Ms. Brombacher writes, "Marc, it's about a lot more than just a "feeling" (although that alone should count for something)."

While I'm not sure about how you feel on this, but back when I was a kid, Ms. Brombacher, Lyndon Johnson, or perhaps Jack Kennedy was the epitome of a modern-day liberal. Today, the epitome of a liberal (who at least will admit it) is Michael Kinsley. What this suggests is that the "Feminization of America," as one observer coined it, is now complete. No longer is it, "I think, therefore I am." But rather, "I feel, therefore I am." Emotions rule, as was predicted by S&H in a "inner-driven" third turn.

Which leads me to Mr. Justin, who writes, "You[Marc Lamb] are so funny. My parents (unlike all my friends parents) are actually still together. Pretty astonishing huh?

Yes and quite bad as well. At least to modern feminist doctrine it is. A recent study on the affects of welfare reform has shown a curious increase in two-parent families. This has shocked the left which is cautioning against getting "carried away with the success of welfare overhaul." Why? Because, "their[women] struggle is so great they think that two heads are better than one," when it comes to raising kids. So says Helen Gee, supervisor at Community Advocates in Milwaukee.

Two heads are better than one, as we all know, so long as those two heads belong to the female class of society.

Or, at least, feminized ones like Michael Kinsley.

So just who are the guity ones for bringing us to the wonderful era of pre-fourth turn? Is it the Woodstock-era "burn baby burn" flower children? Or late-wave Baby Boomers, er, Jonsers?

An interesting take on this whole matter from one, David Frum, as reviewed by an Awakening "diaper-baby": Reproduced (I know it may be too long for many, but think of the few) for educational purposes only.


How We Got Here
The '70s: The Decade That Brought You Modern Life (For Better Or Worse)

By David Frum (NY: Basic Books, 2000)

Reviewed by Robert L. Crowther II (born 1967)



Ask Americans which was the most pivotal decade of the 20th century and most will answer, "The Sixties." But not David Frum. In How We Got Here, he argues that the real cultural watershed was the 1970s. And, after reading his book, I am inclined to agree. In great detail, Frum examines the political, psychological, cultural, legal and religious attitudes that have brought us to our present state. The resulting book is interesting in its pop-cultural references and important for its keen insights into how the '70s make today?s society tick.

From Buildup to Meltdown: Dismantling the G.I. Consensus

How We Got Here will be of interest to anyone interested in the history of the "culture wars" of the past half-century, especially those with religious backgrounds and agendas. Only a small portion of the book deals with religion directly, but the rest of the book explains the patterns of cultural breakdown that people of all faiths have noted in the recent past.

The greatest achievement of How We Got Here is in showing the changing of the guard from the G.I. generation to the Boomers. Without seeming to realize it, the author expertly defines both generations; he stretches back to American generations such as the Founders and Progressives in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to show how the civic G.I. generation came about and then ultimately gave way to the individualistic Boomers.

"For half a century," Frum writes, "America?s leaders had worked to gather their society under greater control, to make it less volatile, more predictable, more legible? Mid-century American government had been organized in such a way as to get things done: to fight wars, build colossal public works, regulate giant industries, stabilize the economy."

Schools nationwide had similar curriculum; housing tracts began to look alike; social safety nets and tax laws worked to make people feel less unequal; urban planning worked to smooth out everything and manage all growth; and there was a sense that, having survived the worst the world could throw at them, Americans at mid-century wanted "good order and good deportment of every kind."

Within 20 years, the collective G.I. civicness that put a man on the Moon in eight years is being overpowered by the Silent and Boomer generations? combined traits of discussion and discourse. Group action gives way to individual talk. (A highway project in New York drags on thru three decades before collapsing to a small-scale boulevard, whereas -- 40 years earlier -- the George Washington Bridge had been conceived, planned, and built in a mere 39 months.) With nary a nod to generational models, Frum perfectly outlines the transition from what Strauss and Howe call a First Turning "American High" to a Second Turning "Spiritual Awakening."

The author is insightful and witty as he paints the picture of a public driven almost to paranoia by the policies of its leaders, and by their corruption, of which Watergate is still the crown-jewel example. Most interesting to me ? a libertarian-leaning avid individualist and free-marketer ? is the incredible disregard for capitalism shown by 1970s politicians. (Democrats who enact national price controls and freeze entire industries? wages are hard to imagine in today?s political environment, let alone Republicans. Yet that's exactly what the Nixon Administration did during 1971-73 to try and curb inflation and solve the oil crisis.)

