The Worst Generation

As a Gen-Xer I often sat at family functions in awe listening to my parents, aunts and uncles talk about their childhoods.  The streets, playgrounds, parks and woods were their own safe jungles to rule like kings.

They walked miles and rode bikes to neighboring towns.  They camped out in remote areas for days; all unsupervised.

Their parents put few restraints on them outside school, dinner, chores and church.  Was the world perfect?  No.  There were still things like Jim Crow and inequities to correct.

However, people overall got along far better and black America was on an upward trajectory of entrepreneurism, home ownership, increasing wages and intact families even if not on the level of their white counterparts.

My parents were of modest means, even borderline poor.  They had far less material things than we did as kids, but their freedom and simplistic prosperity made for far more happiness.

They didn’t have microwaves or videogames.  What they had was Mom’s home cooked meals.

They had wholesome heroes like the Lone Ranger.  They didn’t need an exotic vacation to relax.  One car was good enough.

Of course I am talking about the Baby Boomer generation.  Why did they have such terrific childhoods?

Simple.  They were raised by the Greatest Generation.

The everymen and women who survived the depression only to go on and destroy a supposed Nazi Superman at 18 made a prosperous and safe environment for their huge offspring.

They also had each other.  The WWII generation followed God’s law of be fruitful and multiply.

Does this mean every family was the picture of happiness?  No way.

There were unfaithful marriages.  There were abusive households.  There was alcoholism.

I am sure many of the Eddies that knocked Hitler on his evil ass had PTSD.  They just never talked about it.  They got up and went to work everyday without complaining.

No shrink couches for those ironmen.  They went from the factory-to the barstool-to the dinner table.

But what those families were that set them apart-they were intact.  They truly stayed together for better or worse.  When the shit hit the fan, they leaned on one another.

So after the Boomers grew up in mostly prosperous homes with wholesome and healthy childhoods created by the Greatest Generation what did they do?  They rebelled against the society they benefitted from.

As the Boomers came of age, they decided they needed not just freedom but hedonism.  The generation who lied about their age to fight the Germans and Japs spawned the generation who decided they were above military service.

Service got in the way of getting high, burning bras and rolling around in Woodstock mud.  This is not to say that US involvement in Vietnam was a good thing; that’s an argument for another day.

The worst of the worst generation were the elite who spat upon and mocked our boys coming home from a jungle hell fighting an enemy they didn’t choose for an ally that didn’t appreciate them.

They then went onto turn the universities into communist breeding grounds.  Women flooded the workforce.

More and more children grew up in empty houses.  The boomers were still unhappy with the society they were creating.

So what was next?  Mass adultery and divorce.

The generation that grew up with Mom’s apple pie and Leave it to Beaver left it’s offspring with fruit rollups and MTV.  The result of that was guilt leading to spoiling kids with material items.

Then Gen-X and Millennials spoiled their kids worse and tried to be friends with them, shelter them from any Adversity whatsoever and refuse to discipline them.

What are we left with now?  A weak Godless society.

Thankfully, my mother was pretty old school.  She fought the good fight.  There are numerous Boomers I love who are terrific people.

However on a whole, a generation so vain that they gave themselves a nickname they take so much pride in did major damage to the country that was so good to them with their rebellion.

The Zoomers have quite a mess on their hands.  Are they the next great generation we don’t know about?

Time will tell.  Talk soon.

-Marksman

PS:  Major thanks to Jay Campbell who emailed me about my last article pointing out that polio was actually eradicated by better sanitation and hygiene, not vaccination.  Check Jay out here.