Our parents got the label, and they love it, they actually believe it. But they’ve never been US, they only had us as their children and raised us. Who is “US”? Well, our daddies came back from World War 11 and married our mommies, and we, the firstborns, were the result. We were born between 1945-1947. We all had little sisters and brothers. However, the experience of a “boomer” firstborn is quite different from that of our younger sibs. In fact, I learned in my adult years that when you crash high school reunions, each year and age has it’s own peculiar traits. So it’s impossible to write for them, I will stick with US! And since I’m a woman, it’s not possible for me to write about the vantage point of my male counterparts. Even MY perspective is going to be different than someone else’s. Yet I still encounter people all the time that were in their mother’s wombs overlapping the time I was, too. And we seem to be a pretty decent bunch, overall. We have encountered things in our lifetimes unlike anyone else. Our experiences have given us a viewpoint of life and experiences that our parents could never glean, and not all was pleasant, contrary to popular opinion. Never has a generation been so unjustly verbally lambasted as mine, nor have women had to fend for themselves the same way my age bracket has had to do. Not by choice, but by necessity. And I have a feeling that’s not over, unless the Lord comes to Rapture us out of here before we reach 65. Oh, by the way, a LOT of us are committed Christians, and contrary to popular opinion, have been all or most of our lives!
So now let’s begin the “baby boomer” journey. When we were born, there were “us” types everywhere. It was a world loaded with children. The houses were nice, the daddies were out working and the mommies were staying home raising us. I happened to live in the Midwest, until I turned 10. It was hot in summer- sticky, too, and cold in winter. We girls wore dresses and underpants, and didn’t know that the pants showed. I doubt we were very modest in school, etc., but again, we didn’t even think about that. We also wore tee-shirts and peddle pushers, and sometimes just the underpants, even out to play (if we were little enough). We had the Mickey Mouse club on black and white television. Those a year or two older than I even remember when they listened to just radio because there weren’t televisions yet. I just made it to the borderline for not remembering that scenario! Everything was geared towards us children. We had records with good stories and cartoon sounds. Cartoons were also prevalent on television. But the quality was good- there were higher standards then. Content was a concern. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a younger sibling, and as I got older, they got into my stuff. Back then, if Mom was pregnant or needed help, we as daughters were glad to pitch in and care for the younger ones, etc. Our brothers weren’t exempt from sharing the household duties, either, and we grew up with the idea that you do dishes at night and you get your chores done on Saturday morning before going out to play. The biggest pain for me was having to take my little sister with me when I went to play with my girlfriends. My Mom didn’t really realize how unfair that was to both me and to my sister. I went to church and Sunday school every Sunday, and in the summer to church camp. They also had a lot of activities in church for us, even through our teen years. The church kids weren’t the morally best behaved, but we pretended to be! My mother watched “American Bandstand” on television by the time I was a preteen, and sometimes I’d sort of watch it with her, unless I was outside playing. We were outside playing a lot. When I got older, I’d watch Dick Clark too- was interested in rock and roll and dancing early into my teens. My girlfriends and I would practice. We always had the rock and roll blasting, until Dad would come home and say “TURN THAT NOISE DOWN” – or off. I tested him once, played a station HE listened to sometimes, and he did the same thing. I caught him- he yelled about one of HIS own songs! We DID get the best music. The fifties and sixties music was second to none. We listened to KIMN radio, Denver, and anyone reading this who listened to KIMN back then knows what I mean. We had our radios in our rooms, and the music went on into the night. We had homework, so we got to go to our rooms alone a lot. We loved it. Parents did NOT allow private telephones and televisions in bedrooms then. We also read books. We were literate. We said the pledge of allegiance in our classrooms as small children every day. We got a good quality education. Everyone my age remembers “Dick and Jane”. And “the Bobsey Twins” And so on. Seventh through ninth grade was junior high, and tenth through twelfth grades was high school. We had “P.E.”, along with regular classes- “Physical Education”, where we wore ugly shorts outfits and do you remember “Chicken Fat”? Every public school got that one! We had to be home from school, even with after-school friends or activities, by 6:00 so we could all sit at the table together and eat dinner as a family. Many times we set the table. Life was pretty good. And if school teachers who were male- much rarer than women teachers- ever “lusted” after us, we didn’t know it. We called our teachers “Mrs.” And “Mr.”, and they weren’t our counselors. They were our teachers. The boys, by junior high, got “swats” that reverberated down the hallways during class, if they misbehaved. The big problems were running in the halls, etc.