Baby Boomers - Discerning Their Faces?

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People look at the pictures of boomers like monoliths often. However, in reality, the baby boomers are different from each other slightly.
The staff writer, Kim Campbell of Christian Science Monitor, in her report dated January 26, 2005, featured Jerry Benston, the baby boomer who was in his 50s and an Afro-American New Yorker.
He said that he was a collegian in 1968 and the university in which he studied was said to have a culture that was more diverse.
He recollected that he was among those, who had protested, the reason being that he wanted, as a boomer, to help to raise awareness in the social issues that are significant nowadays.
One among these is the perspective with which the baby boomers are generally viewed.
From the outside, only the similarities of the baby boomers can be viewed clearly. For example, they all lived through the civil rights era and the Vietnam War. Their generation was the first one to grow up with televisions.
All these things, shared by them, are nothing but history and can be discerned, just by looking up a history book or by looking for it in the net. This is not the case for the differences that they have within each other. Its evidence is not common knowledge like their similarities.
Researchers, including advocates, say that avoiding the generalization of the seventy nine million retiree groups is of the utmost importance. Its purpose is to study the diverse nature of baby boomers in ethnicity, economics, across age and many more. Hence, their actions are things that ought to be gauged carefully.
Elizabeth Hughes, a professor in Duke University and also the author of the current version of Boomer Lives Analysis, said that there are reports that indicate the inequality in the wealth and income of boomers and suggests directly that, though many boomers lived a comfortable life even after retirement, there were boomers who were struggling to make two ends of a month meet.
The homogeneous nature of the baby boomers is the only thing that is being portrayed by the media and almost all reports suggest that their upbringing is common and also that they are married, have children and are well educated and wealthy too.
Hughes and many other people argue that if the generalization of boomers is perceived by people excessively, the effects will be shown on the policies of retirement and it is viewed in a negative sense generally.
Also, taking boomers in a generalized term will hide the truth that is concerning the group. Hughes also stated that the society is mirrored by the diversity among the members of the group.
A boomer diversity researcher Sarah Zapolsky stated that those who look at boomers in a generalized way are under the notion that all the seventy nine million boomers will retire on a single day.
Zapolsky added that it was an illustration that showed the fallacy in perceiving the baby boomers as one generalized unit.
One of the major examples that illustrate the diversity that exists between boomers is their age. Researches have shown that Boomers cover not one generation alone, but more. Because of this, there may be boomers who have already become grandparents, while the others may have just entered parenthood.
Another example that illustrates baby boomers' diversity is their different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. It can be clearly seen in the way in which their aging parents are taken care of, by them. A few of them may choose in having a Medicare instead of hiring a nurse for taking acre of their parents, when many others may not do so.
Researches have repeatedly shown that the unequal nature of the boomers is based on their riches and education. Hughes said that the income of the blacks now is higher than what was given to them before and some were already in the middle strata.
However, she stated that if viewed with the proper perspective, it can be seen that there is no big change in the income of black boomers than the white boomers.
Ann Fishman, Generational Targeting Marketing's president, explained the reason as to why the boomers diversity is not a widely known or discussed topic. The reason is that the characteristics with which the boomers are identified are not considered important.
The public may have viewed boomers like monoliths; however, they are and will remain unique.







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