After all these years, baby boomers are still protesting.
Only instead of the Vietnam War, they're refusing to move to Florida to sit in the sun and play shuffleboard.
The first of the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 are turning 55 this year, an age when many start thinking seriously about retirement. But this group--which includes President Bush, Cher and Donald Trump -- isn't planning to fade quietly into the woodwork.
"The only definition of old age we have is one we won't accept: lonely, sick and poor," says Michael Gross, author of "My Generation : Fifty Years of Sex, Drugs, Rock, Revolution, Glamour, Greed, Valor, Faith, and Silicon Chips" (Cliff Street Books, 2000). "We have the money, numbers and education to demand a different version of aging."
But what generation has ever looked forward to growing old, being pushed out of the work force, and not being able to afford long-term health care? You'd think the life changes that occur with aging would be so profound they'd make generational differences beside the point.
But surprisingly, experts on aging think members of the Me Generation are growing old in ways inherently different from the groups that preceded them.
"The baby boomers are going to be less predictable retirees," says gerontologist Stephen Golant, a University of Florida professor known for his research on the subject. "Previous generations couldn't identify themselves as a generation, apart from being old. [The boomers] are very generation-conscious, and that perception makes them more upbeat and more positive."
Life has been good to the "haves" of this group. Their world has been mostly peaceful and mostly prosperous, and they are unlikely to be as conservative or as pessimistic as those who lived through the Depression. They are better educated and more affluent than any previous generation. And they are used to being the center of attention--dictating trends and influencing events by their sheer numbers. (The figure cited at the beginning of the story doesn't include the estimated 8 million immigrants who have joined native boomers.)
Age power
Ken Dychtwald, author of "Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old" (Tarcher-Putnam, 2000), points out the obvious: In the last century, youth ruled. In this century, he says, we're going to see a generation of active, productive, demanding oldsters.
