Posted on 06/25/2004 5:43:22 AM PDT by Tribune7
The tail end of the baby boomer generation is turning 40 this year, which is an occasion for both celebration and apprehension, says the Pennsylvania Medical Society.
And while the cause for celebration may be obvious, the reason for apprehension may be less clear.
As middle-agers can attest, people in their early 40s begin to notice subtle-and sometimes not so subtle-changes in health like heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, hearing loss, vision problems, arthritis, and osteoporosis.
And, they have plenty of company. Approximately 78 million Americans-about 28 percent of the U.S. population-are baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964. Over the next 25 years, they're expected to double, then triple, and ultimately, quadruple the 60-80 age group.
(Excerpt) Read more at zwire.com ...
I remember seeing the guy who played "Skippy" on "Family Ties" doing stand up, and he was saying that the Boomers had sex, drugs and rock and roll, but we got stuck with AIDS, crack and Madonna.
I was born in 1956. Every reference I have read placed me at the tail end of the baby boom. I always thought it was more of a post war phenomenon.
I agree with you. I was born in 1962....my parents in the late 1930's. They seem much more boomer like to me than I supposedly am....they get along real well with the real boomers too.
I hit 40 this year, and I am not a baby boomer, I am a Brady Boomer!
(snicker)
Yeah...time to load up on that Pfizer (Viagra) and Bayer (Levetra) stock.
A great market for the medical industry, cosmetology and yes.... the funeral industry.
Well, now you've gone & done it. I keep telling my husband that since he was born in 63, he's not a boomer. I really thought that 59 was the last of the baby boom.
Guess I have to grudgingly let him into the club (Yeah, I WAS a few years older than him, till he hit his 40th last December - at which point, he became the older spouse ;-) )
This really makes the case that most people, even the press and the people who keep statistics don't know what a baby boomer is. The real definition of a baby boomer from the time of the words 'baby boomer' was coin is:
More babies were born one year after a war that was above what a normal year of births before a war's end. So only ONE YEAR is qualified as a baby boomer. That year is '1946'. Any other year does not qualify one as a baby boomer. In the 1980s for some reason (I don't know why) the meaning of baby boomer's started to mean a span of years starting from 1946 onward and the span has gotten longer as the years went by.
The dip was mostly a result of the gap between the boomers being born and the boomers having babies. Consider someone born in 1957, give them 20 or so years to start having kids and by the late '70's you see a rebound. I think they call it the 'echo'. The abortion atrocity is having its impact but its ongoing.
40 yrs old this year or old enough to remember black & white was the color television
We had black and white tv until about 1977--I was 7 when my parents got their first color tv.
Karen V.
I was wondering the same thing--how high would the birth rates have been in the 70's if it wasn't for abortion.
Hey, that's my dad's birth year--he's officially a boomer and believe me, he fits the negative stereotype of the boomer generation too;-)
I still think Tony has a point and I'll extend it to birth control as well. The "boomers" really were the first generation not only with effective birth control, but the disgusting legal availability of abortion. My parents were what I call "true boomers"--dad was born in 46 and mom in 50 so they were plenty old enough and many like then to have children in 69-75(I was born in 1970). Again, how much impact did effective birth control and then abortion in 73 have on the birth rates for that generation coming of age during that time? Surely you should have seen a pretty good birth rate around my year as those first boomers came of age--1970--if things were status quo on the birth control front, but they weren't--women had the pill now. I'm not even debating birth control, but I don't think its impact can be underestimated when talking about birth statistics in the late 60's and early 70's. My mom is a fertile myrtle and she took the pill--had me in 70 and then my brother in 76 nd another brother in 81. Without the pill, I suspect I would have had another 2 or 3 siblings born in the 70's and so would many others and the birth rates would have been much higher in the 70's.
I don't know what's more humiliating, the fact that "Skippy from Family Ties" beat me to that thought, or the fact that I know exactly who "Skippy from Family Ties" is.
oops, wanted to add that the pill gave couples the power to delay having children--I think many of my parents peers waited until their 30's and even 40's to have children and it is why you start to see the climb in birth rates again in 1990 where not only are older boomers rounding out families and those who delayed it starting, but younger boomers are just starting and even older genxers are starting families too--big overlap on births during 1990.
I read somewhere before that people born in the early '60's (including me) were considered "'Tweeners". I don't think this is official, but it does seem to fit.
If you ever watched the sitcom "Family Ties", Skippy was the tall, curly-haired kid who hung out with Michael J. Fox's character and was in love with Fox's sister. He was one of the biggest nerds ever portrayed on TV.
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