Mumsnet paused a “boomer” thread this morning, and…

Ownership from 1969-1981

If it's the one I'm thinking of it had boomer in the title. I found it to be ageist and unnecessarily goady.

This comes up everytime tbis is raised by 1970 when the post war generation were raising their children most houses had washing machines.

I say again, they were not perfect but they were moving in the right direction.

you'd washed in a boiler with created batt soap,

Aaaargh! Grated bar soap!

Was rushing to get my granddaughter to ballet class and missed the mad autocorrect!

Exactly. 💪

You beat me to it. If you were female back then, your choices in life were incredibly limited. And you'd have none of the modern appliances to do all the housework with, all those tasks that were yours alone. If you had a mangle to squeeze the water out of the laundry that you'd washed in a boiler with created batt soap, you were doing well.

Even when I left school in the early 1970s, pretty much the only careers for girls were nursing, teaching it being a secretary. It is you were adventurous, joint the women branches if the forces. That was basically the entire careers advice we got.

Every young women today benefits from the feminists of the 60s and 70s.

The laws were changed on both but the age of consent for homosexual sex acts was 21 rather than the 16 year old age of consent for heterosexual sex acts for many years after (I think it changed in the 80s?). Abortion was legalised but difficult to obtain (unless you had money - every generation’s answer) for many years after the legislation.

There has never been a perfect time and place. There have always been haves and have nots.

Well yes, we know that. But since the the word is almost invariably used in a derogatory and offensive way, it has more or less morphed into an insult. The few exceptions being academic or statistical articles where the correct term of "baby boomers" is generally used rather than just "boomers".

That doesn't make any sense.

Your last paragraph I would agree with, absolutely. The problem is people imagining that these were some sort of halcyon days of cheap property and full employment.

The point is, things were improving rapidly throughout that period - the laws you mention were both repealed in the late 1960s - things were going in the right direction for most of those people's lives, not going downhill as they have been for the last 20 or so years.

At no point in history has everything been perfect for everyone, or even for a particular demographic, what's important is the general direction of travel and prevailing zeitgeist.

Rampant and overt sexism and racism, no protection under the law and it was illegal to have an abortion, and illegal to have a homosexual relationship, even consenting.
I don't think it was a happy time for everyone

Do you ever see anyone younger doing this?

Ah, the ignorance of youth! They'll find out 😆

So call it when you see it.

Trans issues are more complex because they can be reframed as ‘pro women’s and girls’ rights’

Sure, no abelism, or racism, or homo phobia, transphobia is every allowed on the site. Not once. And we never see any threads about how terrible young people are.

I always think it's shit aging but then again, better than the alternative.

My parents are late 'silent generation' and personally I think that was a good time to be born, provided your family had got through WW2 unscathed. Entering adulthood at the start of the 1960s, it was an era where things were on the whole 'getting better'.

Yes, there were challenges such as the high inflation of the 70s making mortgages crippling, high unemployment of the 80s (although in a job-for-life era that was more likely to affect later boomers and Gen X) but in the main able to retire with a decent pension at 60 or 65. Covid striking very late in their lives.

I think of the reign of Elizabeth II which started in their childhood and has often been described as a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

Aptly for their name, you do not hear much about 'the silent generation' probably because their numbers were heavily in decline by the time social media sprung up. Even the tail enders are now in their 80s.

Exactly! It’s pathetic how people (despite having access to more information that ever before) assume that anyone born GenX or before lived in a fabulous utopia and make things harder for following generations just for fun.

Most of MN are going to get old one day, and the next generation will take the piss / moan about them. Every generation has slagged off the previous one in one way or another. 18 thinks 30 is ancient, 40 wouldn't date 60, 70 is worried about getting to 80 and over.
Knock on effect for the future Gen X, Y and Z. Age is coming for you. 😉

Boomers had the nuclear threat too, the cold war. I remember waking up terrified about nuclear mushroom clouds as a boomer child in the 50s. We didn't even have a house phone, the phone box was half a mile down the road! And then a bit later in life we had the three day week, fuel rationing, miners strikes, steel workers strikes bringing the country to a stand still and mortgage rates at 15% plus.

Exactly! Ageism exists in the same way that any other nasty prejudice.

Yes, my then-partner first got a mobile in about 1997 - it didn't text and only contract mobiles were available. I got one about 2000 that would send text messages and had a little aerial you pulled out, that was a PAYG, then after that I had the classic Nokia one that they still make and then various little clam phones and the like. My first 'smart phone' was a Windows phone that I got in 2014, they don't make them anymore.

What terms do you use to describe different generations?

the terms commonly in use are:
silent generation
boomer
gen X
millenial (gen Y)
gen Z
gen A / gen alpha

Most people know what these mean.