Boomer Mindset

Yesterday's blog post about a baby boomer General got The Rifleman to thinking. Technically, the General was not a baby boomer. Born in 1942, that technically qualifies as being part of the silent generation. Most sources attribute the silent generation as being born between the mid-1920s and the mid-1940s. Baby Boomers are generally considered those born from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s.

But variation is natural, especially around the edges of the generation marker. This is particularly true of the General who was discussed in yesterday's blog post. People like this are why the Baby Boomers have been called the worst generation alive.

The term, baby boomer, came from the number of babies that were born due to the returning soldiers from World War II. Technically, Pops fits this bill, as he was born due to the return of my grandfather from WWII. My grandfather returned to the States in 1942, and Pops was born in early 1943. However, Pops' mentality was much more of that of the silent generation.

Moms, born in 1942, was much more like a baby boomer. The term "Silent Generation" comes from the focus on careers over activism. Moms was much more of the activist, while Pops was much more focused on his career.

So why the Boomer hate, especially from The Rifleman? It is not so much hate, as it is disgust. Boomers tend to be even more self-absorbed than even millennials. Similarly, Boomers tend to ignore reality, even more than the millennials. They are comically self-righteous and irresponsible.

Personal anecdote
When The Rifleman first graduated college, the first job in the terrible job market at the time, was working at home improvement store for $7 per hour. My Boomer FIL strongly suggested that I stay there. After 20 or 30 years of hard work, I would be making enough money to support a family he suggested. Don't "hop around" from job to job... you'll be unhireable, he said. 

That was 21 years ago.  My current compensation is nearly twice that of a store manager with the home improvement company. I have worked a grand total of 6 weekend days in the last 10 years - and 4 of those were attending professional sporting events... Not exactly everybody's idea of "work."  A store manager would regularly be working weekends.

To be sure, at first, Pops gave the same advice. However, as in years went on, and as my situation improved, he saw the merit of my approach. And the results were undisputable.

Undoubtably, my generation did not earn more than our parents when we first entered the workforce. In my case, there are a couple of extenuating circumstances. My dad was a very high wage earner by the time I entered the workforce. At that time, he earned more than triple the average household income in the state of Tennessee. However, I exceeded the average annual income in the state of Tennessee prior to my second year in the workforce.

In 2003, Pops retired. And although the average annual household income in Tennessee continue to increase, I doubled it only 18 months later. I tripled it just a few years after that - what before the age of 40, and less than 10 years in the workforce. 

My sister applied the "stay with the same company for a very long time and get rewarded" strategy. It took her 13 years on the same job and 15 years in the workforce to double the annual household income in Tennessee.  This is not a bash of her at all. However, it is an indictment of the old fashioned baby boomer mindset.