Hoped They'd Die Before They Got Old

Why Boomers and their descendants struggle with mortality

Image courtesy of Busy Beaver Button Museum

I was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter [in November, 1964] and he was making me very angry… I told him we had a saying in the movement that we don’t trust anybody over 30. It was a way of telling the guy to back off, that nobody was pulling our strings.

It went from journalist to journalist, then leaders in the movement started using it because they saw the extent it shook up the older generation.

Jack Weinberg

The post-war Baby Boom began in 1946 and ended in 1964. Jack Weinberg, who made his famous statement in 1963, was born in 1940. While some of the earliest Boomers were protesting in the streets, most learned everything they knew about the 60s from their older siblings or their new color TVs. As with most who pass on myths, they did not witness but they believed.

One of the pillars of that great society was a distrust for the establishment and the elderly. They were a counterculture that hoped to cure a terminally ill culture, a band of merry pranksters that wanted to overthrow a gerontocracy. Today the youngest Boomers are in their early sixties. The oldest are almost 80. They, and those who came after them, continue to grapple with aging.

Movie poster for Logan’s Run (1976)

Up till now, life has seemed an endless upward slope, with nothing but the distant horizon in view. Now suddenly I seem to have reached the crest of the hill, and there stretching ahead is the downward slope with the end of the road in sight—far enough away, it’s true—but there is death observably present at the end.

Eliot Jaques, 1957

Eliot Jaques’ 1957 presentation left his fellow psychoanalysts cold. As his friend Melanie Klein sympathetically said afterwards, “If there’s one thing the Psychoanalytic Society cannot cope with, it’s the theme of death.” Chastened, Jaques put his paper in a drawer and moved on to other studies.

But as the Swinging Sixties kicked into high gear, psychoanalysts and the general public found it increasingly difficulty to ignore their nagging concerns about aging and mortality. Jaques resubmitted the paper and in October 1965, eleven months after Jack Weinberg’s comment, the International Journal of Psychoanalysis published “Death and the Mid Life Crisis.”

In 1965 the median age for a first marriage was 22 and the median life expectancy was 70. A 35-year-old woman likely had one or more children. A 35-year-old man was well established in their career. Since the postwar boom was still in full swing, they were likely wealthier than their parents and grandparents had been. But yet at this time of triumph, many felt a nagging discontent that sometimes rose to despair.

This wasn’t an entirely modern phenomenon. Jaques noted that in his mid-30s Gaugin resigned his work as a businessman and became a renowned painter. And of course, Dante famously complained in his Inferno that he found himself in a dark wood “Midway along the journey of our life.”

But while some were artistically inspired, Jaques also noted that many dealt with their mid-life crisis in less productive ways. Some became rampantly promiscuous in an effort to prove they were still desirable. Others, following Gaugin’s lead without his creativity, abandoned their families in a search for meaning. Still others fell into despair as they realized they would never achieve their youthful dreams.

In 1976, the year the first Boomers turned 30, Logan’s Run hit theatre screens. Logan’s Run tells the tale of a hedonistic Utopia that killed all citizens as soon as they turned 30. Logan (Michael York) leaves the city in search of a legendary Sanctuary. But all he finds is an old man (Peter Ustinov) living in the ruins of Washington, DC. This discovery not only blows his mind, it short-circuits the computer that runs the city. As their home crumbles, the other residents crowd around Ustinov and learn that there is in fact life after 30.

Unwilling to blow up their hedonistic Utopia, Boomers turned to books like Gail Sheehy’s Passages. Also released in 1976, Passages guided its audience through their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. It stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 3 years and spawned a number of sequels. Sheehy described the social, psychological, and sexual crises that readers could expect as they grew older.

Perhaps what was most noteworthy is that those readers needed a guide to work through these life transitions. The Postwar period saw many move out of urban apartments and rural towns into newly built suburban developments. The nuclear unit of parents and children replaced the extended families of yore. No longer an intimate part of each other’s lives, the old and young both had to find new ways to figure out their place in the world.

