What did the Boomers ever do for me?

[Nomama]

In the interests if balance, you understand!

I shall start with the Ford machinists:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968

Equal Pay Act 1970

My thanks to you, Baby Boomers. Without you I couldn't have earned the same honest day's pay as the man working next to me. Hell, I couldn't even have got the job in the first place.

Now this generation needs to thoroughly break the Glass Ceiling!

[sugar21]

Don't forget that boomers still pay an awful lot of tax. State pension is counted as tax allowance and all other pensions that were paid into for x years are taxed at the normal rates. So whatever age you are the tax man still cometh.

[Devora]

I really don't understand this inter-generational antagonism. Do young people really think their generation invented poverty, unemployment and social housing? I was born in 64 and raised by a single parent in a council flat (with no hot water and no inside toilet). I've been on the dole. I now work bloody hard (aka job hogging) to support myself and two young children; my pension is pathetic and I will work until 70. Probably beyond - my mum still works, my gran still works.

I think that today's young have every reason to be angry, but yes it is misdirected if they think this is a generational thing. It is a fantastic example of the divide and rule that is so successfully diverting people's attention from the actions of those in power (see also: public vs private sector, benefit spongers, immigrants). There are over-privileged boomers and boomers who have always been and will always be poor. There are young people who are fantastically privileged, and young people who have no hope of ever owning their own home.

[Devora]

My grandparent generation had the opportunity of having a decent life on one wage. They were able to bring up their own children and didn't have to pay teenagers to do it for them. They could afford a house and live a decent life at the same time. Women were valued as mothers and weren't sneered at if they weren't working full time.

Children had better lives.

Boggling generalisation. My mother and grandmother always worked. My mum was a single parent. Her mum was also a single parent for a while - then remarried a black Caribbean man who faced awful racism in his shitty jobs. My mum got her benefits stopped because she had a boyfriend, so she worked a number of jobs while shunting us around to various neighbours and friends (childcare much harder to find then than now). We didn't have a house and a car and holidays - I didn't go on a plane till my mid 20s. And we weren't unusual - there was lots of poverty around.

I honestly think some posters take their image of the past from Janet & John books. We didn't all wear white socks and live happy suburban lives. I was often scared and lonely as a child. I saw and experienced things I shouldn't have. I have worked hard all my life and I am a long way from paying off my mortgage and I still don't have a car or a dishwasher. My washing machine has just died on me

What is going on now is hideous: like capitalism eating its young. Successive governments have been more concerned with wooing international oligarchs than with looking after their own people. I expect my own children will one day blame their parents for all their woes, too - but shit, what a waste of a revolution that will be.

[ArgyMargy]

A lot of boomers are now providing free childcare for their grandchildren, and many are supporting their children to buy houses or go through university. It's not about the age, it's the attitude.

[Floisme]

I don't think a lot of young people realise how bad sexism was in the 60s and 70s. That's not a criticism by the way, I'm very glad women now expect to be able to walk down the street without being jeered, whistled at, groped or molested. But it wasn't always like that - and when we objected they used to tell us it was a compliment!

[Sixweekstowait]

Sugar- I'm glad you made the point about us paying plenty of tax but we all pay tax - income tax is only one revenue stream - there's VAT and other duties etc. These hit the poorest hardest and it's absolutely clear 100% guaranteed that if this Government are reflected, VAT will increase. Slightly off topic I know but we shouldn't fall for the propaganda that tax= income tax

[Sixweekstowait]

Re-elected

[feebeecat]

