offer? You are entitled, are you not? Only the finest will be served up in the manner in which you expect, or there will be yet another dreaded word with management. It is most certainly your wealth to dispose of as you will. Some of you are still working hard at it, for certain. The glory days are coming soon, though. Finally, the good life is yours. It was long and hard-earned, for certain. However, what is the cost of that? What did you sacrifice to get that done?

Back to us kids of yours, us Gen Xer’s. What did the Boomers leave behind while chasing their dreams of career, financial success, and a better-than-the-Jones’ next-door lifestyle? What did you give up to get what you wanted? Well, there were several things I saw. You gave up being a stay-at-home mom for too many of us. Frozen dinners, microwaves, junk food, and takeout were the meals. We did like our Fruity Peebles, Pop Tarts, Chef Boyardee, first-name Oscar hot dogs, and our part in the Coca-Cola Wars. That is perhaps not the most nutritious fare, but we survived on that. The at-home teachers and entertainers were MTV, commercial television, cable, and later video games. As moms were chasing careers and not children, our upbringing was left to the church and state. We went to Sunday school, daycare, kindergarten, and high school. The institutions were to be our nannies when we weren’t opening the latch-key. TV was one of our greatest teachers, devoid of actual parental involvement. Life, our misdirected peers, and the follies of youth also taught us much more than our parents ever did.

In the rungs up the career ladder chasing the nest egg, the Boomers also gave up the sanctity of marriage and family. Self-realization was paramount, and the institution of easy divorce paved the way. The sexual revolution led to the family revolution. Generation X bore the wrath of the unraveling of the traditional home. The consequences of this will remain in our declining society. It would have been better to stick it out in most cases. Stepparents and musical chair families became all too common and acceptable. As always, the kids pay the price for the parent’s selfishness. The foundation for a strong society is made from the bricks of strong nuclear families. The family unit got sideways on the Boomer watch. Financial success is too high a price to pay for the dissolution of the family. That was a bad choice.

The looser morals of the 1960s revolution came to bear on Generation X in another way. Many of our cohorts never came to be. Birth control made it easier to emphasize career over offspring for the freshly liberated women. Abortion made it easier to fix those little inconvenient mistakes that might slow down the ladder climb. Our generation would be even more severely dwarfed had it not been for the massive influx of immigrants to fill our ranks. Clearly, career matters trump family matters.

The family unit was further dismantled to have an empty nest. Those of us who ran the gambit of non-birthing liberties and latch-keys faced another challenge in late childhood. After doing the hard work of letting the institutions raise and educate their progeny, it was time for the boomers to get close to the task of child rearing. You are raised now, you Gen X person. Our work here is done. Go grab this American dream that we have foisted upon you. We need a hobby room or a home gym. We need our world travel now. It is time to vacate. Do you need to move three states away to find the best rung on the ladder? Well, that is the price we will have you pay, so we can finally be free. We will include you in the vacation circle, and we will catch up on every other holiday. Nobody wants to miss the photo op with the grandchildren. After all, family matters. It is nice to have the photo collection on the mantle so we can see them when we are actually home in our McMansions.

It is evident that the Boomers mostly abandoned the family for their more important pursuits. This started on the school bus, or even earlier many times. The most important work was left to institutions that were not capable of doing a good job. Were the Gen Xers disaffected and cynical? Certainly, and with good reason. This may not bode well for the self-interested Boomers. If you get what you give, then what might that look like in the days to come? More on that later.

What was the counsel from the elder generation to the younger during the waning hours of the workday evening? Those precious moments that were just past the TV dinner and, hopefully nothing good on TV that night. Education at all costs, young one. You must be educated. You had better attend your indoctrination center and do all of your meaningless homework. Using debt was completely acceptable to obtain the holy grail of higher education. Easy and necessary debt helped achieve not only education but other important things as well. You deserve your best life now, so sign on the dotted line, and it is all yours. How can you work at your new job without a nice place to live, a new car to drive, and the latest workplace fashions? Debt slavery was served up to our generation, and mostly, we accepted it as it seemed quite necessary. It seems it was the Boomers who were happy to heap it on us so they could get their good lives sooner at our expense. There is nothing wrong with a little quick and easy profit, after all. Gen X should have all been a little smarter on that one. However, that is a long discussion for another day. Thanks for the life lessons, Boomer people; it really helped make things easier for us.

I could certainly rail on, but if the point has not been made by now, it probably will not be. What would Gen X have the Boomers do? Well, be our parents. We are still your kids. You could have done better, but now those times are past. However, it is still not too late to actually consider the generations after you. Perhaps the entitlements and self-serving attitudes and behaviors can be exchanged for a more benevolent approach. We Gen Xers know that we will barely see Social Security, if at all. They gave us disclosure on that way back to the time, even before we were prompted out of the nest. We will not have the same access to pensions. We are not going to have the same easy ride paved forward by the previous generation as you guys did. We are getting just the opposite. Hording and closed fists are what we are bound for. It seems we will not only be kicked out of the nest, but will miss the nest egg as well. There could be a more balanced and fair approach to career and financial matters. Consider those coming after you for once, and do the right thing. You are not the only one here with needs.

The approach will be to ignore this whole mess. That is certainly the right of every boomer. However, there are things to consider. You need us, Generation X, to take care of you in a growing number of ways in the coming years. What if we treated you the way you treated us? What if your easy pile of wealth and entitlements dries up in the face of severe economic distress? You are good at looking out for yourselves. What happens if the good times end? Did you help the generations that followed? Did you invest in ways that will pay dividends in hard times? Honestly, you might just think about it.