JIGSAW GENS

Baby Boomers — A Legacy of Endurance & Intensity

The Baby Boomer cohort (“Leapers” or “JonesGens”) has built a massive political, social, and economic showcase

By exploring the complexities of each named generation within American culture, I hope to foster empathy and insight. “Jigsaw Gens” is my Medium series intended to give readers an age-savvy historical education on why such age-based conflicts persist.

My first three installments focused on:

Hemingrebels (aka “the Lost Generation”)

GI-Gens (aka “the Greatest Generation”)

Traditionalists (aka “the Silent Generation”)

Next up: the “Baby Boomers” (aka “Leapers” or “Generation Jones”).

Who They Are

Baby Boomers were born approximately between 1949 to 1960 — give or take a few years on either end. In his 2023 book The Aftermath, Philip Bump attributes popularization of the “Baby Boomer” nickname to the 1980 book Great Expectations by Landon Jones. According to Bump, the Boomer generation encompasses the years of 1946 through 1964 based on increasing birthrates during that timeframe. However, there are clearly historical and cultural divides between older Boomers and younger Boomers.

Other nicknames for Baby Boomers could include: Leapers, due to how older Boomers, in particular, had their understanding of world hunger and famine shaped by the global ramifications of Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” in China; GrowthPivots, since Boomers, as a whole, increased economic growth through conspicuous consumption while simultaneously “pivoting” either leftward or rightward in their politics; Wonder Dears, because Baby Boomer kids/teens grew up experiencing many of the same historical markers and social dynamics as Kevin Arnold and Dean Williams from TV’s The Wonder Years; Shockwaves, seeing how Boomers from assorted birthyears were rattled by the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, along with how they intensified college enrollment as shown in a 2008 report co-edited by Donald E. Heller and Madeleine B. d’Ambrosio; or WoodBernians, in reference to how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein blew the lid off of the Watergate scandal, thereby setting the stage for major political realignments based on the emotion of partisan loyalties.

As of the date of this writing (July 2023), there are an estimated 76 million Baby Boomers residing in the United States.

What They Went Through

Some of you might remember the 1988–95 NBC sitcom Empty Nest, which I absolutely loved. Soap’s Richard Mulligan portrayed Dr. Harry Weston, a Miami widower recovering from “empty nest syndrome” after his two adult daughters, Carol (Dinah Manoff) and Barbara (Kristy McNichol), move back in with him.

Although Harry was a Traditionalist (member of “the Silent Generation”) while Carol and Barbara were either younger Boomers or older JonesGens (Harry’s youngest daughter, Emily — played by Lisa Rieffel — was a GenXer), the Westons represented intergenerational differences bubbling to the surface throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Harry and his late wife, Libby, had been parents to Carol, Barbara, and Emily during a period of slowing immigration rates within America. Meanwhile, college mobility intensified and partisan voting habits were challenged.

In the aftermath of both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War: Fears over a return of the military draft and/or the potential rise of communism led to this split within the cohort. It’s why there was such a binary of pro-war and anti-war sentiments dividing the Baby Boomers themselves. This generation hungered to run for political offices.

Thus, even as Boomers overran seats in Congress or statehouses, real-life conditions for working people worsened. Especially during the second half of the Boomer generation, more and more of its members found themselves stuck in marginal service jobs despite having received robust educations. GenXers would become fully immersed in this “slacker culture” as opportunities for workplace advancement further shrunk.

Even amongst Boomers who did well for themselves, professionally: The Good Ole Boys’ network still supported misogyny (the gender-based “glass ceiling”) and systemic racism (racial biases in employment). This is why so many Boomers were smack in the middle of driving the Civil Rights Movement — especially those who fell into the JonesGen microgeneration.

How They’re Misunderstood

This past spring, Medium’s Ossiana Tepfenhart recalled how her dad — a member of Generation Jones — used to refer to older Boomers as “the Locust Generation.” He accused them of hoarding resources, causing housing prices to surge, slashing public services, ending pensions, ushering in boatloads of dark money, and stoking culture wars.

Now, Ms. Tepfenhart is very clear that she doesn’t make these accusations to indict all Baby Boomers across the board. Rather, her point is that younger generations face much different working conditions due to these drastic shifts. Many Boomers themselves endured their own unique hardships (and were accused of being sloth-like by their own Traditionalist and GI-Gen elders), so they shouldn’t write us off as “lazy” and “entitled” brats who eat too much avocado toast.