Well this has certainly moved on and a lot of interesting points made - mostly I guess about sweeping generalisations. People of every generation will find themselves in different circumstances and it's hard to ring fence any group and lay all the blame at their feet. However, it's sometimes even harder to ignore.
As I said way back up-thread my own view is no doubt coloured by my eldest sister - a boomer who did start work at 16, gave up 10 years later when had first child and never went back. Her DH had that free university education, walked into a job (and walked out when he didn't agree with management many a time and onto another), bought the big house, raised the children all rosy, mortgage-free, early retirement and biggest problem seems to be what to spend the savings on next. All lovely. My issue, bar the obvious jealousy, is the constant complaining - usual DM stuff, immigration, wasting 'our taxes' oh and the moaning about the cost of living is a real killer! I find myself, degree, working p/t to juggle childcare, no end to the mortgage, no savings, car from last century, prospect of camping in the rain again next year, getting slightly cross.
I consider myself to be lucky with what I have, I know others who are in a far worse state. But I look at her, all her friends, in similar circumstances to herself and I get really concerned for the future. This country has been royally screwed over by an elite minority of fat cats. They are working to maintain their positions (what did I read recently about the proportion of millionaires in the country as a whole and the number in parliament - can't recall figures, but it was scary) and they are being maintained in that position by a band of boomers, voting to "protect what's theirs". I see a lot of deprivation through work and I can't get 'my boomer' to see that perhaps there are others who are more in need of her winter fuel payment than she is. And there's another sweeping generalisation, but based on boomers I know - a tiny percentage I admit.
Am getting very carried away and need to go wrap Christmas pressies, but did read up thread something about concert tickets and implication boomers were far too sensible to pay such high prices - that sounded sooooooooo much like my sister it made me laugh, yes, it's all our own fault. Again. Dur

[twoopsie]

Babyboomers were riding a wave of terrific social mobility, enabled by really enlightened policies on education funding, a decent welfare state and the sacrifices of the inter-war generation. They are now patting themselves on the back, assuming they did it all by themselves, and pulling the ladder up behind them. That's what grates.

Agree 100%. What I find disgusting is the boomers that insist today's young have all the same opotunities avalible but are too lazy. When as every economic report says this isn't true at all.

Worst are the ones that go on about the lazy feckless young and imagrants claiming benefits despite them taking out far more of the system than they ever paid in. I'm looking at you DM who only ever worked a few years and has been on the state pension for longer than she worked.

Love how boomers are happy to claim any improvements were down to them but not any failures. Ultimately they have screwed the next two generations over who have falling living standards to look forward to in order to keep boomers in their lifestyle.

[morningtoncrescent62]

Love how boomers are happy to claim any improvements were down to them but not any failures. Ultimately they have screwed the next two generations over who have falling living standards to look forward to in order to keep boomers in their lifestyle.

As a tail-end boomer I do kind of agree. Being tail-end I'll work till 68 (currently, don't trust the age not to increase again) but I don't have the spiraling debts of the younger generations. My education was for free, and housing costs when I started out were a completely different ball game to those facing youngsters today.

I read the earlier part of this thread with interest. Yes, early boomers and pre-boomers won a huge amount for us. A national health service, equal pay, decriminalisation of consensual sex for gay men, pensions, social housing and so on. What they - and we - have failed and are continuing to fail to do is fight to maintain and build on what we've got. We've allowed, yes, allowed (we live in a democracy) pensions to be eroded, and stood by and watched a massive shift in wealth from the ordinary people to the richest 1%. We've allowed trade unions to be weakened, and thus the benefits won by previous generations to be taken from us.

A poster up-thread somewhere was bemoaning the lack of politicisation among young people today. Well, hardly surprising when we who grew up with a much more politicised backdrop turned our backs and thought that what previous generations had won was our due, not something to continue to fight for. OK, so a critical mass of boomers and pre-boomers made a lot of progress. But in the end they made it for themselves, and most are either pulling up the ladder behind them or watching from various bits of the ladder (I consider myself hanging on to a bottom rung) as it gets pulled up and doing very little about it.

[Nomama]

Ah! That was me and I did not sit back and let all of that happen. I was/am politically active.

I don't mean active about education fees that would affect me personally, I mean wider politics, actually understanding the social milieu in which I lived and being active in trying to make it a better place.

