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Baby-Boomer Gap. Everyone born between 1946 and 1964 is considered a "baby boomer," but anyone who thinks that those born within that 18-year span share the same "values, habits and product preferences," ought to think again, reports Jeffrey Zaslow in The Wall Street Journal. "I share very little culturally with a 58-year-old," says John Dieffenbach, 40. He is too young to remember when Kennedy was shot or when the Beatles arrived. Unlike older boomers, he didn't enjoy the benefits of "affordable housing, easier acceptance into colleges and better job markets." And John's just a little ticked that "people his age might not receive full Social Security benefits when they retire, because the oldest boomers may strain the system."
Jim DeRogatis feels John's pain. Born in 1964, he's just co-edited a book called Kill Your Idols, a collection of "essays in which rock critics who are young boomers and Generation Xers tear down allegedly classic boomer albums such as Tommy by the Who, released in 1969, and Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, out in 1966." Says Jim: "I grew up with the notion that I missed out on the greatest party ever because I wasn't at Woodstock ... Well, I've seen the movie and it's a stone-cold bore." He doesn't spare the Beatles, either, mocking the song Fixing a Hole (It really doesn't matter/If I'm wrong I'm right) as emblematic of older-boomer self-absorption. He sees the attitude in Presidents Clinton and Bush-the-younger, both of whom, he suggests, have problems admitting mistakes.
The quirk in the baby-boomer generation, then, is that its long run tramples over how most people view their generations: "Research by the late Yale psychologist Daniel Levinson showed that people tend to view as part of their generation those born about six years before and after them. By this measure, only boomers born between 1952 and 1958 have both feet in the baby boom. Early and late boomers -- especially the 1946s and 1964s -- are mixed breeds." It is, in fact, a generation that was defined by demographers counting babies; when the count fell below four million, as it did in 1965, the demographers called it a generation (hey, the count was only 3.8 million that year!). In any case, says David Wolfe, a marketing consultant, those who put all boomers in the same boat are "marketing to an apparition."
Tim Manners, editor
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