Add to that the overwhelming regulation and control that the federal government forced onto the nation, and Frum has little trouble showing where things went wrong -- economically and politically -- throughout the decade. He pulls no punches, savaging Republicans and Democrats alike.

And He Doesn?t Stop With Politics

Frum frankly examines the psychological babble that consumed the nation?s psyche, and language, throughout the '70s:

He looks at the rise of "rights" for everything and everyone -- and the related chaos of the courts and abandonment of the rule of law.
He outlines the change in medicine where the once supreme, all-knowing, scientifically superior doctor gave way to the channelers, positive thinkers, herbal heretics and copper-pyramid fanatics of alternative, non-western, medicine.
He looks at the changes wrought by Silents and Boomers in the nation?s educational system where, in the name of self-esteem, judging gave way to tolerance.
He explains the effect of divorce on Xer children, noting how adults were encouraged into "multimarriage families...as an extended kinship system that provides relief from the suffocating relationships children often encounter and endure in the intact nuclear system." (Sounds completely heretical by today?s pro-family "anything for the sake of the kids" standard.)
The author also shows how pop culture replaced religion and traditional spirituality struggled for prominence among a polyglot of pseudo-religions.

From 1955 to '65 the Episcopal Church grew by 22% and Roman Catholicism had a golden age that culminated with the election of the first Roman Catholic President, John F. Kennedy. The trends then inverted. Radical membership declines in centralized religions like Catholicism, Judaism and the Episcopalians (who lost a whopping 16.7% between 1965 and '75) were accompanied by an increase in the much more individualistic fundamentalist Protestant forces (from the "Jesus freak" hippies to the Southern Baptists). Another glaring example of the change from G.I. collectiveness to Boomer individualism.

Frum attacks every part of society, and levels at them all the charge of a complete breakdown of our culture.

Parts that Go Too Far or Get Too Dense

The author saves his most acerbic attacks and caustic criticism for the women?s rights and homosexual rights movements. While he skewers everyone from the decade at some point, he crucifies the activists of these particular causes. And it's here that I find him most out of touch, and surprisingly old-fashioned.

My complaint is two-fold. First, he seems to think that women and homosexuals were treated equally and fairly in the past and that any attempt to encourage better treatment on their behalf was uncalled for. Indeed, it sounds at times like he thinks there were no changes needed, that the country would be better off had we never striven for fairer treatment for women and homosexuals.

Secondly, he seems to single out homosexuals and attack them more viciously than any others. The only graphic sexual descriptions of the free-sex era he saves for gay men. Is it necessary to have EXTREMELY graphic descriptions of gay sex parties? (I can't even quote them in this review.) Where are the graphic descriptions of the middle-class suburban wife-swapping parties?

To be sure, there were extremes. The militant homosexuals and women?s-rights campaigners of the ?70s did and said outrageous things. And the author is right to point that out and show the results for the culture as a whole. But he does so in such a way as to sometimes denigrate women and homosexuals, and to minimize the injustices they sometimes suffered.

Another gripe: The book slows noticeably when Frum delves into economics, though more because of the subject's complexity than because of any fault of the author. (I?m no economist and I avoid trying to comprehend monetary systems ? especially one as whacked-out as ours was in the '70s.) It is important to understand the fiscal problems of the '70s, but at the same time the pacing of the book is thrown off and Frum?s own literary talents are sidetracked.

Those, however, are not my biggest complaints with How We Got Here. That I save for the publisher and the editor. I don?t think I?ve ever read a book with more mistakes in it. Everything from misspelled words (isnide!) to sentences with words left out ("What is wrong with us we can longer this now."). If it were just a few mistakes I wouldn?t even mention this, but the book is rife with them. When you have to constantly work out what a sentence means because of its senseless phrases, Basic Books should be ashamed. I'm sure the author was appalled when he saw the first copy, and I hope they correct this.

What the Author Leaves Out, and Who Won't Be Impressed

There will be those who won?t like this book. Political partisans on either side will be indignant at the blame heaped on both major parties. And, for all the politics and economics dealt with in How We Got Here, it is surprisingly not the right book for politicos or entrepreneurs: Few insights about how to reach voters; no previously unknown lessons on how not to repeat the campaign mistakes of the past. And little in the way of how to position your company -- or portfolio -- to survive the types of turmoils the ?70s presented. This book would also be a waste of time for most policy wonks. They?ll already know much of what?s here in the way of economic blunders, legal pratfalls and political slip-ups.