They may call us “sensitive snowflakes” — but Ms. Tepfenhart reminds us (much the same way I constantly do) that parents from the Boomer generation were the ones who gave us the much-maligned “participation trophies” against our will.

Or, as Jan M Flynn, a contributor to Crow’s Feet (check out her piece from last month, entitled “Body-Bashed Boomer Babe Tells All”) puts it: The schism amongst Boomers themselves could be a rural-urban split — or a battle between Christian fundamentalists and secular humanists — as much as it’s based on birthyear.

Ms. Flynn grew up in what she describes as “a liberal bubble” on the San Francisco Bay peninsula, as opposed to her conservative parents who were raised in Iowa. As a Boomer herself, she observes that churches during her youth were less political and more gentle than present-day congregations tend to be. She witnessed other differences affecting individual Boomers’ lived experiences, such as the racial wealth gap, disparate economic philosophies (the New Deal vs. Reaganomics), and quality of neighborhood schools based on property taxes.

This tracks with Philip Bump’s research, which assesses how Boomers drastically shaped the trajectories of housing rates, college attendance, partisan divides, and individualist attitudes.

Why They Matter

Baby Boomers who went into politics have clung onto their electoral offices for so long because they want to lay groundwork for future generations. Whether they are progressive, liberal, moderate, conservative, or libertarian — they feel a sense of stewardship to prevent their perceived political enemies from harming the futures of their children or grandchildren.

Unfortunately, even within the Boomer generation itself, these diametrically-opposed approaches have resulted in some of the most extreme tribalism and radicalization of the past century.

Medium’s Lee J. Bentch cites all of the innovations Boomers have spearheaded: cell phones, laptops, aerospace vessels, DNA sequencing, tablets, gaming, virtual reality, advanced weather radar, online shopping, touchscreen devices, and cutting-edge medical research.

Mr. Bentch points out how Baby Boomers were amongst the key leaders in galvanizing activism on behalf of climate change, global democracy, civil rights, and tech investment. He says that GenXers and Millennials (and, presumably, Zoomers and Alphas) now get to pick up the torch and improve upon clean energy development, artificial intelligence, and agricultural sustainability.

On the other hand, Medium’s PomeroySays brings up a very specific archetype that represents the mindsets of many such Boomer lawmakers (and their supporters). There’s a juxtaposition of elitists who boost habits and policies that make everything more expensive for future generations alongside of those same policymakers basking in financially-secure conditions for themselves.

As a GenXer, Pomeroy speaks to having experienced anti-youth ageism from Boomers and other members of older generations when interviewing for jobs. These are often the same ones who lecture younger folks with “The ‘Bootstraps’ Fallacy” while enjoying their 401Ks and other nest eggs left to them by their GI-Gen or Traditionalist parents.

Yet, it would be detrimental to paint Baby Boomers as a monolith. This is why I hate the “Ok, Boomer!” meme so intensely. It undermines and devalues the complex diversity found amongst Boomers.

Throughout this piece, I’ve alluded to a schism between older and younger members of the Baby Boomer cohort: “Leapers” and “Generation Jones.”

Specifically, “Silent Nesters” (born approximately between 1944 to 1948) would be a “microgeneration” of Americans born on the cusp of the youngest Traditionalists and the oldest Boomers (“Leapers”). Their elders taught them to be frugal, but that didn’t stop them from expanding commerce and capitalism.

Silent Nesters include Americans with household names belonging to those such as Donald Trump, Stephen Spielberg, Diana Ross, Connie Chung, and Nolan Ryan.

By that same token, “cuspers” who straddle the grey area between the youngest Boomers and the oldest GenXers would comprise what’s known as “Generation Jones” (born approximately between 1961 to 1965). They took the capitalistic tendencies of older Boomers and infused them with their own civic flavors of political activism while transforming pop culture.

JonesGens include famous folks such as Barack Obama, Whitney Houston, Michael Jordan, Quentin Tarantino, and Jodie Foster.

Among the most influential icons bridging together Leapers and JonesGens to form the Baby Boomer Generation were Oprah Winfrey, Ron Howard, Michael Jackson, Erin Brokovich, and Magic Johnson.

Beyond these five individuals, there has been no shortage of innovation and energy from this enormous generation — a cohort that unquestionably mainstreamed political office-holding as a profession, much like Traditionalists did for musicians and GI-Gens did for actors.

A list of historical figures who belonged to the Baby Boomer generation:

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