The only thing that separates the 1970’s from the 2020’s is that the music was much better in the Seventies – and that includes disco. Otherwise, inflation, unemployment, smart alec kids certain that they were changing the world for the better no matter how stupid their ideas were, international conflict, internal conflict, insane presidential politics are all pretty much the same. Sure, some of the steps have changed, but the dance is still the same.

I’m a Baby Boomer by the skin of my teeth – December of 1964. The rest of my generation were in high school and college while I was in diapers. I was in elementary school as they hit the job market – it wasn’t pretty when 30 million people finally showed up for non-existent jobs. This is where the liberal arts ‘do you want fries with that’ joke comes from – but to be fair, how were they supposed to know any better than this current generation of over educated and unemployed where the jobs would be in five years?

We drooled over princess phones with your very own line, new albums and cars; they drool over iPhones, streaming services and the latest like on their social media feeds. It’s kinda weird that social media likes replaced cars but since they were used for the same thing – bragging rights – it’s not that surprising, really.

Boomers were socially activist before social media was a possibility. That ended in the early Eighties when reality began to set in: we had jobs that were anything but secure and that house and car weren’t free. That was also when we found out too late that free love wasn’t so free and most of what had seemed like such a good idea in the Seventies was anything but. Not that we admitted it to ourselves then – we let the divorce rate soar, kids get cheated out of a decent home life and women learn to live without more than just a husband rather than own up to the fact that no fault divorce was an incredibly moronic idea.

We defined anything we liked as ‘progress’ and anything our parents liked as ‘oppression’ or ‘consumerism’ all while clawing our ways up a far more competitive corporate ladder much as our parents had. The backyard BBQ so lambasted in the Sixties came roaring back in the Eighties. Our parents had been frugal and washed our dirty little diapers; we spent like drunk sailors and bought Pampers by the pallet. We were different, you see.

We invented social engineering. At least we put it on some serious steroids. Any idiotic thing that we thought made us ‘free’ we demanded. Ended up enslaving a generation to an ideology that didn’t work and helping several millions of people kill themselves with drugs, HIV and sheer stupidity. Anyone who thinks the war on drugs was a failure needs to take a long hard look at the rising death rates wherever drugs are liberalized.

Much like we lied about Prohibition being a religious witch hunt that failed – it wasn’t and it didn’t – we glossed over the stupid things we did and just outright lied about anything that might get in our way – sound familiar? We grossly mishandled the AIDS crisis – and I say that as one who worked the front lines in the 1990’s – history won’t be kind. Wait until history gets to C-19 – thanks, Gen Z for making us Boomers look good.

Thing is, we were just like our parents in many ways. They probably would have come up with their share of idiocy had World War Two not gotten in the way. In a crazy way, WWII was an advantage – our parents had to grow up really fast. They never had time to change the world; they were too busy actually saving it. Once that was done, they were ready for a nice house in the Burbs with a dog, 3,5 kids and a mortgage. They didn’t get an extended childhood; many of them didn’t even get to live.

Maybe that was why they wanted us to have the childhoods they never had. Lovely sentiment – not necessarily the best parenting plan ever, though. We were spoiled little brats compared to our parents. Part of that was just the changing economy; we weren’t raised on a working farm as most of our parents had been.

We did the same thing. We wanted our kids to have what we hadn’t had, all the toys our parents had said no to and none of the pesky chores and no walking to school in the snow even if it wasn’t sticking. We told ourselves we were so different but we were very much the same.

The last four hundred years have been a technological and economic whirlwind. Little wonder we keep repeating the same patterns as we barely have time to figure out one system before it changes on us. My parents were both raised on farms. I remember my Dad plowing a small garden for the kindergarten my parents ran one summer. It was the only time I ever saw him with a plow and he had to borrow that. We kids planted our seeds and watched the corn grow. But Daddy did all the hard work. We never learned how being too young then and never getting another chance.

We Baby Boomers grew up. We have fond memories – we saw Star Wars on REAL movie screens! – and bitter regrets. That is part of life, especially when we foolishly believe that there’s more to be learned from some smarty pants that can’t get a job, and has to get attention by poking holes in their faces than from those who came before us and lived through more than we ever really know. That was the biggest mistake the Boomers made; the Beatles were a band and they were never as thought provoking as Jesus was.

But who wants a dusty old book that teaches us things we don’t want to know about how flawed we all are when we can have a shiny new album that tells us to imagine a world with no guidance, no pride in work, no justice and no righteousness, all dressed up in deceptively pretty words.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Well, it’s your turn, Whippersnappers. Make sure when you fix the world that you really know what a better world looks like. Let a cranky old Boomer give you a hint: banning carbon 14 and vapid gender identities aren’t in that picture.

Try cracking open that dusty old Bible and see what real ancient wisdom is like. Just sayin’…