- chewing gum. Not the kinds of problems going on in public schools now. We had to wear dresses- long ones, in high school. In about sixth and seventh grade, there were still holdovers from the petticoats and saddle shoes, etc., so we actually did wear them when we were still very young. My Mom used to braid my hair into pigtails when I was little. When I reached college age, we STILL had to wear longer dresses and we had adopted things like headbands, hiphuggers, ribbed sweaters and tops, etc., We KNEW we were cute, and sexy! Even then, the male professors- and they were mostly men then- had to keep their distance and professional behavior. We resented having to dress up for classes, because at my conservative university there was a real double standard. The male students could wear shorts or whatever they wanted to. We women even had to dress up to go to school dances or to eat in the cafeteria, even when we had no classes immediately surrounding. My trick was to wear shorts under a lightweight coat that went to my knees. The guys got to stay out later than we did, etc. We fought back, long and hard. But let me back up a little. In high school, we all had boyfriends. The boys tended to respect our virginity, and we could “tease” them- became the world’s greatest “make-out” champs, but could stop when we wanted to. I had one “main” boyfriend who wasn’t interested in dating other girls- and many tried to get to him, because he had the BEST math papers to copy in the morning before classes started of all the guys! (I’d go into the restroom with his paper, and the other girls would gather around, and we’d copy away!) The teacher (male) knew it, but couldn’t actually stop us. I did TERRIBLE on math TESTS! And then I’d go out with the other boys, too. Always with the “number one” guy there, waiting in the wings. It was NICE not being sexually involved, like they are now. And my “making out” was basically for just the one. There were just a lot of understandings then, and it was accepted. I was a virgin when I graduated from high school. My boyfriend was, too. And it was basically HIM who kept us that way. Now off to the rather conservative university. It wasn’t like Berkeley or the liberal ones. Haight-Ashbury and the like was already going on out there in California while I was still in high school, and it was every teen’s fantasy to run away and go there. But we really had NO IDEA. Marijuana was still something the “mexicans” and “hoods” did. By the way, the “Fonzie” image is a farce! The guys in black leather jackets were the “J.D.’s” (juvenile delinquents) The boys had worn their hair in crew cuts just a few years prior to my later high school days. But with the emergence of the Beatles, etc., that improved, then later with some guys, went to extremes. I never did like long hair on guys! My brother became a long-haired drug user before I did. But I never did it to extremes- we’ll get to that later. We used words like “cool”, which made a comeback a few years back, “bitchin’ “ when we were mimicking the Californians, “heavy”, “far out” and so on. Some came sooner, some later. When I arrived at the university, other than the unjust treatment of males students versus female students, I LOVED IT at first. Viet Nam was breaking out. We’d heard of the “Viet Nam war” for several years, but no one knew where or what that was. But they began taking MY guys! Then it was personal. We were really pretty smart then- we knew that there was a NEW WORLD ORDER plot. We knew that war was corrupt. We knew that government and politicians were doing EXACTLY what they have demonstrated, but no one would listen. We were ridiculed. We were also Christians, even if a rather lukewarm bunch, but that was received with calling us “Jesus Freaks” – the “greatest generation” and others didn’t really think too much of us, even if they were our parents. And they had NO IDEA what their sons were suffering in that horrible war. The generations were separating. (or, as it was called, the “generation gap”)
And we did begin to think we were pretty “hot stuff” – after all, we WERE the center of attention, there were so many of us. Then came the drugs and the miniskirts, the “free love”, the constant parties, etc…. Scholastics were definitely NOT our focal point at the university. This all came with the Viet Nam war. I smoked pot, drank alcohol- wasn’t “legal” quite yet, but that was not a deterrent. And there were bars for 19 year olds we could travel to. Life was one big “rush”! (And we ALL had offers for the thousands of miles to go to Woodstock. I opted against it, and sometimes wish I hadn’t but mostly am satisfied that I didn’t attend.) Then I got pregnant. Back then, the “daddy” would marry you. But the sad part is that in many instances THEY wanted to get married, and the pregnancy was INTENTIONAL on the part of the male. And the female was trapped. No legal abortions yet. But there were a lot of ILLEGAL and DANGEROUS ones. I had been chosen as a stewardess for Eastern Airlines, after flunking out of the university in my sophomore year, and was in Miami when “the rabbit died” – that’s what we called positive “p.g.” test results!
