In case you have been searching for another reason to mock CNN, here’s a public interest story that’s sure to help. It seems like every few weeks the media giant produces one of these unintentionally uproarious articles about the Baby Boomer generation, and how they don’t have to worry about aging, because they’re going to stay young and awesome forever — not like their parents, who just got old and died. Those between the ages of 43 and 61 can continue believing in the existence of a real-life Peter Pan syndrome, where they don’t have to accept reality, and can spoil and coddle themselves all they want for many years to come. After all, they deserve it.
The article — in all likelihood penned by one of those wretched ‘boomers — is intended to inform the “Me Me Me” generation that just because they’re closer to death than re-birth, they don’t have to act like it. Not only that, ‘boomers are totally redefining what it means to be a senior. Long gone are the days when Bea Arthur, Andy Griffith and Angela Lansbury were the role models of the elderly. The new class of upstanding seniors includes hip old cats like Goldie Hawn and Harrison Ford. Today’s old people look young and fit, which the article attributes to diet and exercise, not makeup and plastic surgery. By the way, you can pretty much stop reading after the third or fourth paragraph, because it starts to get stupid and boring. Be sure to check out the URL for the sub-title. Funny stuff!
Speaking of exercise, according to the article, the baby boomers “helped spark the modern fitness movement.” Jesus Christ, now they’re taking credit for a phenomenon that is entirely unrelated to them, and is in fact, completely unfounded. I’m willing to guess that any “modern fitness movement” currently taking hold of our country is the product of our ridiculous culture of celebritydom, and the constant portrayals of young, sexy people on television and in movies. Leave it to the fucking ‘boomers to take all the credit for something that doesn’t even exist. Shockingly, there is no mention of the Iraq War, and whether or not ‘boomers were responsible for that.
What’s more, there’s no mention of the disgusting sense of entitlement most ‘boomers inherently feel, and how it has driven our country into an awful economic era. Thanks to their generational nepotism in the workplace, and penchant for doling out giant bonuses to themselves and each other, the cost of living has reached frightening new heights. An unrelated article on MSN states that young people who are bringing a child into the world today should be prepared to spend around $290,000 on that child to cover housing, food, transportation, clothes, health care and miscellany before the child turns seventeen. After that, prepare to spend another $105,000 to $225,000 on a college education.
How is this even possible, when men are no longer earning more than their fathers? According to a 2004 study (quoted here), the median income for men in their 30s was $35,010 — twelve percent less than for men in their 30s in 1974. The technological boom of the ’90s, which certainly helped to pad the pocket of Baby Boomers and Genereation X’ers alike, is not making things easier for us. Between 2000 and 2005, productivity rose sixteen percent while median income fell two percent. It seems as if for the all the work we’re doing, we’re getting paid less. Meanwhile, in the upper echelon of the business world, those in charge are earning more than ever off the work of their underlings. Their innate fear of being relegated to old age homes and scoffed at by their children and their children’s children has them promulgating the “earn your dues” ideology, thus preventing perfectly capable young people from breaking into careers at higher levels than they once did. They will remain steadfast and selfish to the end.
Can you tell I’m bitter about my prolonged unemployment, and the frustration of finding a job for which I’m neither over-qualified or under-qualified?
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