Kurt Cobain, 1993

Do you think we enjoy hearing about your brand-new million-dollar home when we can barely afford to eat Kraft Dinner sandwiches in our own grimy little shoe boxes and we're pushing thirty? A home you won in a genetic lottery, I might add, sheerly by dint of your having been born at the right time in history? You'd last about ten minutes if you were my age these days.

Douglas Copeland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

The anti-War efforts of the Vietnam era appeared to bear fruit with the Iron Curtain’s fall in 1989 and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Boomer children ducked and covered under their desks in anticipation of a nuclear armageddon. With the Evil Empire shuttered, Americans gave a collective sigh of relief and looked forward to a New World Order based on free elections, free peoples, and free trade.

But while the Boomers were certain that we were seeing peace in our time, Gen X (born 1965-1980) remained skeptical. They knew that prosperity was fleeting and marriages didn’t always last until death do us part. Like their parents, they distrusted the previous generation. But they had less interest in changing the world and more interest in keeping a proper work-life balance that gave them enough freedom to have fun.

That’s not to say that there were no politically active Gen Xers. The antiwar and Civil Rights movements of the 1960s served as a blueprint for AIDS activist groups like ACT UP to survive the Great Dying and come out of the plague stronger than before. And by and large White Gen X was considerably less racist than its predecessors. The Cosby Show and Hip Hop became the backdrop to a generation that largely judged people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Boomers believed that working hard was the ticket to success, because in their day it was. Dedicated Gen X students could work their way through college and use that degree to gain some modicum of job security. Those who learned to code could ride the wave of the 90s tech boom. But working-class Gen Xers saw little of the upward mobility that their parents took for granted. Instead, they watched the unions beaten down and saw American factories shuttered.

Generation X heard about the Postwar boom secondhand. Homes became increasingly expensive and many Gen Xers rejected the suburbs in favor of apartments in the city. And while the Boomers had reaped the benefits of the Sexual Revolution, Generation X came of age during the AIDS epidemic and had to rediscover condoms and safer sex practices.

The Boomers were the first generation to grow up with televisions in their home. TV became a popular babysitter for the “latchkey kids” of Gen X. The end of the postwar economic boom and the rise of no-fault divorces forced many mothers back into the workplace. Between 1965 and 1980, American divorce rates rose from 24% to 48%. The “Generation Gap” sociologists talked about in the 1960s grew wider than ever as punks and Goths replaced hippies and yippies.

By the late 80s the airwaves were filled with slick Arena Rock and forgettable Hair Metal. Seattle Gen Xers took their cues from the late boomer DIY punk scene, and created Grunge. Alternative rock’s thrift-store stylings and angsty lyrics struck a chord with Gen X. And if those stylings were ultimately co-opted by the same forces that gave us Great White and Loverboy, and if Kurt Cobain ate a shotgun, few Gen Xers were surprised.

As the Latchkey Kids spawned a new generation, they became notorious as Helicopter Parents. Boomers worked hard to give their children the things their parents could never afford. Gen Xers overcompensated to give their children the personal attention they never got. The line dividing childhood from adulthood grew ever more distant, and behaviors that would once get you mocked in kindergarten were now encouraged on college campuses.

The Millenials (born 1981-1996) graduated during the tech bust of the early 2000s and the 2008 Great Recession. The PhD which guaranteed you a tenured position in the 1970s and 1980s now ensured a life of grading papers and teaching undergraduates for minimum wage. Computer Science majors now competed with H-1B holders in an increasingly congested market.

Boomers were the first generation to grow up with TV; Millennials were the first generation to grow up with Internet access. Where Boomers idolized TV stars, Millennials place their trust in “Influencers” on sites like YouTube and TikTok. And while Gen Xers shared music on cassettes, Millennials are more likely to listen to streaming music on services like Spotify or grab it off torrents.

If the Boomers seek eternal youth and Gen X seems trapped in snotty adolescence, Millennials appear frozen in an endless childhood. They collect game consoles and toys like Lego sets and Funko Pops and know intimate details of the Marvel and Star Wars universes. Right-leaning Millennials were rallied to action not by economic pressures but by forced diversity in their favorite franchises.

