| Okay, we got it - a lot of babies were born in the | | | | do a novel set in ancient Greece. There's nothing |
| decade after World War II ended. Here's what I don't | | | | wrong with all that Flower Power stuff, but it isn't my |
| understand: all these millions of babies were born, and | | | | experience.Set us free, release us from the Baby |
| then the birth rate dropped; and all those babies that | | | | Boomer group - we want to go off on our own. The |
| were born in that 1946 - 1964 period are known as the | | | | tired "I did the wild drugs and peace and freedom bit, |
| Baby Boom generation.If the kids had kept coming, | | | | now I'm going to get rich" doesn't fit even one of my |
| would we be talking about a Baby Boom that | | | | contemporaries. Think about it. We didn't grow up in |
| extended from 1946 to 1972, or 1975? And if so, would | | | | Ike's fifties and react to that upbringing by inventing pot |
| we keep defining the whole blinking generation by the | | | | parties. We grew up with Vietnam on the evening |
| trends and events that shaped maybe the first ten | | | | news, watching RFK and MLK and Malcolm get shot |
| percent of them?I was born on December 31, 1959. I | | | | down, and then saw Watergate, the icing on the cake, |
| have exactly nothing more or less in common with the | | | | around the time we entered high school. Of course we |
| stereotypical Baby Boomer than with any other human | | | | became punk rockers! What would anyone do?In our |
| being on the planet. I don't know from Howdy Doody. | | | | twenties, half our gay friends died of AIDS, sometimes |
| Ed Sullivan is a dim memory, already a caricature by | | | | two weeks after the first symptom appeared. In our |
| the time I was old enough to pay attention. I can't | | | | thirties, we began to have children - the Boomer |
| remember Father Knows Best. Annette Funicello? | | | | experience of kids in college and beyond isn't ours, |
| Give me a break. My older brother went to | | | | either. Of my high school graduating class of 1978, only |
| Woodstock, one of the younger attendees at age 15 | | | | one friend (Dave) has a 15-year-old (and Dave was |
| (and got his sleeping bag stolen); I was at home with | | | | always more responsible than the rest of us). My |
| the younger siblings, watching the moon landing.All of | | | | youngest is three; John has a two-year-old. Steve the |
| the signal events associated with the Baby Boom are | | | | former ticket scalper (a master sign painter |
| my older siblings' experiences, not mine. I don't | | | | "letter-head" in Berkeley) has a one-year-old.Honestly, |
| remember JFK's asassination. Hippies were slightly | | | | when I think of the boomer stereotype, I think of my |
| exotic when I was six or seven years old, and then | | | | old boss, Marty. Only ten years older than me, the guy |
| really boring.I have my own set of reference points. My | | | | seemed like a fossil, culturally: he didn't know jack |
| poor brother Pete, an even further-out-on-the-curve | | | | about anything that he didn't read in Customer Service |
| Baby Boomer than I, born in March of 1964, wouldn't | | | | Management Today magazine. He would bring |
| even remember the few Boomer references that | | | | new-car brochures to work and show them to me. I |
| register for me. How can we all be lumped in one | | | | could not relate, because I was sleep-deprived after |
| group together? Could any set of people born over | | | | having danced all night and coming into work directly |
| any 18-year period be expected to have that much in | | | | from Medusa, the after-hours club. One day, when we |
| common? We just don't. Ask a real Boomer, a | | | | were finshing up a project together on a Saturday, |
| 1946-through-1956 Boomer, how he felt the first time | | | | Marty said "You really like music, don't you? Who's that |
| he heard the B-52s. Whaaa? We heard "Rock | | | | on your Walkman - Gruppo Sportivo?" That's right, I |
| Lobster" and had to call 15 people and say "Wait until | | | | said. I also had the Roches and Ben Sidron and the |
| you hear this, it's random, it's the greatest | | | | Gap Band and Joan Armatrading and Fear and the |
| thing."Un-boom me, now. I insist. I could give a damn | | | | Palominos on there. And Marty said, "Yeah, I'm into Iron |
| about the Summer of Love. I never trusted anyone | | | | Butterfly." I just stared at him. "Um, are they still |
| over 30 any less than anyone else. When I started | | | | recording?" I asked.Un-bundle us, un-boom us, we opt |
| going to concerts in high school, it was (briefly) 70's | | | | out. Have a happy sixtieth birthday, Boomers, and be |
| rock bands, and then (avidly) Tuff Darts and Blondie at | | | | well: just leave us out of the club, because we are a |
| Irving Plaza. If anything, my contemporaries are the | | | | whole 'nother thing.Liz Ryan is a workplace expert, |
| Tickets Generation - it was "can you get tickets to | | | | 25-year corporate (Fortune 500) HR executive, and |
| Zappa at the Beacon? What about Ian Dury at Max's | | | | the founder and CEO of WorldWIT, the world's largest |
| Kansas City?"I was at the Blondie concert on the pier | | | | online community for professional women. Liz is an |
| at Asbury Park when Debbie Harry got booed for | | | | international keynote speaker on workplace, work/life, |
| singing "Heart of Glass" (disco sucks, remember?). I | | | | leadership, and women in the workplace topics. |
| remember Son of Sam and dancing to Rick James | | | | WorldWIT provides internal communication and |
| and the New Year's Eve fire on my 19th birthday at | | | | community-building services, consulting and training to |
| the Ipanema Club near Times Square. I remember | | | | employers seeking to create a diversity culture and to |
| when Sid Vicious died, like it was yesterday. I read Go | | | | increase retention and engagement of women and |
| Ask Alice when it was assigned to us in tenth-grade | | | | minorities. Liz lives in Boulder, Colorado with her |
| English class, and related to it the same way I would | | | | husband and five children. |