I am not pulling up any ladder and am not alone in my actions/beliefs... I can state categorically that I have not screwed the next generation, I have lobbied, marched, written, shouted myself hoarse and even been arrested in order to try and make a difference.

I have no idea why it is so hard for some to appreciate that not all boomers are the comfortably off middle classes and to denigrate an entire generation simply because it lived through a different time and had a different experience.

Someone upthread has already asked what will your kids think of you and your habits and lifestyle? I suspect the current moaners will be very surprised when their offspring wish them dead too!

[Andrewofgg]

It's worth remembering how popular the Iron Lady was. The only real achievement of her first term was RTB. In 1983 she promised a wave of privatisations and restrictions on the powers of the unions while Labour promised an end to RTB and existing buyers required to give the council first refusal at the price paid plus any improvements.

And the Tories won with the biggest share of the vote since 1906, a share that Blair could not match in 1997, and because the turnout was very high more votes than any party has garnered before or since.

No doubt Mr Galtieri helped, but the electorate preferred what she offered over what the others offered, and no party had tried to reverse what she did because the electorate still won't elect a party which intended to.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

I only just discovered that I am a boomer. I didn't bother to check before as I didn't think it important. People are always being shuffled into groups and given a name so they can be hated conveniently.

Personally I'd quite like some of the magical life that we are supposed to have had. Until I left home I hadn't experienced living in a house with an inside toilet, let alone a bathroom.

I started work at 15. For most people now that's the age they can cross the road without holding mummy's hand. It was worth it since I got some clothes that were not from a jumble sale.

Not everyone had it as bad as us, but everyone that I knew did.

For the country as a whole it was better back then, but you're looking at it backwards. they didn't have it better then. You have it worse now.

If the whiners spent more time looking at who they vote for and what shit they will put up with it might not be so bad. Instead someone says "hate the single mums" and they all write angry letters and posts about single mums. They say 'hate benefit scroungers' and off they trot to write to their MP about benefit scroungers. Now it's 'boomers' and 'oh if not for them life would be sweet'

[grovel]

Globalisation also happened in the boomer years. As a country we now have to be more competitive than ever. Not good news for many of our young.

[Andrewofgg]

Globalisation or as we used to call it Free Trade.

[morningtoncrescent62]

I am not pulling up any ladder and am not alone in my actions/beliefs... I can state categorically that I have not screwed the next generation, I have lobbied, marched, written, shouted myself hoarse and even been arrested in order to try and make a difference.

I've done that too, Nomama, but it doesn't stop me acknowledging that I'm part of a generation that mostly hasn't. And in that I routinely fail to win arguments (e.g. in my union which has fought to keep pension benefits for its older members but has caved in over younger ones) then yes, I'm hanging on to the lower rungs of the ladder watching it get pulled up.

[TheChandler]

The Equal Pay Act might have been passed in 1970, but we still don't have equal pay, particularly for like work. Theres an immense difficulty in achieving equal pay when pay rates are kept secret, and its only the most current political generation that have made moves towards dealing with this.

The Equal Pay Act and other anti-discrimination legislation was only introduced because the UK joined the then EEC and part of the conditions for membership was signing up to legislation that prohibited discrimination. So that was based on the vision of people like Jean Monnet, Jacques Delors, Konrad Andenauer, Robert Schumann and so on, who I don't believe qualify as baby boomers and are all dead now.

[Lilymaid]

Agree 100%. What I find disgusting is the boomers that insist today's young have all the same opotunities avalible but are too lazy. When as every economic report says this isn't true at all.
Piffle. I am a boomer. We benefited from the welfare state and a proportion of us benefited from university grants. I don't think my DCs or their generation are lazy, in fact, I am generally impressed by the work ethos of those I have come into contact with. And I use my earnings and the inheritance from my parents (who had to put up with WW2 conscription/rationing etc) to help them in their education and housing.

[wasabipeanut]

Whilst I believe that the Boomers had the opportunity to benefited from a uniquely benign set of economic circumstances which are unlikely to be repeated I don't hold them responsible for all our current ills.