Most American Millennials identify as Leftists. That being said, their “Leftism” is quite different than the anti-war, anti-government, anti-big business stances traditionally associated with Progressivism. If Vietnam was the defining event of the Boomer generation, Millennials have 9/11. They have spent most of their lives in a world where terrorism took the place of nuclear devastation, and have less concern for free speech than older Lefties.

They are also more easily pacified by major corporations. A float in a Pride parade or a “Black Lives Matter” post on a social media feed is all it takes to reassure most Millennial doubters. Perceived racism, sexism, LGBTQ+phobia, ableism, fat-shaming, and other sins get far more Millennial attention than real financial inequalities. Many of these concerns (and gender identities) got their start on Tumblr, a microblogging board that became ground zero for young queers until it banned adult content in 2018.

Today most Millennials get their news from social media. Because social media is a dopamine pump designed to attract engagement, they tend to be very passionate about their causes. Disagreement is violence and marks the disagreeable not just as wrong but as actively evil. Millennials patrol their social circles for signs of wrongthink, casting dissenters into the outer ranks so they can serve as an example.

But because social media is ephemeral, the rules and enemies change frequently. The constant shifting of moral goalposts makes productive conversations near-impossible. Nuance is lost in the pursuit of immediate outrage, and complex issues are reduced to simplistic, easily digestible narratives. As a result, many have dismissed Millennials (and those older folks trying keep up with the kids) as “NPCs” who believe whatever they see on their screens.

In doing so, they have missed the existential crisis that lies at the root of this phenomenon. Those who would attack all forms of bigotry and prejudice had noble intentions, but in their efforts to create a clean slate they wiped away many of the traditional indicators of identity. Left to build their own identities, the Millennials cling desperately to gender variance, sexual deviance, disabilities, favorite fandoms, and other things that might help them understand who they are and what sets them apart from everyone else.

Many Boomers and Gen Xers grew up with televisions all around them. Gen Z (born 1996-2012) never knew a world without Internet access. Boomers and Gen Xers grew up in a world where American cartoon studios farmed out their drawing work to Japanese animators. Today Zoomers watch American animation inspired by Japanese and Korean art, if they’re not getting their art straight from the source with dubs or subtitles.

The great prosperity of 1946-1973 is as distant from Gen Z’s lived experience as World War I was to the Boomers. And The Zoomer understanding of work and financial independence is shaped by a vastly different economic landscape. Like Japan’s hikikomori who have withdrawn to their rooms to play video games, many of America’s Zoomers have settled for a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) lifestyle.

Politically most Zoomers are said to lean Left. But the “Left” and “Right” of 20th century politics has become increasingly irrelevant in the new millennium. Zoomers grew up in a multicultural society. For them civil rights are as much a part of the order of things as women’s suffrage. But they are much less race-obsessed than the Millennials who spend their time scanning social media for prejudice to report and wrongthinkers to doxx.

The same holds true for LGBT+ rights. Gay marriage has been the law of the land as long as all but the older Zoomers can remember. Queer-bashing is no longer tolerated in most schools, AIDS is no longer a death sentence, and many Zoomers place themselves somewhere on the alphabet rainbow. But they have fewer fears of impending persecution than the Millennials. It’s hard to feel like your life is in danger when you’ve been mildly inconvenienced at worst for your sexual preferences.

It’s also hard to get worked up over your sexual orientation when you’re not actually having sex. More than three-quarters of Baby Boomers (78%) and Generation Xers (76%) report having had a boyfriend or girlfriend as teenagers. Today only 56% of Gen Z adults can say the same. Many Zoomers have solely experienced sex in the first person singular. The old taboos about masturbation are long gone and fears of going blind have been replaced by an endless supply of pornography.

Like the Boomers, the Millennials became known for their strident if sometimes incoherent political stances. Like Generation X, Gen Z is less committed to social agendas. The fluorescent-haired scolds and skinnyfat male feminists are mostly admired by aging Boomers trying to stay hip by following last season’s trends. Generation Z sees little worth screaming over, unless you’re on TikTok or Discord.