What Frum does is connect the dots between those political and economic minefields and the culture wars that raged around them: How the leadership of the nation was affected by the changing national culture (and vice-versa) doesn?t lend itself to predictions and advice. The reader is offered a window on how we got here, a roadmap of sorts.

Now for the biggest surprise: If How We Got Here is a roadmap, a whole set of directions is implied but never stated. Not once in the book does Frum talk specifically about generational theory. Whether this is by chance or design I don?t know, but it is amazing -- given such an absence -- that both his analysis and conclusions at times fit so neatly into accepted generational models.

He only occasionally refers to the G.I. generation and never really defines the ages of that group. He seldom uses the word "Boomer" and never uses "Silent" or "Generation X." Yet he writes about the actions of these generations so artfully that you know just who he means, and if you know generational models you will easily fit each group into their corresponding timeframes. Ultimately, Frum has written a generational book.

At the same time, the rigor of his chronicle calls into question the precision and sequencing of the Howe-Strauss model. In their 1997 book The Fourth Turning, they place America's "High" in the period 1946-64 and the Awakening in 1964-84, which means the Third Turning "Unraveling" does not get underway until the mid-1980s.

At first glance, Frum is examining the change from a First Turning High to a Second Turning Awakening -- but soon it becomes a description of a Third Turning Unraveling. The social breakdowns Frum details are not an awakening. He finds no sense of everyone "arriving" during the 1970s. Rather than some vast assortment of revelations, the country faces a chaotic cultural landslide.

So maybe it's more correct to see the Awakening and the Unraveling as parallel instead of one following the other. As more and more segments of society "awakened," the overall culture began to unravel. As millions more individuals sought discovery and revelation and self-awareness, their obligations and therefore their homes and communities fell apart. Individuals awaken, culture unravels -- an overlapping of the Second and Third turnings as described in the Howe-Strauss generational model. Frum's book ends up making the case for this very well.

Why the Author Deserves to be an Honorary Xer

In late 1997 I read (and reviewed for LTM) the Howe-Strauss book 13th Generation: Abort, Ignore, Retry, Fail? As an Xer I could relate to much of what they described of the '70s and '80s as they defined, outlined and explained Generation X. It made sense to me to see how an entire generation of people is affected by their environment and grows up to be so many different things: Self-sufficient, cynical, distrustful, loyal, risky, entrepreneurial, pragmatic, and even apathetic. Howe and Strauss effectively communicated how the actions, and non-actions, of the elder American generations -- G.I., Silent, and Boomer -- shaped the collective psyche of Generation X.

Now, How We Got Here has taken it one step further by examining in great detail the political, psychological, cultural, legal and religious attitudes that have brought us to our present state. What Neil Howe and Bill Strauss did for one generation, David Frum has done for the entire nation. (Since he was born in 1960, I am bestowing honorary Xer status on Frum, in part to keep him from the already bulging ranks of the Boomers.)

At first I thought that Frum had written a generational study of the Second and Third turnings and how they specifically affected the country. At the book's end, I wondered if perhaps he is more aware of generational models than he leads us to believe -- and he just doesn?t agree with them. Here's what the author says about individual responsibility, in great Xer fashion, in his rather short conclusion:

Alexis de Tocqueville warned that thinkers in democratic societies will always be tempted by deterministic explanations of events. This tendency denies individual choice and thus individual moral responsibility? If what happened to America in the 1970s was the product of some overwhelming global cause?why then, we are all excused, aren?t we? What else could we have done but what we did? What else can we do but continue as we are, and hope that it will all somehow work out for the best? While it may be true that grand historic forces beyond any man or woman?s control made the 1970s POSSIBLE, what made the 1970s happen was INDIVIDUAL choice [emphasis in original].

Frum seems to discard any sort of generational theory and instead gives his own reasons for why the '70s mattered most. I will let you read the book, consider his reasons and determine for yourself whether he hits or misses the mark. For my money, again and again, Frum hits the mark solidly.


---------------------------------------------

Rob Crowther, GIG co-founder and music critic, designed this website. His day job is communications director of a west-coast think tank. Comments welcome via rob@millennials.com.

"How We Got Here" is a great book for a lot of reasons. The generational theme is muted, though definitely there. More important, there are facts galore what support both Awakening and Unraveling aspects of society.

One of the most relevant to 2T/3T is the entire chapter devoted to children. The author describes the rise of "demon child" films, increasingly negative attitudes about kids, and even quotes child rearing manuals treating children as oppressors and recommending mutual liberation for kids and adults.

