AIBU to think the baby Boomers should lay of the sauce?

[MiniTheMinx]

The Alcohol Concern report found the cost of hospital admissions linked to heavy drinking 55 to 74-year-olds in 2010-11 was more than £825m, that is a staggering 10 times the cost of treating younger people.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19913431

Not only have the baby boomers seen in their life time greater social mobility, better pension provision, an NHS that wasn't at all times rationed, an education system that offered them Grammar schools, unions that fought for their workers rights and lived through the 60's (wish I had been there) they now claim non-means tested benefits, take up 2/5ths of the welfare bill and cripple the NHS with their partying alcohol swigging lifestyle whilst 1-3 children in the UK live in poverty.

coral you're a fake. Mineral water didn't exist in the 70s !

If you grew up in the 70s you are not a baby boomer.

I am a baby boomer and I would rather die of pissed-ness than obese-ness.

Obesity problems in the population are very recent. They are costing the NHS lots. No generation has got it right yet.

Goodnight.

Hic!

alcofrolic you've outed me . It was actually Coca-Cola (as opposed to Coke) and Soda Water.

To be completely honest, I did try some port wine ONCE and became violently ill. I had THREE glasses and was sick for the rest of the weekend.

Soneone said that it was because I had swallowed them too fast. I think I did that because the taste was terrible. (I guess I was about 18 then)

Thanks Bewitched. Does that mean I can start feeling younger? [grin ]

What are actually classed as then?

Think it's bedtime for these old bones. Keep making mistakes.

Apparently a baby boomer is one born 1946-64, so growing up in the 70s is about right. I suppose it depends on what you mean by growing up.

Glad to see some defence of those who could hardly help being born when they were. Many of those boomers would have been in the unions fighting for those rights and gains, some of which are still enjoyed by non-boomers now (or at least as long as the rapacious ConDems will permit).

Yes, baby boomers are the post war baby boom (1946 to mid 60s) so all under 70 still.

It may not have been done consciously, but they are the generation who spent all the money IYSWIM and who did best out of the 80s property boom. Obviously not every single on did well, but compared to the generation which followed they benefited from much more favourable circumstances and did not hand the same on.

But the Government has started muttering about withdrawing the winter fuel payments to some: will this be the first popular cut? But in the mean time, those pensioners who do not need this payment have options: give to charity (SAGA is active in this) or lobby for a means to return to Government. Neither seem to be making headway.

(And you could get mineral water in the 1970s...)

(Hang about - I was born in the mid-sixties and there is no WAY I count as a baby boomer! And I'm under 50 fgs! If you ask me, the baby boomers are the post-war conceptions 45-55... )

But there are a whole load of hedonistic oldies born in the 30s and 40s who had tough childhoods living on rations and worrying about bombs falling on their heads, who made up for their un-mis-spent youth in their 30s, 40s and beyond. My parents were born in the 30s, had children in the 60s, smoked dope and dropped acid in the 70s, and settled into heavy drinking and smoking by the 80s. They were a whole heap more experimental than me!

I feel sorry for the youth now too: skunk and m-cat are not party drugs; they're nasty. We need to clamp down on substance abuse now, or they'll all be too zonked to support us in our old age :(

I'm laughing at the idea of Osborne being on the windowlene.

yy Edith but in fairness many of the gains we have in women's rights came about during their watch and the anti-war movement and civil rights. However as services to the elderly are being rationed and cut back all those gains in women's rights will be lost. It is women who will become the free bottom wipers, sandwhiched between work, caring for their own families and having to undertake free elderly care. How many of these baby boomers will be happy to sell their property and pay for nursing home fees to allow their own offspring the freedom of choice, is that what the 60/70 feminists were campaigning for.

They have campaigned for a cap on nursing home fees for their own parents so they can lay their hands on the cash and they will quite likely get to keep a large share of their own wealth. We are told that it is only fair that they get to pass something on to the next generation! you have to ask why is this generation now so ambivalent and why are they less radical and now inclined towards avarice? Neo-liberalism, co-opted into it with bribes of wealth and property.

I agree flow, we are the sandwhiched generation. We are seeing workers rights stripped away, pensions cut, private pensions that are rigged up only to benefit the fund that manages it, having to care for parents, having to pay uni fees, watching with horror as we realise that life will be much harsher for our own children, doing the unpaid work of caring because there is no money in the kitty.....the list goes on.

Right. All these rich baby boomers getting pensions etc. Why is the telly full of begging adverts for all these pensioners living in poverty with one bar on the heater beause they cant afford to warm the whole house?

Baby boomers were the children of the 1950's in the UK.

The elderly are not the baby boomers. The baby boomers allow their parents to sit in one room with a tv and one bar heater. Do you really think these people in their 80's lacking physical and mental capacity are the same people lobbying to cap nursing home fees. No it is their children, high on property ownership wanting to preserve what they see as their right to inherit.

Just to go back to the booze briefly (figuratively!)

It's really good that this story is getting some coverage.

I've worked on many hospital wards addressing the problems caused by drink and a lot of the problems with older people and drink is loneliness, bereavement and a lack of education. Whereas young people with drinking problems have a 'life' to look forward to and to motivate them to stop, older people tend to drink because they feel like they have nothing It's really horrible to watch unfold.

I've frequently admitted tiny old ladies and when I've asked them how much they drink they will casually say 'a bottle of gin every two nights or so'.