Parents of both the daughters and sons were OH, SO OVERJOYED to hear, “Mom, I’m pregnant” or “she’s pregnant”- and they were hearing it a lot in those days. So we had what was then called a “shotgun” wedding. My former husband went into the military, and had graduated from the university. I won’t go into too many specifics, but suffice it to say I lived on a military base during Viet Nam, when many of the women’s husbands were there. I knew of officer’s clubs, etc. (He had been in ROTC in school). The whole thing there was a story in itself, but I don’t want to veer that direction. My first husband was also a wife batterer. The baby, my son, whom I adored, died at nine weeks old from “crib death”. Won’t go into that, either, because that is not my emphasis here. I was married to the “have to” husband for awhile longer, and we lived like typical military baby boomers. Then when he got out of the army, I went back to my parents’ and he went to his parents’ and we were divorced. Then began phase two of “boomer” life as an adult. I was in my early twenties. Women couldn’t get the “good” jobs- I was told that men had to keep them, so they could support their families. I was expected to remarry, even if I got to live the single life for awhile. And I did! I still wasn’t particularly sexually promiscuous- never had been. But I smoked the pot, drank, went to bars, worked at my “day” job and wore my miniskirts. You STILL couldn’t wear pants at jobs, but they allowed you to just wear the TOPS that went with the pants! And the older men at the jobs were more than willing to chase you around – even though they had wives at home. They tended to consider the married young women more off-base, but as time went on, the times they were ‘a changin’!! The older people were SOOO envious of us, and the males wanted a piece of the action. Of course, if they were older, we joked about them, and if we ever had anything to do with them, it was for the financial “perks” only, and we didn’t marry them. And they didn’t divorce their wives for us. It was not uncommon to take the opposite sex- your own age and single- home to sleep on your couch, if one of you needed a “crash pad”- and no one violated the other’s space. If you wanted to go home with someone, smoke a joint with him or her, and NOT do anything sexual, that was respected. AIDS wasn’t even around then. If someone DID get “v.d.” then, it was usually syphilis or herpes or others I’m too lazy to look up for the spelling, etc., and both sexes were worried about that. We women were just treated better in that realm then, and sex generally meant commitment, even though divorces were becoming much more frequent. Then I met the man who was to become my next husband. He lived 100 miles away, which was perfect for me. I was still openly dating and running around with my girlfriends. He knew it. I was never secretive or sneaky about those things. He was my exclusive sex partner. I knew fornication was wrong, but people were living together then, and I eventually moved in with him. We “shacked up” for about a year. He wanted to get married. But he was not that great as potential husband material. Yet I loved him. He finally threatened me- marry or break up, basically. So I moved to California. I was 24. There I met a man, never married, 12 years older than I was. He didn’t want marriage, and he knew about “boyfriend” back home. The man back home decided to wait for me, and I decided I wanted to marry him, but I was going to stay in California. I had my “interim” man- and they both knew about each other. Wow, this is getting racy! I never realized until I now see this in writing, how bad it all looks. Anyway, Southern California was a “trip”- and I stayed almost another year. Then back to my guy and moved in with him again. Managed to stay almost another year before he threatened me with marriage yet again! So I married him. And was totally committed. One thing about me, when I’m married, I’m totally loyal. And we did the usual things- had our friends, still smoked pot with most, etc., but it wasn’t a focal point. Everyone now had children, and many of the parties had children up in their bedrooms. We were still a pretty wild and crazy bunch. We hid a lot from the children, however- a pretty straight laced, loving and normal set of parents. Yet the divorces went on. By this time, we were in bowling leagues, our music was the “oldies” – most of us HATED the seventies’ music. I could name the television programs were were watching in color by now, and things were still sort of crazy, but we were splitting into the family life and grown up scene. We were in church every Sunday. We still ran the world- we had our parents and our younger siblings, and by now were were even running around with many people the same ages as our “baby” sibs. We were saving for houses and cars and vacations, we were going “home” for the holidays-having to decide which home to alternate to that year. And the men were, by the time we hit our mid and late 30’s, having affairs and wives were being dumped. It was a “no fault” deal, unlike what our mothers got. We were thrust into poverty, and a new form of sexual promiscuity arose- the one that comes with desperation to get a husband and financial support. Some of the firstborn baby boomer women had good, secure jobs, but that was reserved more for our younger sisters. We had fought for equality and they reaped the rewards. We were at least glad we’d had a positive impact, even if we weren’t reaping! And the men our own ages were getting more selfish- I think maybe they were getting back at all of us for our youthful days! They, the males, now called all of the shots. There was no more alimony awarded on a permanent basis. We hadn’t been the generation to have the illegitimate children- in fact, we found that shocking in the early years. That came from those way younger- and THEY were getting tax money for producing children out of wedlock. We, if divorced and if we didn’t have minor children, were getting NOTHING. And we’d been deprived of the worthwhile jobs. It wasn’t what we thought life would be. But we cope and we coped. And we think we are pretty special. Except, perhaps, for the one wild phase of our lives. And we look great. We are healthy, and even if we were dumped in divorce in our late thirties, we tended to remarry. And we aren’t as well off financially as we should have been- a lot of insecurities abound for us now. And we are stronger Christians than we have ever been. And our children are now grown. And we can accomplish fantastic things, Lord willing, if given the chance. We are making inroads- good ones, and we did back then, too. Even if no one notices. Now we worry about them robbing us of our future social security and medicare, or if they will make us take the “mark” to stay alive! We are looking UP, for the Rapture, and we might not be in organized churches anymore. They don’t treat us that well, either. We secretly consider OURSELVES the GREATEST GENERATION- even if we still let our parents think they are. They still don’t have a clue, but they are good, decent people and we love them. We believe the world is a much better place for our presence, and we exist to both serve and impact. We like ourselves. We might be poor, we might be rich- depending on which set of circumstances life and men handed us, but we are secure and wise. Probably about the wisest of any age group ever. So you school children can keep on being brainwashed about us- in a bad, disrespectful way- and you older than us keep being jealous, but taking it out on us, and although we get blamed for all of the bad, we know we have caused and are creating lots of good. So there!- Oh, by the way, I DON’T tell my age. Most of the men my age do. So I can’t give my real name. Just pick one of those “boom” names, like Susan or Linda or Cindy or Janet, or Diane or Sandy, or well, this could go awhile. ---“Boomer”
