Boomers check in!

[marlakay]

I was born in the fifties I guess that is mid or late boomer…

Don't ya love how all the kids blame us for everything say our generation is spoiled…I would say no, our parents were the first to read Dr Spock and raise us that way. My mother wanting to do the opposite of her mom who would make her sit for hours to eat a vege, or give the white glove treatment to see how she cleaned, didn't make me do anything around the house.

I learned to clean working as a maid in Reno at Harrah's when I was 18. Learned to cook living communally with some jesus freaks in the mid 70's.

I like our generation, old enough to remember carbon paper for copies and princess phones, and still young enough to have fun with computers, ipads and texting.

[canoeist52]

1. My parents were old school. Kids should be seen but not heard.

They should be grateful for anything they got and clean their plates, do chores without complaint and generally pitch in when needed. I practically raised my younger sibs as my parents both had to work to support us. I was responsible for cooking dinner and cleaning house for 11 people when I was 14 yrs old, so I have many skills that the next generation might find useful when, hopefully, they accept me into the commune.

[pipi_k]

8. 1952. We were also to be seen but not heard...

Probably due more to the fact that my father was an alcoholic with anxiety disorder and couldn't tolerate any sort of noise.

Some things about my childhood were great...other things, downright awful and painful.

I had two younger sisters but didn't have to raise them because my mother stayed home, except for one year when she got a part time job working at a local Woolworths store but quit after being bitten by a hamster in the pet department. Yes...Woolworths had those back then.

She didn't get another job until I was about 13, and that's where she met the guy she would cheat on my father with.

If I wrote a book on my life...maybe if we all did...perhaps people would think it's really bad fiction and totally unbelievable.

Such dysfunction!

[1monster]

17. My God! I could have written that post!

I cooked my first full dinner when I was seven years old. Took over managment of the house hold and my seven younger siblings when I was twelve until I was sixteen, when I got a "part-time" job working at a furniture store 33 hours a week. I also put in eight hours a week (mostly just being there in case I was needed) at my father's business and went to school.

We were NOT spoiled in any way.

[OKNancy]

2. 1949

I'm surprised more of my contemporaries aren't really that into computers or the internet.
I retired early, so I'm on my computer at least 8 hours a day.
Here, my own site, Facebook, Twitter, checking my bank balance...

[sufrommich]

3. 1957 here. WHo would have ever imagined those "Jesus freaks" of the 70s

would turn into the "values voters" of today.

[marlakay]

4. That was my religious phase

I went through for about ten years when young. Actually it makes me understand the far right. Most of them are brain washed like I was at the time.

[shanti]

13. me too

went thru a religious phase when i was about 20 or so, but it only lasted a couple of years. come to find out, it really was a christian cult. it's funny, because all of my four sons did the same thing around the same age. the college age years are impressionable ones.

[HappyMe]

5. 1958!

Maybe the kids are just projecting their spoiled, entitled attitude onto us.

[Irishonly]

6. born in 1953

My mom was a nurse so I was a latch key kid before it was fashionable and my dad was a truck driver. They installed my very liberal values in me.

I won't take the blame from the kids. I told my daughter not to turn into an evil pirate like some of my generation did. Being a pirate is fine as long as you are liberal and not evil.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. Hi! 1956 here.....

My wife, on our dog walk tonight, were remarking on how lucky we were to be kids in our times - whether it was trick or treating all over creation, toys that took imagination to play with (and in turn fostered creativity), goofy TV shows (not reality shows)....just loved it.

am at an interesting place - 55, bounced out of the corporate world, and now wondering what I want to be when I grow up!

[solara]

9. Definitely a boomer

Grateful to have been raised the way I was in the 50's

hi ya'll

[greatauntoftriplets]

10. 1949 here.

Can't wait to retire.

[LiberalAndProud]

11. 1959

Tail end? At least I find I have more in common with the boomers than I do with most folks.


Hi everybody!

[shanti]

12. 1955 here

military brat, born, raised, and lived in Southern California most of my life. my first real job was Carl's Jr., when I was 15, and I married for the first time at 18 (bad move). mother to four sons, grandmother to a grandson and a granddaughter, and now retired

i love technology, and it's often hard to think about what i did before computers, cellphones and cable teevee!

[SheilaT]

14. 1948.

And I know better than to believe all of the crap out their about either us Boomers or the younger generations.

Example: I used to read old Life Magazine, sequentially, starting with the first issue in November, 1936. Made it through to the middle of 1945, and I'm still worried that the war in Japan is going to last another year. Anyway, it's crystal clear from reading Life that the WWII adults saved a lot of money ONLY because they were forced to during the war. Many consumer goods simply weren't made for years, like cars, sheets and towels, washing machines. Television was put on hold. Even before the war ended they started cashing in their savings bonds big time and started a spending spree that didn't really end. If we're somewhat spendthrift, we learned it from our elders.

