From MaClean's*an interesting discourse on Baby Boomers, the suicide of one David Gillmor and his brother's odyssey to understand why:
The suicide rate for Baby Boomers is 60 per cent higher than for their parents’ generation, and higher, so far, than the generations after their own. Historically, adolescence and old age were suicide’s fertile times, and mid-life its lull. Not anymore. For the past decade, experts have explored the spiking suicide rate among middle-aged Boomers. Socio-economic explanations dominate their discourse: Boomers have high divorce, family breakdown and substance abuse rates; a high incidence of depression (or perhaps a willingness to talk about it, an openness not shared with their parents’ cohort, the aptly named Silent Generation); and an intense sense of entitlement that many experts believe results in feelings of comparative disadvantage.
The world was handed to the Baby Boom. They had a childhood unimaginable to any generation before. It seemed fantastical to us Gen Xr's, a utopia.
The 60's were filled with such promise. But youth and hope turned into the drudgery and decline of the 70's. By the late 80's the Boomers were work-a-day folks just like their fathers. By the 90's they were careerist hacks.
Mark Steyn once reviewed a Quebecois movie, Les Barbarian Invasions about a Baby Boomer on his death bed looking back at a life that followed every trend of his generation but at the end seemed shockingly empty. He was an adjunct professor at a community college. Trust us, those in the know...let's just say academics shouldn't be teaching US I at the end of their careers.
The article concludes:
If David Gillmor was, in the words of his brother, “a quintessential Boomer” in his flight from difficulties and his dedication to sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll—that is, to dragging his youth as far into middle age as he could—then perhaps he was also emblematic in his readiness to choose his exit to suit himself. It’s impossible to say with certainty.
The Balding Boomer in perpetual arrested development who always had a way out. His Generation X son is indifferent, his Millennial son hates his guts.** No wonder the present seems pretty bleak.
*We subscribed during the Mark Steyn free speech battle a decade ago **Metaphorically.
Sometimes I wonder if Generation X has let down the Millennials.
Let me explain.
The Millennials are in a rather interesting position generationally speaking, in that they are the Baby Boomers' second wave of kids.
Generation X are the Boomers' first wave of kids, that makes us the Millennials' big brothers.
So on behalf of big brother Generation X, let me apologize to little brother Millennial.
Look, mom and dad got divorced when we were eight. Dad left mom with us and a big house to keep up. Mom went to work and we were something of a latchkey kid. Childhood really was different back then, little brother. We went outside till the lights came on or the moon came out. No one really cared what we did.
We didn't really see Dad much, he was off exploring himself and marrying your mom. Back then she was a young, aggressive go-getter at dad's office.
By the time you showed up, Millennials, we were a teenager. As you know you and I were never really that close, I mean how often did we really see each other, like once a month maybe? And by the time you could have used a big brother we were getting our own start in life. Our own mom confessed to being glad we were out of the house and Dad, well, he had a lot of regrets about not being there for us.
To be honest, and I'm not really sure if I should tell you this, you were Dad's idea, your mom wasn't really that into having kids, but Dad insisted. Later when you came along, your mom felt guilty about that and all the effort she used to put into her career she put into you.
So Dad and your mom smothered you, helicoptered you. By then we were in our 20s. We saw how every second of your day was planned, from soccer, to piano lessons to playdates. We had playdates, little brother, it was called going outside and finding your friends. Once or twice we said something to Dad about it, pointing out how much fun we had out in the street or in the woods, even with the scrapes, bruises and broken bones. We should have been more forceful, but were never sure if it was our place. To be honest, your mom always resented us. She felt the money dad paid on our college should have been spent on you.
We could have been a comfort to you, little brother. When Dad belittled you, criticized you, slammed you for not trying to be like him, for having your own culture -tv shows, music, god the music, we could have put an arm around you and said, 'Don't worry, he did the same thing to us.'
By the time you could have used a big brother we had a life of our own, mortgages, kids, careers, the whole bag.
We could have shown you some old TV shows, some old tunes; not in the condescending Boomer 'this is real music' kind of way either. Rather, 'Hey you like Taylor Swift? Have you ever listened to Shania Twain?' I guess there's a hundred things like that but I'll spare you a full reckoning.
Instead let me just say to you, little brother Millennial, Generation-X is here for you now.
This SNL skit is brilliant, funny, and absolutely spot on:
It's Millennials vs Boomers with the Gen-X host as ref, 'I'm Gen-X. I just sit back and watch the world burn.'
SNL really nailed the Boomer caricatures; the generation that refuses to die.* The Generation that is entitled to everything it wants and hates everyone and everything that is not Baby Boomer. 'Wow, now this is music!'
Don't feel too bad Millennials. They hated us too.
What's interesting is the Millennial parenting trope is a Baby Boomer. Surely some of them were born to 70's era kids, and even Gen-X. But it's the Boomer that matters.
Millennials youth came at a bad time, the 2000s and 2000-teens. War, recession, etc...
