Once defined as the bulge in the python, we’re now being called “The Worst Generation." USA Today is running a series of articles about our generation in which we’re blamed for the current economic crisis, the rise in unwanted pregnancies, and the decline of the American family. During our youth, according to such knowledgeable historians like Tom Brokaw, all we did was take drugs and have sex. If only! All this negative attention has been prompted by the fact that the first wave of us turns 65 in 2011. And the country is in economic trouble and has no idea how it’s going to honor social security, Medicare, and other commitments it made to us, as we were busy doing drugs and having sex. I guess calling us a generation of self-indulgent, oversexed, selfish pigs let’s the government off the hook.
Well, I remember it differently and since I lived it, not just saw pictures and read news clips, my opinion carries the weight of having lived it. As a daughter of depression era parents who suffered through the Great Depression I grew up with the constant reminder that at any moment it could all be taken away. So I took that lesson to heart and became a life-long saver. As a young bride I worked hard to put my husband through dental school, rolling penny rolls for gas money and living in a roach infested apartment. Just as my husband neared graduation, he was sent a draft notice, mainly because the draft board in their infinite wisdom chose young men from poorer neighbors. If you listen to Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” you’ll understand. Even though we had a child, and even though my husband was still in school, his number had come up and he was headed for Vietnam. I fought hard to keep him in the states, calling Illinois senator Percy to help keep our family together. He didn’t go to Nam, but he still served his two years, being spit upon by war protestors and called a baby killer when he wore his uniform in airports. Though I didn’t like that treatment, I was on their side and so was my husband. We knew this wasn’t a just war. And his choice was serve the two years or go to Canada. So he served and we felt lucky he never went to Nam.
Unlike the Greatest Generation’s war, which had a noble cause, Vietnam was a murky political war. The Vietnamese never attacked our country. Ask yourselves today if the draft was still in effect, how you would feel being ripped from your life for a war started for all the wrong reasons. Because of the brave students who protested on campus throughout this country, there is no longer a draft. I know first hand what the ravages of war look like. My father served for three years in the Pacific theater during WWII and came back broken. He told me that he had to punch his commanding officer to get treatment for shell shock, now known as post- traumatic stress syndrome. He had to fight to get his veterans benefits.
Then there was the treatment of women in the workplace that our generation worked to change. It was not uncommon to be asked to show your birth control prescription if you were married and applying for a job. It was not uncommon to have calendars of naked women displayed in the workplace. It was not uncommon to be kept in the lowest rungs of management if you were lucky enough to be a manger. I had that experience first hand working at Southwestern Bell Telephone. I watched a man hired at the same time as me and in the same position being groomed for promotion, while I toiled away for lesser money, knowing that as a woman I would never be prompted no matter what I did.
Unless you were living it, you have no idea of the prejudice against minorities, and I’m including women in that group. There was no equality and there was nothing you could do about it. My mother told me that she once saw an elderly black woman shoved off a sidewalk by a white man, because she was black. But our generation worked to change that. In case the media has forgotten, young people went to the southern states to work for voting rights for blacks, and some lost their lives doing do. We understood that the enemy wasn’t in Vietnam; it was here in our own country. Listen to Neal Young’s song, “Four Dead in Ohio.” The National Guard fired on students protesting at Kent State University, killing four of them. Consider that Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy were murdered in this country. I remember sitting in our dingy apartment in St. Louis and watching with horror Robert Kennedy dying on the hotel’s kitchen floor, his arm outstretched as if pleading or maybe in confusion. What was there left to believe in when our leaders were murdered for standing up for the underdog? A numbness descended on us that no moon landing could erase. Worst Generation? More like most disillusioned.
Yet, we fought for the environment, honored the arts (To declare yourself a business major in my generation was tantamount to declaring yourself a loser), and questioned the government. Are we a perfect generation, no. But neither was the Greatest Generation, which did fight valiantly, did save their money, and did stress family values. But in order to do that, they had to exert a repression that their children had to question unless they were brain dead. Every generation has to live in the time they were born in. My 89- year-old mother recently said that.
I’m sick of the media and politicians looking for scapegoats because, in truth, the media often tends to be lazy, “Oh, the boomers are turning 65, let’s sling some mud rather than examine something in depth”; and the politicians are masters of passing the buck. “We haven’t a clue how we got in this economic mess. Wait, let’s blame those boomers who are about to get what the government promised them. Then when we cut their benefits, we’re justified.”
I refuse to accept being labeled the worst generation, because I refuse lazy thinking and broad generalities.
What do you think?
