Month: September 2018

Boomer Women, Will We All Be Bag Ladies?

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I thought it was my private dirty secret, the fear that I would end my days as a bag lady, stockings rolled down around my ankles, sitting on a curb and yelling at passers-by. But according to Lisa Schwarzbaum’s article in the New York Time’s Magazine, a survey by a life insurance company found that nearly half of all American women share that same fear.

I don’t know whether to feel relief in a shared irrational fear or sadness that it’s especially rampant among Baby Boomer women. We are the generation, after all, that was raised on a mixed message: as a female, you can be anything you want. You can grow up to be a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. However, you don’t really need to prepare for a professional future since you’ll probably be a housewife and mother. I’ve carried around the bag-lady-to-be persona buried deep inside for a long time, although she really started screaming for attention when I got divorced and realized I was one good divorce lawyer away from sleeping in my car. I exaggerate, but you get the point. Based on Schwarzbaum’s recap of Woody Allen’s new movie, Blue Jasmine, I’m considering gathering a coterie of baby boomer women friends to see it together, but we might just run screaming from the theater. Ladies, fess up please–anyone else share this nagging nightmare?

Viet Nam Remembered

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Viet Nam Remembered

“The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government’s statements. I had no idea until then that you could not really rely on them.”
William Fulbright

35 years ago, America was just starting its “nice little war” in the unknown country of Vietnam. Having learned nothing from the French, our government proceeded to embroil the United States in what may be the most divisive episode of the 20th century.For those interested in taking a close look at those early years, check out Once Upon a Distant War, by William Prochnau. In the New York Times Book Review, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt says Prochnau has “brought the story of that involvement to vividly dramatic life as few previous books have done.” The book concentrates on the young foreign correspondents who brought the war home, especially David Halberstam, Malcolm Brown, Horst Faas, NeilSheehan, Charley Mohr, and Peter Arnett. In telling their story, Prochnau describes the unfolding of what would become both a publicity and policy disaster for the Kennedy administration and for the nation.

Lehmann-Haupt says “Prochnau manages to convey with fresh authority what it was like to be a reporter in Vietnam in those early years, the excitement the experience offered, the danger that it threatened and the ingenuity required to get the story out…Once Upon a Distant War is an important book, a good story that illustrates powerfully the interplay of strong individual characters and faceless historical forces.” We’ve read the book and it lives up to all expectations, not to mention filling in those early years when some us of were young enough to be excused from the nightly news.

There is also a new CD-ROM “The War in Vietnam” on the market, co-produced by The New York Times and CBS News. We haven’t seen it, but it’s apparently filled with hyperlinks featuring photos, video clips, new reports, and analyses. It also has a searchable database of the names and hometowns of veterans as recorded on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC.

Who’s Zoomin’ Who?

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It’s been years here and one theme runs on like an old scratchy record-vinyl-(surely you remember vinyl). Gen-Xers hate us. They despise us, loathe us, feeling nothing but contempt for us.

At the risk of ducking rotten tomatoes for the rest of my apparently worthless life, I finally have to ask-why?

We grew up in upwardly mobile families, we had the world on a string. And yet, many (you do remember the March on Washington) of us felt the world could be a better place. Not just for us, mind you—most of us had it pretty good already. We felt discrimination, racial and gender bias were wrong. We felt that the war (you do remember Vietnam) was wrong. We believed that opportunity should not be based on bank balances or last names. We did not want to be the Stepford Generation—molded into our parents’ image. We wanted to have fun (like you), be heard (like you), and make a real difference (not so like you).

The people who educated those of you in your mid-30’s were not us. The people who made policy were not us. The people America elected were not us. And the people who raised you were most certainly not us.

Our dreams may not have come true. Most of us “grew up,” got married, had children, held down jobs. Most of us felt we had not done enough. But maybe we did. When was the last time you saw an African American being sent to the back of the bus? Did you get to play sports in high school or college because of Title IX? Did any of you have to have a back-alley abortion? Has affirmative action provided you with an education or a job? You may not think it’s much—but every generation’s job—yes, job-is to question, to rile things up, to try to make the world better.

We didn’t bitch about the job market, we went to work. Some even worked for almost no money in social services, education, public service. Some of us worked through child-rearing and not necessarily because we wanted to. Some of us have been phased out because we’re too “old”—-apparently experience just doesn’t mean much anymore.

I hope you’ll see, when you’re done bitching about the last dotcom gone down, that sometimes we all have to adjust our dreams. We wanted to make a better world-we did the best we could, and we’re still doing it. Raising our children, working our jobs, living our lives in the best way we know how. Maybe it’s your turn.