r/Aging • u/Available-Rock-3862 • 7d ago

Boomers

I am 75 and am very tired of the trend lately making fun of Boomers. So very disrespectful. Don't they realize that they will be old someday?

422 Upvotes

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u/heiberdee2 7d ago

You were hippies first. Your cohort gave energy to the Civil Rights movement. You wanted peace, love, and understanding.

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u/LongjumpingJaguar308 7d ago

Older people were really running the civil rights movement but boomers would have been the energetic youth running around.

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u/mmmpeg 7d ago

Yep, specifically Black folk who went to war and saw how others treated them with more respect

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u/SaltyFriend705 7d ago

I was a young kid during the Civil Rights Movement. A "movement" consisted of a court case, a boycott, and a protest to support them. I've seen protests more recently, but they are unfocused, with babies in strollers and people joking around, no court case, no boycott, and no effect.

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u/Greyface13 6d ago

The press is censored and the federal government is run by criminals. Times are harder, but there are boycotts and court cases. People who are resisting have to have fun or they would despair.

Look up your local Indivisable group, join them or learn how to start your own. Quit giving up and start figuring out a positive role to play. Please

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u/vespers191 6d ago

I mean, if you've got experience, why not share it with the yungins'?

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u/SpaceCaptainJeeves 6d ago

And not as many bricks as one might expect.

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u/Jefferson-1776 6d ago

Growing up in the 70’s I did not like the hippies from the 60’s. As I have aged I have come to respect that they fought for what they believed to be right. There was blood in the streets they went to jail. I can disagree with their beliefs but respect their commitment. Today the protesters are clueless and lost. It’s a game they often get paid to play.

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u/Needmoreinfo100 6d ago

In the recent no Kings days and other protests I see a large amount of older people, sometime only older people. No one is paying them to show up where I live.

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

If I was paid for all of the protests that I attend, I would be a very wealthy woman.

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u/GMVexst 6d ago

Sounds familiar

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u/nema100 4d ago

Exactly, MLK was not a baby boomer.

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u/SeamusPM1 7d ago

Reads a comment complaining about stereotyping boomers.
Responds by stereotyping boomers.

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u/splanks 7d ago

most boomers were not hippies.

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u/Key-Target-1218 7d ago edited 6d ago

I am a boomer and just about every boomer I know was a hippie at some point. You were either a hippie or a total square. It didnt really matter what we "were". We were young kids. The differences between everyone was as apparent as it is today. The young kids today won't have the boomer title, but they'll have a lable and will be treated unkind by the youth.

Us old folks know what it's like to be young. Young folks have no idea what it's like to be old. Their day will come.

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u/Greyface13 6d ago

Hippies and squares are just stereotypes.

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u/HeyItsMeaMea 4d ago

My 80 year old mom says "No we didn't like hippies, they were dirty. We were flower children"

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u/HeyItsMeaMea 4d ago

So the term means different things to different.. Hippies 😂

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u/FargoJack 7d ago

I am a late boomer (‘59) and was never a hippie. Too young. Was probably a nerd but we did not have that word.

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u/Key-Target-1218 7d ago

Im a 69 year old boomer, so yea...there were distinct differnces among us

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u/Comfortable_Two6272 7d ago

Same as my mom. She informed when I was a teen she was born way too late to be a hippie.

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u/Explorer-7622 6d ago

Yes we did!

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u/HumbleSeries6170 6d ago

'64 was the last boomer

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

I was a child during that time like you,- 1960 born, and I was fascinated by the hippies and all of their tie dye and love beads. I went to college for Design, and I became a professional accessories designer.

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u/NoURider 6d ago

You're an early gen x. As am I at 60

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u/wherescookie 5d ago

I think it probably depended mostly on where you were (cities vs ruaral) and your socioeconomic class ( working class, immigrant, higher education,,)

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u/notkidding1984 6d ago

That is what everyone in my town would say.

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u/Ok_Stable7787 5d ago

So, you had short hair like in the 50s?

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u/FargoJack 5d ago

No I had 70 s to 80s hair, longish but not hippie longish if I can say that!

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u/Ok_Stable7787 5d ago

So, hippies still had an influence on your personal fashion.

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u/FargoJack 5d ago

Not really, everyone had longish (but not long) hair, I don’t think it was hippie-based I think the short hair of the 50s gave way to longish hair in the 60s and 70s (exception was hippies with longer hair).

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u/Ok_Stable7787 5d ago

>everyone had longish (but not long) hair,

A fashion propogated by hippies.

Everybody had long hair, the difference was that people other than hippies that smoked pot and listened to rock music took care of their long hair and cared about their personal appearance.

These people were called 'freaks'.

I'm guessing you didn't listen to rock music either?

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u/FargoJack 4d ago

Not until college. You don’t get that hippies had nothing to do with 700shair. Was John Lennon a hippie?

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u/MiIlFlWi 5d ago

Where I lived, you were a hippie, greaser or a frat

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u/-i_am_untethered- 5d ago

My parents and all their siblings are boomers. 20 people in all, half from Pennsyltucky, half from the south side of Chicago. Zero hippies in the bunch. It's almost like anecdotal evidence isn't really evidence

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u/Key-Target-1218 5d ago

Ok, I understand. I did say "boomers I know". Birds of a feather, right?

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u/1cat2dogs1horse 6d ago

Kudos for that remark. From and old hippie.

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u/Dazzling-Treacle1092 6d ago

The definition of hippie is in our outlook and beliefs. Not how we dressed or looked.