The priceless quotes that pepper the chapters are justification to get this book -- it's hard to believe we were saying these things a few decades ago!

Pindiespace writes, "One of the most relevant to 2T/3T is the entire chapter devoted to children. The author describes the rise of "demon child" films, increasingly negative attitudes about kids, and even quotes child rearing manuals treating children as oppressors and recommending mutual liberation for kids and adults."

It begs the question, how in the world did women come to reject and loath their own offspring so blatantly? I mean, I can understand men behaving this way, but this behavior was fostered, encouraged and carried forth by women themselves.

Perhaps somebody can enlighten me?

Marc L. wrote: "how in the world did women come to reject and loath their own offspring so blatantly? I mean, I can understand men behaving this way, but this behavior was fostered, encouraged and carried forth by women themselves."


There's plenty of blame to go around, Marc. My own Silent Mom was very conflicted in her feelings toward her family. She loved my siblings and I dearly, and didn't despise or reject us in any way. However, she claimed on several occasions that were she able to live her life over again, there's no way she would have married my Dad! To which I would respond, "Where does that leave us?" She could never quite come up with an answer that made sense.

On the other hand, it seems to me that most the film producers who made all those "demon child" movies, as well as the circa-1976 California landlords who refused to rent apartments to people with children, were Silent men. It would seem that there was no shortage of male resentment toward children as well.


It seems to me that many Silents -- both men and women -- were highly resentful of their position in society. Having failed to acheive GI style glory, they yearned to be Boomer free-spirits, and deeply resented the encumberments -- marraige and children-- which they viewed as keeping them from being like their free-loving, drug-inhaling next-juniors. Because most of them weren't raised to consider their own personal needs before those of their children, they ended up turning on each other in feminist/chauvinist rage, and ended up wrecking their late-Boomer and Xer kids lives anyway.

Mr. Parker writes, "It seems to me that many Silents -- both men and women -- were highly resentful of their position in society. Having failed to acheive GI style glory, they yearned to be Boomer free-spirits, and deeply resented the encumberments -- marraige and children..."

While this is undoubtably true, I think that both the GI and the Silent generations were more than a little shocked by their children's strong radical tendencies concerning gender roles and issues. I sorry, but no one can convince me that a man opening a car door for a woman was an idea from our parents.

And even the issue of abortion, I don't think, was intended by our parents as means of birth control, or worse, a test by which a woman would show a man who is really the boss here.

To wit, I submit an 81 year-old "leading feminist" take on the sorry state of men and women in the twenty first century: Printed here for the education of all who think I'm looney.


Tuesday August 14 11:26 PM EDT
The Best and Worst of the British Press
By Svein Michelsen ABCNEWS.com

The 'Rubbishing' of Men

While some turn up their noses at British men, feminist writer Doris Lessing comes out fighting for the much-bemoaned male, The Guardian writes.

"I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed," she told the Edinburgh book festival.

Listing the great achievements in bringing female pay and opportunities up to parity with men, Lessing said that almost nothing had been done on child care, but this last hurdle need not be passed at the cost of men.

"Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did," she concluded.



While blaming our parents for many things may be valid, blaming this rap on our elders won't cut it with me. The present-day American culture, like Mr. Frum claimed, is a result of a late Awakening nightmare of women claiming their right to the throne.

And the the kids just got in the way, is all.

IMHO, at least.

I kind of butchered this one, ". I sorry, but no one can convince me that a man opening a car door for a woman was an idea from our parents."

It should read, ". I'm sorry, but no one can convince me that the idea of a man opening a car door for a woman was some ridiculous partriarchal "hang up," to be shed NOW!, as coming from our parents."


Sometimes I erroneously think that what my head has thought, my fingers have typed.

Ms. Doris Lessing as a Progressive (I do not know the equivalent of G.I. for a Rhodesian) is exercised at the "unthinking and automatic" nature of complaint. I read The Four-Gated City in the late 1960's on the impulse of young feminists who had not fallen into the vulgar Marxism that soon would swamp other modes of thinking on the plight of women.


I would also think that the drift from her Communist past into new considerations of the human condition in the very fine series of SF, Canopus in Argos, shows that Ms. Lessing takes Progressive Thought (as did many a GI and Silent) as worthy of more than cant. Even cant with which one quite agrees quickly becomes irritating.


