Last week I came across the quote: “I
am so far over the hill that I am half way up the next one.” This could be
interpreted as a call to action for all baby boomers in their sixties and
seventies to rethink their golden years.
In short, we need to begin climbing the next hill by understanding and
helping millennials, aka our children. With
a blink of the eye they are coming into their own and dominating the political,
social and economic culture. If we pull up the rocking chairs rather than put
on the walking shoes boomers will exercise little positive influence over the
future of our country.
Most researchers and commentators
use birth years ranging from the early 1980s to around 2000 in defining
millennials. The signs of the changing
of the guard are everywhere. Our new
family vehicle is basically a mind numbing computer on wheels, designed with
millennials in mind. It should come with
a 30 year old in the back seat to explain the radar, cameras, bluetooth, wifi,
navigation, i phone and voice recognition interfaces. When I sarcastically told my age challenged
friend that the car was equipped with an Amazon app that dropped packages
through the moon roof via drone, he believed me. Ironically, while many millennials
turn down a new vehicle purchase in
favor of Uber, mass transit and short term rentals, boomers will never fully
understand the technology packaged to attract their children.
Statistics disclose that for the
first time, more millennials than baby boomers are eligible to vote in the
presidential election. Many are educated minorities and white Americans with increasingly
liberal attitudes. They are more likely
to support economic policies based on equality, same sex marriage and legalization
of drugs. As the Bernie Sanders campaign has revealed, millennials want their
own issues addressed by elected officials. These concerns include the prohibitive cost
and debt service of higher education, the ability of the wealthy to buy
elections and real progress on fixing the national debt, Social Security and Medicare.
The economic habits of our chidren
are changing America. Purchasing a home or a car (see above) are no longer top
priorities. Frequently changing
employment is common in search of a job that actually makes them happy. Malls
and department stores are passé and all of brick and mortar retail is in a funk
because there is nothing that they cannot
purchase on the internet.
Important news events are picked up on twitter and few read print
newspapers or magazines. Chain restaurants that cater to their eating habits,
gourmet coffee and tattoos have become prevalent. They are among the few luxuries many
millennials can actually afford. Cable
television, land line telephones and desk top computers are as unnecessary to
millennials as typewriters were to baby boomers.
Socially, studies show that
millennials tend to be less religious, better educated and slower to get
married and/or start families than their boomer parents. What effect this will have going forward is
unknown. Either there will be a rush to
produce children as biological clocks wind down, turning boomers into
grandparents in their 70s, or the country will begin aging. Because we boomers will live longer and many have already
depleted savings for a number of ill advised reasons, a sizeable number of
millennials will not inherit wealth when their parents finally expire. But they will, no doubt, be saddled with
taking care of us, as many boomers hang around past the century mark.
We over the hill boomers have a
choice. We can start climbing the next
hill with vigor and moral clarity along with our children and be part of the
solution by understanding their world and cooperating on solutions. The alternative is to keep our title as the
“me” generation and double down along with AARP to defend our entitlements to
the last dollar.
There are simply not enough
resources for boomers and our children to both move ahead unhindered. Better for older Americans to sacrifice a
little and seed the future with higher taxes and entitlement benefits that vest
later and in lower amounts. Better to
volunteer and help our children with the multitude of economic and social
issues they will face. Better to take a
deep breath and start climbing the next hill.
Along the way we may even learn what Bluetooth is and how it works.
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