Feeling Disoriented?

No matter what you believe at Fifty-Something, how you view life in your Sixties will change significantly. It won’t happen overnight – but it will happen. I was born in the middle of the Baby Boom – 1956. By the time I was born, the first boomers were 10. By the time I reached 10, they were well on their way to adulthood and becoming the very generation they detested.

It’s easy to feel disoriented these days. We are all 60+ now. We’ve become the generation we didn’t trust at 25. Remember that? Never trust anyone over 30. Didn’t we say that a lifetime ago? And, consider this… The eldest of the boomers are cresting 80.

How’s that for sobering?

And – like the generation before us, we do not understand the generation behind us. They don’t understand us either. In fact, they cannot stand us – wishing boomers would shut the hell up.

Yet…they love our music.

My 16 year-old son, GEN Z I believe they call it, plays our music while he is showering. I can hear it through the floor. Sometimes, he plays our music on his clarinet and sax. Our music has endured – yet our legacy of change has not. We have a lot to answer for.

Feeling disoriented?

Of course…

It’s the same old saw. It is Generation Gap 2.0 and we are living it now. I don’t believe today’s generation gap is as wide as the one we had with our parents. The Generation Gap of the mid-20th century was significant and the world that came before us was quite conservative. Perhaps a little too conservative and not ready for our rewrite of the world. We were born into a generation that was never going to understand us. Seems the gap arrived with Rock & Roll. It was very controversial.

Why?

Because we were so very different and decided we’d be different and make no apologies for it. It was the oppressiveness of our parents’ generation that inspired us to rise. Sex has always been the 800-pound gorilla in the living room no one talked about. Seems everyone – including our parents and teachers – thought about it or we wouldn’t be here.

The Greatest Generation believed rock and roll, as one example, was too promiscuous. It was “dirty” and unacceptable. Beneath the surface, they envied it. As one journalist recently put it, “Sexual Suggestiveness: The rhythmic, energetic nature of rock and roll music was seen as sexually suggestive, especially the way artists like Elvis Presley would move their hips while performing. This was considered inappropriate and immoral, especially for young audiences.”

You mean The Greatest Generation never thought about sex?

Nah…it just wasn’t discussed.

It was also said, “Association with African-American Culture: Much of the early rock and roll music was influenced by African-American musical styles like rhythm and blues, which were not widely accepted in mainstream white culture at the time. There was a racial stigma attached to this association.” Our racist culture was right out in the open for everyone to see. It never left.

They went on to say “Perceived Threat to Traditional Values: The raw, rebellious nature of rock and roll was seen as a threat to traditional values and social norms, especially among older, more conservative members of society. The music was viewed as encouraging juvenile delinquency and challenging established social order.”

I suppose it was. We’ve never been the same since.

Thank Goodness…

Rock and Roll was considered a morale sickness. It was seen as a terrible sociological illness that was corrupting the nation’s youth – which could lead to immoral behavior. Perhaps we’ve taken it a bit too far the other way. Watch “NYPD Blue” reruns and tell me I am mistaken.

Baby Boomers changed the world and our conservative culture. The irony is, as baby boomers have advanced into senior citizens, we’ve become more conservative. Ironic considering the way we changed the world some five decades ago, and in the years since. Stay tuned, there’s plenty of change yet to come.