Facts and rumors on Baby Boomers

Big national news lately is latest statistic about Baby Boomers. The U.S. Census Bureau reports 10,000 of them are retiring each week in the U.S. This situation has been building for 17 years, since the first Boomers began reaching age 50.

Last week’s news also reported on anticipated blessings and problems from all those retirees. Good note was some are still so young they are adopting homeless children, and many others doing volunteer work.

Naturally, this columnist has been covering Boomers all along. Have picked over past notes about stuff you need to know because none of us can avoid constantly hearing someone’s view of dealing with the Baby Boom population.

Maybe 30-plus years back, it was a shock for me to find out “official facts” regarding who the government blames for the population bulge.

Everyone knows about Baby Boomers since post World War II. We’ve had to make projections for them as they reached each stage of life, first increasing diaper and baby powder production, then expanding all available schools, creating more jobs, then millions of houses, cars, roads, offices, carrots and Cokes. The Baby Boomers out number the previous generation by 28 million.

Boomer publicity reached a crescendo on Jan. 1, 1996, when the first ones reached the age of 50 at a half second past midnight, and we were informed, “There are 76 million more right behind him,” including two ladies in California born a second or two later on that first day in 1946.

Like the average citizen, I had considered the Baby Boomers as an unusually large flock of children born in the first couple years after love-starved individuals of the 16,353,659 World War II GIs got home from service. We noted the first of those babies were born close to ports where troop ships docked.

Not wanting to be part of the problem after my military discharge, I was among the thoughtful young men who were careful in not contributing to the population explosion. We assiduously avoided young women who seemed in the slightest mood for draggin’ a guy to the church. It wasn’t easy, but somebody had to do it. I held out quite a while, and even then our first baby wasn’t born for over nine months after Iris and I got married.

How misguided we “hold-out fathers” were. The government and social scientists consider all babies born from Jan. 1, 1946, to Dec. 31, 1965, as Baby Boomers. The toughest part of my belatedly learning this fact was calling my four children together and solemnly telling them, “Kids, I’ve never mentioned this before but realize you have a right to know the truth ... you are all (choke) Baby Boomers.”

One of them broke the silence, “We know we’re Boomers. What’s the big deal, Dad?”

“Well,” I explained, “I always considered Baby Boomers an unusual large flock of babies born right after the first love-starved GIs came charging off troop ships in the late Forties, and I wanted my children to know they were the results of a gentlemanly courtship, in a thoughtfully planned family relationship, based on true love ... not fathered by some sex-hungry wild-eyed GI just off a troop ship.”

Iris then spoke up. “George, dear, even though it was 10 years after your Army service when we met, as I remember, you were still pretty wild-eyed.” The whole family had a big laugh at that humorous but exaggerated quip.

That’s another problem with those Baby Boomers. “Not enough understanding for their fathers.”

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.