It is the unthinking reflex that sets Ms. Lessing, and others of a certain age, off...and not the idea of the "community" or the state as the last resort for the caring for the (excuse the cant) Children.

Mr. Parker writes (and Mr. Lamb quotes him):

"It seems to me that many Silents - both men and women - were highly resentful of their position in society. Having failed to achieve GI style glory, they yearned to be Boomer free spirits ..."

To adapt the above to another generation:

It seems to me that many Busters - both men and women - are highly dissatisfied ("resentful" is a bit too heavy) of their position in society. Having failed to achieve Boomer-style spiritual catharsis, they are yearning (jonesin'?) to be Post-Buster "party animals" ...

In essence, the core of being a Buster is to be in the same state as the first souls Dante encountered in the "Inferno" - those who were neither good or evil, merely selfish. These souls are "eternally unclassified - they are neither in Hell nor out of it." Busters, in a very real sense, are neither in Boomerland nor out of it - just as their Silent parents and Interbellum grandparents were both neither in the "Greatest Generation" nor out of it. This same sensibility has thus been handed down from parents to children to grandchildren of the same typical family tree.

And by the way, not only was David Frum born in 1960, but he's also Canadian - just like Doug Coupland, who hit the nail almost perfectly on the head as to the birth-year parameters of the Bust Generation (originally, of course, tagged by him as Generation X).


Lyrics to live by:
"Oh well, whatever, never mind"
(Kurt Cobain [1967-1994], "Smells Like Teen Spirit")

Anthony, We late Boomers will aways be "late to the party". And Lord help us when the first wavers get their shot at Gray Champion. I had my Millie later in life, therefore, she is right where she needs to be in that generation. My sibs and I did our part to put the family back "N Sync" generationally, since the Silents and Boomers were a little off. Now we sit, wonder, and wait. Gotta love those Millies.

My Silent mother always used to say that she ought not have had children so young (age 22) and expressed anger at my father for persuading her to "do it naturally" on their wedding night and frustration with her own naivete for not asserting herself with my father on the birth control issue.

My parents did as good a job with me and my two brothers as any of that era, but the gender (or feminist-chauvinist battles) between them were bitter and drawn out. And usually with my father winning whatever the content part of the argument was and my mother getting her way on some process part of the issue.

I think that Kevin's analysis of the issue is as good as any, since it seems to ring true with my parents.

Kevin is dead on. I never thought of it that way, but that is what I saw growing up among my friends whose moms didn't work. My parents were both doctors who waited to have us, and, as a result, had a much more balanced, happier marriage than most of my friends' parents. My parents were more like busy Boomer parents than frustrated, simmering Silent parents.

There is something I never got about Silent women, though. It seems like a lot of them had kids young. My mother-in-law was 22 when she had my husband. That means that they were only in their early 40's when their kids grew up and left. So, why not do something then?

Donna what did your mom do after you guys all grew up and left? My mother-in-law had another kid at 37, we think to keep herself busy. Now, at 56, she's a bored empty-nester with not much to do. I don't get having nothing to do. We Xers never have had, and never will have that issue.

How do you make a Subject line on these posting? This is about Silent parents. Mine are pretty typical, first kid (me) in '56 (they were 21) and 3 more before '64. According to my folks, that's just how it was back then. Everybody did it, thus, the late wave boomers. My parents shocked all of us with a late-life divorce. Mom blames it on Dad's mid-life crisis. Dad is such a Silent, he never calls, comes over or anything. I think he never got the hang of being a parent. Mom did it all. I have seen a lot of resentment in Silent family members, and it never goes away.

Neisha, I'm the same way about being busy and my Millie daughter gets onto me all the time for not letting her have some "down time". I always thought it was because I'm a half Choleric half Sanguine temperment with a pinch of Melancholy.

Mr. Anthony claims, " Busters, in a very real sense, are neither in Boomerland nor out of it - just as their Silent parents and Interbellum grandparents were both neither in the "Greatest Generation" nor out of it."

Dante--or even S&H, for that matter--not withstanding, Mr. Anthony, this is just plain silliness. What is the point to even discussing generational effects on society evolution, turnings or whatever if one goes completely off the map of common sense like this.

"...just as their Silent parents and Interbellum grandparents were both neither in the "Greatest Generation" nor out of it."

At this point, even I feel like quoting Cobain, "Oh well, whatever, never mind"

Following up on Neisha's comment, perhaps there is a great deal more anger and resentment among Silent moms who didn't work. My dad -- an attorney -- was, far and away, the major breadwinner in our household. While my Mom worked, it was intermittently, during lean years when my dad's law practice wasn't doing so well. For the most part, she was pretty much a housewife.


