Guilty: 1957-I didn’t think so at the time, but my childhood looks like a Golden Age compared to what the kids today confront.
Boomers
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I’m a Boomer!
Me too.
Being outdoors and playing with others. That’s what I remember most. The funny characters hanging out together. Tree forts, tree swings, baseball -football-basketball. The Rogers family had the big inground pool. Swimming- mini bikes, Capture the Flag, lighting bug festivals, glow in the dark frisbee…
Gadzooks! It was a blessed time being a kid back then. NO PHONES- NO COMPUTERS…just Star Trek, Wild Kingdom and, when it hadn’t sold it’s soul to the devil, Walt Disney features….Robinson Crusoe, Old Yeller and Daniel Boone. Sunday night’s, in about every 8 or 9 months, my folks would set up the screen and watch home movies. Dad and his 8mm / Super 8, movies spinning through the noisy projector, and me with my face buried in popcorn.
Yes. Golden days.
Not a boomer but it was a lot of outdoor play for us. I think things have gotten difficult with the emergence of social media and the smart phone…kids have access to ALOT of information and there is much incorrect and immoral content which is available to them.
1954 for me. Younger brother also, born 1960. Yes, back before Christianity was replaced by Safetyism as the dominant religion, and before technology and unionized “educators” replaced parents and real teachers as the primary influence on young minds, it was great to be a kid in America.
1951 for me.
Millennial– but ranch kid, so when I wasn’t locked up in school I was frequently working on the ranch, and when I was at school (or otherwise unable to be outside) I could hide online, talk to someone besides the assigned class.
Big part of why we homeschool. 😀
:kicks kids outside to play with the dog, again:
:kicks kids outside to play with the dog, again:
👍👍👍
Wish more Moms and Dads would practice that move!
:kicks kids outside to play with the dog, again:
During summers we would be kicked out until lunch and not allowed back in until supper. It forced us to amuse ourselves. I rarely felt bored, not with a neighborhood of kids to play with.
DH 1955–Boomer (or Gen Jones). I am a Gen Xer. I used to play in a drainage ditch. That’s probably why when I got Covid I basically took a 48 hour nap
Just barely made the cut (born in 1964). Missed a lot of the cultural Boomer markers — JFK assassination, Vietnam, Woodstock – but grew up pretty much free range like most Boomers.
A boomer. There were still nuns teaching in parochial schools. Confession then First Friday Mass 2nd grade -8th. May procession. Recess was on the playground aka the black top parking lot.. Boys n girls played separately… kickball, dodgeball, jump rope, North and South.. Still Sat morning movies at the local theater. Entertaining Disney TV shows: Mickey Mouse Club, Zorro, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Swamp Fox, Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, Long John Silver, the nature series. Rocky and Bullwinkle. At the movies beautifully drawn animated films of fairy tales. We lived in an apartment when my dad was at the Pentagon. Still lots of outdoor exercise like softball on a dirt lot, roller skates not roller blades, bike rides, hide go seek., sledding,, ice skating.. Train rides to grand parents in Minnesota. Swimming lessons at the municipal pool. Ood libraries.. “Don’t take candy from a stranger.” Always the buddy system for bus ride or movies. Our parents didn’t worry us about world affairs. They told us Communists were bad but we never met any.. We worried about not finishing our homework. It was a good no great childhood.
1964 is considered the end of the Baby Boom (1946-64). One or two phones in the house, a TV antenna with somewhere between three and seven channels, lots of pkaying outside, swimming, riding bikes, tag, basketball, backyard football, late nights listening to West Coast baseball games when the Pirates made the twice a year teip, visiting grandparents in PA…beats the current times by a wide margin
There is no particular boundary of experience, behavior, or general phenomena manifest in the 1964 cohort. It was merely the last year (for a time) wherein live births exceeded four million. The 1946 birth cohort was 21% larger than the 1945 cohort, Other wise, not much different there. Cohorts fluctuated in size but were increasing from about 1936 to 1957, then declining from 1957 to 1976. The explosion in street crime and drug use began with cohorts born in the immediate post-war period. Abrupt changes in popular music taste can be attributed to cohorts born in the late 1930s. The rapid expansion in the propensity to divorce began with the cohorts born in the late 1930s. The commonality of military service among men was at its peak with the 1922 cohort, then declined in a stepwise fashion. The explosion in higher education enrollments began with those born in the 1920s who could take advantage of GI Bill benefits. The crime and the drug use leveled off with the cohorts born in the early 1960s. Illegitimate child-bearing leveled off with the cohorts born ca. 1985. The tiresome socio-political wokery exploded with the cohorts born around 1980. The catastrophic decline in propensity to marry began with the cohorts born around 1975. It seems like there was an important cultural hinge around the 1938 cohort, but it gets fuzzy after that.
I’ve long maintained that the Boomers are actually 2 sub-generations: GenV which would have been old enough to go to Vietnam, and GenW, which Wasn’t. V and W precede X, which fits, and the VW microbus was iconic of the age.
Disco was GenV; New Wave was GenW.
Joan Baez was GenV; Madonna was GenW.
Harvey Wallbanger was GenV; Long Island Iced Tea was GenW.
Jute Macrame was GenV; Parachute Pants were GenW.
“Groovy” was GenV; “Rad” was GenW.
And so forth. Mostly, though, we of GenW just cruised along in the wake of GenV’s chaos. Nothing really to protest after Vietnam, so truly rebels without a clue.
Disco was GenV; New Wave was GenW.
Joan Baez was GenV; Madonna was GenW.
Harvey Wallbanger was GenV; Long Island Iced Tea was GenW.
Jute Macrame was GenV; Parachute Pants were GenW.
“Groovy” was GenV; “Rad” was GenW.
You seem fixated on consumer taste.
I suspect if you researched it, you’d discover
Disco was most popular with people born around 1956, Tom Petty with people born a half-dozen years later;
Joan Baez with the 1950 cohort or thereabouts, Madonna the 1970 cohort;
Harvey Wallbanger with youths of drinking age ca. 1969, Long Island Iced Tea – cannot say as never heard of it;
‘Groovy’ was used unironically for about two years, maybe among the 1949 cohort; the only person I ever heard use the word ‘rad’ was born in 1963.
I’m not seeing any pattern you’re seeing.