My mum got fired for complaining about bring leered at and harassed by men in the engineering company she was a secretary at and whilst she found it easy to get another job the story illustrates some of the challenges that women in particular faced.

Also, perhaps if the 18-30 (ish) age group actually fucking voted rather than focusing all their anger on an admittedly fortunate generation they might not be continually shafted by successive governments.

[Nomama]

mornington, I don't believe that we, as a whole generation, have been remiss. I believe many have been, but we are into all comfortably off middle classes. Some of us have boomer parents who are still working and have never had the benefits those who shout 'disgusting' seem to think that all of their generation had.

It isn't about some admitting anything. It is about recognising when you have been sold a pig in a poke. The demonization of an entire generation is ridiculous... those who believe it need to think again, why do they believe what they do? Who has fed them their information?

Life for the majority of people is hard enough with a new 'class war' being invented. Aim your ire where it truly belongs - policy makers and big businesses who are taking full advantage of deregulation to rake in the cash and pay shareholder bonuses at the expense of employees working hours/rights.

And again, stop repeating the deliberate misinformation - like University fees then and now. That really annoys me... the DM version of fees is so prevalent and so very untrue!

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

I think we need some intersectional analysis here.... ignoring how class, race and gender comes into it all doesn't really work.

There's definitely a subset of boomers - mostly middle class ones - who benefited disproportionately from free higher education, generous pensions and rising house prices, and I can see why it would be annoying if people in that group are declaring it was all down to luck. A lot of MNers have parents like that so they probably get over-represented on here. But we simply can't pretend it was near-universal boomer experience.

[Devora]

I don't believe that any generation has the monopoly on good or evil. But we really need some class analysis here - people are talking as though all baby boomers live in detached houses in Surrey. What about the baby boomers who were coalminers or steelworkers?

I got a free university education and I'm very grateful for that huge privilege. But it's worth pointing out that a far, far smaller proportion of the population attended university then - the vast majority of baby boomers didn't do so.

Ah, I've just seen The Countess's contribution - absolutely right. Let's not forget that all this babyboomer stuff was stirred up by that book by David Willetts - how much nicer to get young people blaming their parents rather than blaming the elite. Of course we made mistakes - every generation does - but most of us weren't actually in power and it's ludicrous to see this as some kind of conspiracy against the next generation. (Most of us are quite invested in the next generation, as it happens.)

[JanetBookLover]

It suits Government if people blame other generations as it deflects blame from the Government. So I cannot see much point in the exercise.
As others have said plenty of us for generations have had mothers and fathers working. We had no central heating and all the rest I could come out with and I will work until I die.

it always comforts people to think the grass is always greener but it rarely was.

Only 15% of people went to university when I did. So free university education was simply not what most people got all those years ago. They didn't go to university at all.

[Handsoff7]

As Chandler said, the baby-boomers didn't play much of a part in many of the reforms mentioned, they were too young.

The years in power for baby-boomers were 1997-2010. Before that, it was the interwar/war baby generation in power.

That government did some things that were good for all such as introducing minimum wage but plenty that helped out their own generation at the expense of those younger.

In particular:
The raid on DC pensions
Keeping taxes far too low creating a massive structural deficit.
Excluding housing costs from target inflation measures - which caused the boom.

However FWIW, IMO the current goverment (first post boomers goverment) are doing very little to improve things and lots to make things worse.

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

The really scary thing is that historically there has always been an elite and an underclass. In the boomer years we had this amazing, rare window where there was actually social mobility. For the first time the underclass got the chance to get into politics, to get professional jobs, to have careers in the arts.

But that is all disapearing now at a frightening rate. Whether it's your doctor or your solicitor, or hell, even the musician you listen to, or the actor on your favourite show, the model you admire, chances are they are from some privileged middle class bubble. Our society is riddled with nepotism, which is not a good thing for genuine innovation.

And that's without even touching on the old boy's network that has a vice like grip on our political system.