What I don't get is this: my Mom had ample opportunity to have a rewarding career-- both as a teacher and a would-be businesswoman. However, it seems she sabotaged these attempts in order to maintain complete dependency on my Dad, and in a way on us kids as well. Why would anyone -- of any generation-- do that to one's self?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin Parker '59 on 2001-08-16 18:31 ]</font>

Some thoughts on women.
I would like to know if it is still customary for women to give their female children copies of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" when they are children. Most young women I know were always aquainted with that book from a young age, which I take to be a sign of the Awakenings effect on small children (such as my mother insisting on me having dolls so I could be a good father and not letting me have war toys, which she said were subsidized by the government to make me want to grow up and be a killing machine)

My Silent mother married at age 17, had her first kid (a 1949 Boomer) when she was only 18, and her second when she was 23, when their father had graduated naval academy and they were safely ensconsed in the 'burbs. This was the norm for a middle-class girl, too. Feeling the itch at an early age, she and her first husband split up in '57, and then she met my father, and I was born in '58. Her only outlet during this time was painting and serving on various committees and community activities. Being married to an upper middle class executive made it unecessary, indeed, undesirable, for her to work. But too much domesticity at too early an age caused frustration and boredom to fester over the years, finally exploding into feminist rebellion by 1970, when she divorced my dad, packed her things, along with a bewildered me, whisked us into the city so she could pursue a career, donned a dress-for-success suit, and put herself first for a change. While I understand why she had to do this, I admit I felt cheated, and even betrayed, and to this day feel I have been scarred because of this too-sudden transition from an idyllic, suburban Boomer childhood to a fend-for-myself, unsupervised, Xer-like one at the tender age of 12. It is hard for me to trust anyone. My relationship with my mother is fraught with distrust and resentment that is never discussed but resides under the surface. This experience of being abandoned, in a sense, by my own parents, gave me a crash course in growing up fast and not trusting anyone. Alas, I have found this is common experience among Jonesers, who often started off with a Leave it to Beaver early childhood, only to have the carpet ripped out from under them during late childhood or adolescence. It's a wake up call, all right, and forces you to grow up fast. My feeling is Jonesers have even more casualties, criminals, fuck-ups and suicides than Xers. In a way even Xers had things easier. At least they never expected anything more than what they got. They never had anything stolen from them: they never had it to begin with.

Jones is a good name for late-50s/early 60s cohorts because we do, indeed, "jones" for the good stuff. But an even better name might be "The Sink or Swim Generation."

That's a no on the book to the daughter, I just tell it like it is and I'll bet your mom was a true flower child. Viet Nam was still a fresh memory in '79.

Oh, and yes, my mother had "Our Bodies, Ourselves," which she used to leave out for me to read. It was her bible at the time. As a young teenager, I thought the book was fascinating, and later on bought myself the revised edition. I hear it's still in print, though its Awakening-era, ultraliberal, pro-abortion and pro-alternative sexuality stance I am sure does not go over so well today.

I don't know what you mean by "having everything" vs. "not having everything"
Its hard for me to comprehend the idyllic Boomer childhood. Do you mean like, you were so stable and protected, that you really believed in it, and were optimistic about the future...then BOOM! it was all a lie?
Thats what I get out of your post Susan.
I was familiar with divorce from day one because three of my older cousins are victims of it. I just assumed all marriages ended like that. My mom and dad would fight alot, and go into their room and close the door and scream at each other. I was thinking which one Id choose to go with when the day came. I still had a nice childhood though.
You see, it never occurred to me until this generational business that things COULD be different. I never knew children used to act differently, I mean I KNEW, but never knew. its hard to explain. I was so caught up in it that it never occurred to me what was really going on.
By the way, a new guy came to the job today. At first I thought he was 22, but hes really 35!!!weird right? I have a hard time. But we're in the same generation without a doubt. He went off on a tirade though about kids today and stuff to me. I kind of just shrugged it off. What are you gonna do right?
We talked about how when we were kids (weird right?) things were different, although I couldnt get him to own up to our generation being bad.
He knows our ranks contain alot of scum bags though.