The other thing I get extremely tired of is hearing Boomers (my 5 years younger sister does this constantly) complaining that the younger generation has no work ethic. That's not what I've observed for the most part, and I can recall very clearly when we were accused by our elders of not having a work ethic. Hmmm.

[Maccagirl]

15. 1956

Tired of being kicked around too.

[sinkingfeeling]

16. 1948

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. 1946, and if someone wants to blame me for something

go right ahead. I've probably done all that, and worse.

But I'm starting to grow up. Dammit.



All you boomers from the '50's: stay off my lawn!

Oh, yeah, I'm old enough to remember the smell of freshly mimeographed handouts in class.

[Howler]

19. Sorry I'm so late to check in!

I was born in 1959 in Japan. I'm an airforce brat! LOL!
I don't think our generation is "Spoiled" either.
We are a very hardworking generation that was and for some of us still willing to stand up and fight for a better society.
everything and I mean EVERYTHING the later generations have taken for granted and in some cases lost they had because we fought for it!!!
Just like the Greatest generation passed on a great legacy to the boomers.
It makes me sad and angry reading some of the posts lambasting the boomers. I feel those people are pretty much of lazy intellect and victims of short memory. by falling into a pretty obvious
Political and social/economic game designed to pit one against the other while the Rich people take ALL !!! Not to mention the first ones to complain about boomers were the very ones "Coddled" by the very boomers they are complaining about!

I too love our generations ability to straddle technical epocs while remembering a less technical childhoods when kids actually played outside no matter the weather!

[shanti]

20. another air force brat!

which base were you stationed at? dad was at yokota, 1960-64.

[Howler]

21. Hi Shanti!!!! :)

Please forgive my spelling Tachikowa Airforce Base Tokyo Japan.
Don't remember it though they brought stateside when I was still to small to remember.

[shanti]

22. i do remember tachikowa!

we called it "tachi". it was very close to yokota. i'm a little older than you (1955), and definitely have memories of japan...we lived off base for a year or so, then moved onto base housing (quonset huts).

[Howler]

23. OH! HO! HO!

I certainly envy you those memories. My folks did take lotts of pictures but its not the same.

My Husband works out at Wright Patterson Airforce Now thats how we ended up in Dayton.


And I know how to spell it now WOOT!!!!!!!

[Shagman]

24. 1957

Our generation was very lucky. We missed the Depression, instead lived through the greatest economic expansion in human history.

We got cheap but good educations. We saw a man walk on the moon. We watched a free press bring down a president.

There may never be another time like it.

[dajoki]

25. 1954

[lamp_shade]

26. 1946 - Our phone number was 12J.

[Waiting For Everyman]

27. 1950

Hi all! Late to the party, but checking in nonetheless.

One thing I like about our generation is that we had a "common background". For instance, we all watched the same 3 tv networks, which ran the same shows at the same times; we had the same popular music; and public schools were for the most part very similar all over the country. It gave us a common starting point from which to understand or identify with each other, which generations since then really don't have anymore. The huge range of choices now is the flip side of the coin, but it does come at a price.

[annabanana]

29. That common cultural experience probably

fueled "The 60"s"
When the college-bound of us got to college, we were already speaking the same cultural language.

Before us, kids were pretty much bound to their native neighborhoods. After us, kids are more likely to self-segregate electronically.

It was a pretty unique moment in time.

[annabanana]

28. '49er here

Right after the boys came home

[whathehell]

33. Me too....November, 1949.

[annabanana]

34. Nov 25 (Sag.)

[whathehell]

35. OMG...That's my birthday too!

You know what this means, don't you?...It means we're "Astral twins".

[annabanana]

36. toujours gai kid

wot the hell wot the hell



(archie and mehitabel)

[BDBoop]

30. Late boomer

Born in 1958 - trying to get used to this site. Is there more than one way to view the forums/subforums/threads?

[sinkingfeeling]

31. Hi, if you subscribe to the groups and forums that interest you,

the new posts will appear in the 'latest threads' you see. You can also find them under the 'My Subscriptions' tab.

[Jawja]

32. 1951

[ClueMan]

37. Circa 1958

Born in Los Angeles

I often ponder on the historic moments we all shared in our growing up years.

My first job was with the Neighborhood Youth Corps when I was 14. Made a whole $1.65 an hour.

Ahh those halcyon days of youth growing up in California.