“Boomers Legacy”

By

Gerry Niskern

Last year the first baby boomers reached age 60. That’s 85 million in the United States and Canada.

Through their childhood and as they came of age, most of the leading edge boomers experienced good times.

Never before has such a large group of consumers been so heavily analyzed by market researchers and courted by retailers. For example, they have single handedly caused the standard apparel sizes in the fashion industry to change. To encourage them to keep right on buying even when they weren’t a size 10 or 12 anymore the industry just changed their sizing. And men’s blue jeans went from tight to relaxed fit overnight.

But now let me suggest a word of caution to all you boomers out there that will affect you directly, sooner than you think.

While you were busy building careers, businesses and raising a family, there has been a change in attitude in our country towards older people. The trend started in the last couple of decades in television and movies. Script writers and producers decided it was hilarious to show oldsters as the butt of many jokes. Mothers in sit-coms, over the age of fifty, are routinely depicted as sex starved maniacs. And older men fare even worse. If attending a movie with a child now days, notice how kids today automatically laugh at the appearance of any white haired person on the screen.

You boomers could easily turn this trend around. A large percentage of today’s kids don’t see the elderly as real people. They only know the stereotypes they have been conditioned to laugh at in entertainment.

Although some children in today’s society are lucky enough to know their grandparents as individuals; most kids never learn about the senior’s careers or life experiences. I suggest that you  take the time to share stories and photos with younger members of your extended family about your own parents. If possible, ask them to share experiences with the younger ;members of the family about their life’s work.

Here’s another suggestion. Your kids and grandkids always learn by your example. Do they see you communicating with older people on a person to person basis, or talking down to them as if to a child? Do they hear you complaining about the white haired driver doing the speed limit, but never about the other speeders?

The sense of stability and security has always been grounded in respect for families and the elders. In these times of a mobile society, you can be assured  that if you lay the ground work, future generations will have a different attitude towards anyone growing older.

Then when you boomers progress from middle age into the pace-makers years, and trust me, you will, you won’t be automatically assigned the “geezer” roles created by the script doctors!