Silly article, hardly surprising that older people will suffer more ill health after years of healthy drinking, compared to 16-24 year olds, who will only have been drinking for a few years, so are much less likely to suffer the ill effects.

I am glad I didn;t live in the 1960s- might have been fun in some aplces but when mum got pregnant before marriage (she was engaged) in the rural village she lived in she was hounded, when the baby was stillborn Nan saw it as a blessing- it was ahrdly a fly by night relationship either, 44 years last month since they got married.

As for they all benefit from this or that- you sure? Dad's pension, and those of the 1000 or so people he worked with, disappeared overnight in a company buy out (bought by USA company who were then allowed to use the capital to settle an asbestos clain). Having enjoyed a very successful career in factory management and looked forward to a good retirement with a well funded penion, he now works cleaning out the insides or machjines used to meat recovery at the age of 70 just to make ends meet.

The latest stat I have read on child poverty is that the enw measures will put 400000 extra children into poverty.

Parents do drink, but Dad has beaten alcoholism- his dad was the worst sort of drinker and he was raised in absolute poverty: stealing to eat. Several of his many siblings died of liver disorders, but Dad has kncoked it back to just an occasional social drink. I am proud of him.

in fact it's his birthday today, I hope he ahs a fair few tonight.

Actually, though we joke, it's an interesting and serious issue - older people and their drinking. I suspect it goes on more than most people know. My father drank about 3 bottles of whisky a week, plus a box of red wine, plus a 4-pack or two of bitter. When he was in hospital after a fall and suspected aneurysm, with hypothermia, he was actually prescribed a whisky a night in recognition of his addiction...

Whenlifegivesyoulemons I used to mainline wine then I went to work as a secretary on a Gastro ward and since then have almost stopped drinking. (Well I had 2 cans of 4% beer last night, but that made me feel drunk).

The things I would read in the records were so awful, you hear about the liver damage but you don't hear about everything else, the oedema, the faecal incontinence (sorry), the pain, problems walking, mental health problems It really shocked me. And we had people who were quite young needed liver transplants who had never gone out and got absolutely blotto but had just drunk 3 or 4 cans a beer a night all their working lives.

I have jested on here but yes it is a shock when you actually work with people who health problems as a result of alcohol, I think if they publicised properly the problems it would cause people would be a lot more careful about how much they drink. I think they don't cos they want the tax.

YABU OP. You sound very envious. And thinking practically, you should be encouraging those baby boomers to drink more, not less, so they die younger and free up more of the welfare budget for those children living in poverty.

I'm wondering if I should have name-changed...

The thing is - people my age (65, born in 1947) didn't exactly have a lavish lifestyle when they were young; people may imagine a life full of self-indulgence, but it wasn't so.

I may not be typical, but here's my story. I did get grants at university and I did access a fully operational NHS, and for those blessings I am grateful.

However, when I got married in 1972, we didn't have a car, or a television, or central heating, or a shower, or new clothes. As the babies arrived, I stayed home with them and our holidays consisted of a week with one granny, followed by a week with the other. The grannies knitted for our children (and us!) and I cooked and baked every day, in between carrying coal buckets in to keep the open fire and Raeburn going.

I cut the children's hair myself and didn't go to the hairdresser for years. We never went out, except with the children. We bought a bottle of wine for special occasions and never drank otherwise - couldn't afford it.

By the time my youngest child went to university, grants were a thing of the past, and I am still subsidising her at post-grad level. My own parents died some years ago, but my mother stayed with me for the last six months of her life because - much as we'd had our differences - I would never have left her to cope on her own.

We did have great music, and we had optimism - we saw huge moves towards civil rights and feminism - so yes, we had it good. The people I know certainly aren't living some hedonistic lifestyle now - most of us are caring for elderly parents, or helping our own children. We child-mind our toddler grandson two days a week, and most of my contemporaries are doing similar things.

I don't even drink....

my parents are both seventy and born in the midddle the war so not true baby booomers they live very comfotably i really hate posts like this yes they had elevan plus both failed and my grandma paid for all three of her children to go to private school she was a single parent in the 50,s there was no such thing as tax credit etc so when her husband died unexpectedly from a massive heart attact at 41 and her youngest child was just two she had to get on with it and carry on working in her shop to provide. my own parents had there kids in the early 70.s you only got child benefit from the second child no such thing as paid maternity leave and they could nt afford childcare so mum gave up work for nine years untill we were old enough to manage with taxi ferrying to and from school and a neighbour babysittingthey struggled for years then they got made redudant in there mid fiffties [ extremely good redundancy package] and could also take company retirement and now live very comfortably or did untill mum developed osteioporosisso is really quite disabled with fractured pelvis ,hip knee replacement , i think they should claim DLA but dad wont here odf it up maybe they should just hurry up and die eh what with all there hospital appointments they must be costing the NHS a fortune also dad had cancer a couple of years ago so follow up appointments yet another drain

Bridget I've had similar experiences. I can have a glass of wine every now and again but some of the morbidities are really shocking. If people knew about the gallstones, jaundice, stomach bleeds (thelist could go on forever) as well as the heartache they would think twice before getting sloshed.

But after nine months of being pg I'm looking forward to some cava

Mind your own business.

peachy I hope your dad has a good day.

For those of you hopping mad it is nothing to do with envy. If the baby boomers had a fully functioning NHS, social mobility, credit to buy homes and free university education it was down to the economic situation of the time.

So what has changed?