The COVID lockdowns shaped the Gen Z experience like Vietnam, the Iron Curtain’s fall, and 9/11 influenced earlier generations. Zoomers spent a chunk of their formative years staying in their homes and communicating with classmates on laptops. Amazon has replaced the mall and digital engagement has replaced cruising with friends at the mall. Today’s Zoomer may have friends around the world yet barely speak to their neighbors. They’re globally connected, but locally isolated.

Old folks like yrs. truly are still trying to figure out Generation Z. It helps that my daughter is a late Zoomer: like her father, she was born on the cusp of two generations. Their idioms are as impenetrable to Gen Xers and Boomers as hippie slang was to the Silent Generation. But they, and the Generation Alpha that stands waiting behind them, are still waiting for their chance to find themselves by rebelling against their elders.

Skibidi Toilet

The Boomers had cowboys, Gen X had GI Joe, the Millennials had Mechas. Generation Alpha is fascinated by epic battles between sentient toilets and camera-headed humanoids. DaFuq!?Boom!’s Skibidi Toilet combines heads and assets from a popular video game, Half-Life 2 with a digitally altered mashup of Timbaland’s "Give It to Me" and "Dom Dom Yes Yes" by Bulgarian artist Biser King. And if monthly YouTube views are any indication, it appears Mr. ?Boom! has created a hit.

In keeping with the TikTok age’s attention spans, most episodes come in at or under 1 minute. There’s plenty of carnage in that time and a series of ongoing story threads, but you can jump in at just about any point and be entertained by a cosmic struggle featuring toilets. And what kid doesn’t love violence, excitement, and toilet humor?

The earliest Alphas, born in 2013, are coming to grips with puberty. In a few years they will be eligible for conscription. After the Southeast Asian unpleasantness, America has relied on a volunteer army. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the money pump that comes with being the world’s sole superpower, the US was able to get by without a draft.

Alas, America is no longer the world’s superpower. And in its desperate efforts to hold that title, it has made many enemies. It remains to be seen what the military-industrial complex will do to protect its cash stream and secure its hold on power. But a quick look at the past four years suggests they won’t go gently into that good night.

The Boomers were against war because they feared being drafted into one. After decades without conscription, that fear no longer exists. Zoomers and Alphas that grew up on first-person shooters see war as an exciting diversion, especially since few have close relatives who died in combat. It might be hard to convince them that going off to war was their patriotic duty, but it would be much easier to convince them that war was fun.

And if we manage to avoid a war during the global restructuring, we might still be faced with social unrest at home. America’s prosperity has been rooted in its role as a global hegemon. As we lose that hegemony, we will face growing debts and shrinking revenues. Many of the gains of the past 25 years have largely flowed to America’s wealthiest and most powerful. We are fast creating a resentful underclass residing on the outskirts in what we call shantytowns and Brazilians call favelas.

Should these tensions erupt, the fight won’t come from Boomers bragging about their gun collection or from liberals who fancy themselves the #resistance. It will come from the disaffected and disenfranchised young. Some will join the military or the police in the hopes of improving their lot; others will join organizations, gangs or political movements with the same dream.

They will share their manifestos not as books but as video reels. Their groups will organize on encrypted apps and mesh networks as the global Internet grows increasingly unreliable. Some will perish as a crumbling government lashes out in its death throes against anything that might threaten it. Others will survive long enough to sell out as one strongman or another provides a temporary fix that keeps the country limping along for a bit longer.

The grandchildren of the Alphas will be more likely to keep themselves entertained with stage shows and local musical and artistic events. If our population decline continues, we may avoid many of the famine and disease events that frequently accompany a civilization’s decline. This is not unprecedented: at its zenith Rome had between 1 and 2 million citizens, but by 560 there were just 25,000 Romans living amongst the ruins and surviving by subsistence farming.

Of course, none of this is written in stone. Those of us who have more of our lives behind us than before us know all too well what our future holds. We also know all the ways we might have changed our life had we made better decisions. Our fate is sealed, but those who will come after us have yet to seal theirs.