I agree with those here who think David Frum's book speaks truth--it is filled with insight about that vastly misunderstood decade. While the book doesn't focus on generational aspects much, Frum does consider himself a Joneser. I heard him in an interview say that he had not heard of Generation Jones while he was writing his book, but heard of it later and he was enthusiastic in saying that he very much relates to the concept and "Generation Jones" name. I do as well, and agree with your comments, Susan, about why the Jones moniker fits us so well.(BTW, what's with the guy(Andrew(?)'58) calling us "Busters"? I've never seen that term used that way anywhere except by him on this forum board. I've always seen that term used for Gen X.) Anyway, I think it's interesting that many of the articles talking about Frum's ideas also talk about Generation Jones. Makes sense--understanding the 70s properly requires understanding the generation that came of age then. Here's one of the Frum/Pontell articles--

Chicago Tribune
April 27, 2000 Thursday

Keeping Up With The Joneses; For Kids Of The ?70s, It's Time To Talk About Our Generation

By Barbara Brotman

When Shari Pergricht saw NBC was going to air a mini-series called "The ?70s," she couldn't imagine why.

"What are they going to talk about? What are they going to show?" said Pergricht, of the Northwest Side, who at 42 would presumably be part of the show's prime audience.

"The ?70s were boring in some ways. It's hard to say what the essence was. It's like there wasn't much of one."

Such disdain is business as usual for what author David Frum, author of the ?70s history "How We Got Here" (Basic Books), writes has been considered "a slum of a decade."

In fact, the generation that came of age in the ?70s has heaped it with abuse ever since.

"Bad, bad clothes," shuddered Diane Kaercher, 43, of Western Springs. "Polyester shirts with printed flowers on them. And big bell-bottoms and high platform shoes."

"It's kind of embarrassing," said Pergricht, a counselor at Harper College in Palatine. "Yes, I grew up with the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family. They were a big part of my life, but those aren't things you talk about proudly. People laugh."

But now people stage revivals of the Brady Bunch and wear big bell-bottoms and high platform shoes. And nostalgia has bred analysis. The ?70s are the subject of an attempted rehabilitation.

The NBC mini-series, which begins Sunday, comes on the heels of the publication of Frum's book, subtitled, "The 70's: The Decade That Brought You Modern Life (For Better or Worse)."

And Jonathan Pontell, an entrepreneur-turned social commentator, has declared the generation that came of age in the ?70s, those born between 1954 and 1965, a separate entity from Baby Boomers. He calls it Generation Jones.

Jones is a common name that evokes the sense of a large, unknown group, says 41-year-old Pontell. It is also a reference to having a "jones," or craving, for the ideals put forth in the ?60s.

Pontell, who lives in Los Angeles, runs a Generation Jones Web site (generationjones.com) and has been been traveling the presidential campaign trail asking candidates to talk about Generation Jones' interests. His book, "Generation Jones," will be published by Vanguard Press in July.

To Frum, 39, a prominent conservative commentator who is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard, the attention to the ?70s is overdue.

The ?60s may have all the leftist romance; the Reagan '80s may still warm the conservative heart. But it was during the ?70s, Frum says, that American society most profoundly changed into what it is today.

He cited such facts of modern life as drug use, divorce, sexual freedom and psychotherapy. "The ?70s were not when these ideas originated," he said. "But this is the time those ideas became universal."

Pontell, too, sees the ?70s as the more important decade for societal change. It was the ?70s, he contends, when women entered the work force in large numbers. The ?70s, not the ?60s, was the decade of long hair, as evidenced by comparing the decades' high school yearbooks.

"Smoking marijuana was very unusual in the ?60s; it was a small, albeit vocal, fringe," he said. "But by the ?70s, it became a very small minority who hadn't smoked dope."

It was the 53 million Americans now between 35 and 46 years old who really changed the world, Pontell said.

"Yeah, there were Boomers who were putting ideas out there in the ?60s," he said. "But it was our generation who lived out those ideas."

To Frum, a Canadian-born journalist who now lives in Washington, the ?70s marked crucial changes in American economics and politics as well as popular culture.

He sees many as positive. Fewer Americans worked for large corporations, and smaller, more agile companies began to appear. "That decade saw the freeing up of the economy from government regulation, giant corporations and trade unions," said Frum, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank in New York.

Watergate-era reforms curbed the enormous powers the presidency had been acquiring since 1933, he said. And socially, it became unacceptable in the ?70s to utter racial slurs or for children to insult a disabled or overweight classmate.

On the other hand, he said, Americans reeling from defeat in Vietnam, Watergate and the Iran hostage crisis essentially lost their faith in the institutions of society, leading to the pervasive cynicism that endures today.

The sense of ?70s freedom that served the economy well, he said, did not do the same for the family. Divorce skyrocketed, along with, in the decade in which abortion was legalized, the numbers of abortions.

"A lot of what happened in the name of freedom of the individual was very destructive," said Frum. (Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden, also a well-known conservative writer, argued that feminism was destructive for women in her own book, "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us.")

And though the sexual promiscuity of the ?70s may look pretty attractive to a younger generation fearful of AIDS, the men and women who lived it don't remember it altogether fondly, he said.

"'Looking for Mr. Goodbar' and 'Saturday Night Fever' were very dark pictures," Frum said. "When a director wanted to portray single life as happy, he set it in the '50s and made 'American Graffiti."'

But all the analysis of the ?70s comes down to this: If it was such a pivotal decade, why has it been so ignored?

"The Boomers have clung to the spotlight," he said. "There's a kind of decade-ism going on there by the Boomers who like to glorify the ?60s as the time when all cool things happened. ... Somehow, this generation just got swept under the carpet."

Pontell contends that Generation Jones is substantially different from both the Baby Boomer generation it is demographically lumped with, and the Generation X that followed.

Boomers grew up in an idealistic time, had high hopes and have lived fairly easy lives, he said, while Generation X has been marked by pessimism.

But Generation Jones, he said, started out optimistic only to see idealistic dreams smashed by the financial hardships of the ?70s. The character of the generation, he said, became a mixture of idealistic yearning and cynical alienation.

But no one wanted to hear from them. "I think the nation was too burned out from the ?60s; they weren't ready for another generation," Pontell said. "And I think part of it is collective guilt on the part of Americans who talked about building this great American for the children, and then didn't."

It wasn't just outsiders who didn't acknowledge the ?70s generation. Ask children of the ?70s themselves what decade formed them, and they often come up with?the ?60s.

"I think I have more memories of the ?60s than I do of the ?70s ... the Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King," said Andrew Levine, 40, of Mundelein, who installs security and audio systems.

He was 3 years old when John F. Kennedy was killed. "I probably remember it from all the hype over the years," he said.

"I thought during my teenage years of my life choices being measured against the stereotypical hippie mentality of the ?60s," said Eric Greenberg, 41, a lawyer who lives on the North Side.

"Everything you did was measured against the ?60s. . . . You either were, or weren't, a rebel. You either were, or weren't, materialistic. And if you were, you figured out a way to apologize for it. By the time the '80s came along, no one felt embarrassed about saying, 'I'm going to make me a lot of money and have me a lot of toys."'

Pergricht knows she is a child of the ?70s, but admits to a case of ?60s envy.

"I feel like I just missed all the big excitement," said Pergricht. "We missed this huge, exciting revolution."

Seventies promoters, your challenge awaits.

? 2000 Chicago Tribune

uh, no, Justin...it wasn't exactly the way you describe (Boom! it was all a lie) since all along there had been undercurrents of what came later (my parents always fought a lot, for example) so in a sense I was prepared for it. The idyllic aspect of my childhood was mainly on the surface all along, and I always sensed it was just that--a candy coating. In a way, when it suddenly was stripped away during the Awakening, things were a lot more honest, and that was a good thing. Suddenly everything was out in the open. Things are never black and white, or all good and all bad, and neither was the change that occurred in our family during the Awakening. I wasn't so naive as to think things would be hunky-dory forever, espcially since they were never really hunky-dory anyway, just more hidden. So what I was doing in my post above was generalizing a situation that's kind of hard to describe and isn't as simple as I make it sound. Things like that are always complicated and many-faceted.

I am really looking forward to reading Frum's book, and in fact, have ordered it at the bookstore. I have a feeling it might get as dogeared and tattered as T4T and Generations have...

Good grief, I feel like Charlie Brown in all this chatter.

"Is there anyone out there?"

Where is Linus when you really need him?

Kevin, that's exactly what I see with my mother-in-law. She complains a ton about how she once had hopes and dreams of her own, blah, blah, blah. But never once have I seen her do anything about it. It's like she did her duty by getting married at 21 and that was the end of having her own life. She's an empty nester now but she still sits around the house waiting for someone to need her domestic services and then complains about how her husband doesn't appreciate her. I just don't get it. My own mom (a 38 Silent) always worked, and now uses the energy she used to devote to us to playing competitive tennis. But I think my mom is unusual. The other Silent women I see are more like my mother-in-law, bored, rich empty-nesters.