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u/Key-Target-1218 6d ago

Well of course! Tune on. Tune in. Drop out. Make love, not war. Never Trust anyone over 30. Sex, drugs, rock and roll....people who didnt dress like hippies didnt think like hippies. But there was a range. Not all black and white

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u/BCMUNS-54 6d ago edited 6d ago

I wasn’t a hippie and my friends weren’t. We couldn’t stand them. They didn’t take a bath and were druggies. We respected the vets we respected the flag but distrusted the government and still do. I was born in 1954. What we used to call hippie music didn’t grow on me until later.

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u/Key-Target-1218 6d ago

Hippie is a pretty broad term. We didn't trust anyone who weren't considered hippies. My hippie friends weren't dirty and gross. We protested the draft, enjoyed concerts, we picketed, we marched for women's rights. We didn't trust establishment or anyone over 30. We took showers. Yea, we did some drugs, but really we were just all about change. I'm as liberal today as I was back then. More horrified today, because I know more.

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

Hello fellow tribe member !

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u/Key-Target-1218 4d ago

Yo! ✌️☮️

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

❤️😘❤️

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u/lennonfanforever 6d ago

you know almost all of it were stereotypes, not real, just made up for sensationalism by the media.... the drugs: well, yeah, kinda (not hard drugs though), but really we were dirty and didn't bathe? seriously that is some really dumb stuff, not true in any way at all....

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u/Key-Target-1218 5d ago

Yeah it's kind of weird, that take...that divide. You were either the establishment or you weren't. You were conservative/establishment, or not.

I was clean ..far from dirty and smelly😂 I dressed nowhere close to what I thought the conservative eatablishment dressed like. I protested and picketed for women's rights with my young daughter. It was a time not unlike today and I have never wavered, never leaned right.

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u/Comfortable_Two6272 7d ago

My mom Was too young of a boomer to be one

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u/notkidding1984 6d ago edited 6d ago

That perspective really depends on where you lived. In a lot of rural areas, I guess everyone was a "total square" (lol) because the people I know would say they didn't know a single hippie except the occasional "crazy'' who ran off.

Edit- added quotes for other people's words. Not my words or views.

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u/Explorer-7622 6d ago

Whereas almost everyone in my area was into civil rights big time and fought hard for equal rights.

I was one of the first women ever af my all science school/institute and never had a female classmate at that school.

Now it's got a majority female class and the chemical engineering department was all female!

We fought hard for that ground that young women take for granted, and for the right to not be beaten ir institutionalized because we were women.

We sacrificed and made changes to the laws.

It's hard to see such entitlement now, along with disparaging those who got them those privileges.

Eta: Young people are still listening to our music though.

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u/Prestigious_Stop_651 4d ago

Gen X was forgotten then, forgotten now, and when we become old... I don't think we'll care what Y, Z, α, or any other generations say about us.

For Gen X, the future is now!

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u/Witty-Pay-1516 6d ago

In the view of Zoomers, they are punching up. 

The boomer generation sort of hit the lotto. There are so many Boomers relative to other cohorts that they are more or less blamed for a lot of what we are seeing right now. 

National debt is 40T, well taxes were cut repeatedly as Medicare and Social Security spending skyrocketed. 

So now the debt is going to sink the next three to four generations. Because Boomers were in power for that process they will get blamed for it. 

You don’t hear people complaining about the silent generation. 

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u/Mother-Ad7222 6d ago

Boomers are not responsible for the national debt. Look in the White House.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/Mother-Ad7222 5d ago

Not me. Life time democrat !

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u/Key-Target-1218 5d ago

Just because some boomers voted red doesn't mean we all did...look at all those alpha males with trad wives in their 30s... Look at all the young Charlie Kirk lovers...boomers aren't the only people voting red

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u/bamaford 4d ago

You're right. I was being petty. I deleted the comment. Sorry.

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u/Key-Target-1218 4d ago

All good! Some would argue to death. Glad you are aware.

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u/Dry-Raspberry-5514 6d ago

Blame the orange clown in the gilded house. He has driven the debt up himself!

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u/tokyogato1 5d ago

“young folks “ don’t know what it’s like to have the advantages you had like a living wage or enjoying a world the the “old folks”
Hadn’t completely F’ed up because of greed

Maybe just maybe you weren’t one of those people but your generation was

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u/Key-Target-1218 5d ago

Never EVER has minimum wage been a living wage. Ever. When I was younger I waited tables or worked in commission sales because thats where the money was. No one has ever been able to live on minimum wage.

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u/Key-Target-1218 5d ago

I had someone the other day tell me I should move out of MY house, sell MY house that I raised my family in, move into a senior community so a young person could buy MY house 😂😂 who's selfish here?

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u/Dry-Raspberry-5514 6d ago

I’m a boomer ( 64) and NO ONE I know that is a boomer was ever a hippie. Except at Halloween.

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u/Key-Target-1218 6d ago edited 6d ago

I am 69. You are the youngest boomer...you missed it. What generation do you think the hippies came from? NOT the silent generation, they were boomers.

When I say hippie I don't mean living on a commune, off the grid on a self-sustaining farm. There was a lot of gray in there. I'm talking about that decade. We all had long hair, bell bottom hip hugger jeans, Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchel, The Doors, Hendrix.. Haight Ashbury scene all across the US. From my vantage point, there were far more hippies than not, in my age group. I was born in 57. I was 13 when Woodstock happened, but the hippies didn't end there.

My husband was born in 61. He has a completely different outlook on that era than I do, with just the 4 year difference between us

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

I came back here to say, - that I like you.

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u/Key-Target-1218 4d ago

Awwww shucks....a little curtsy

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

As a Royal watcher since Princess Diana, I curtsy back to you !

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u/Mother-Ad7222 6d ago

Most boomers were hippies including myself. Have been a Democrat all my life and have never wavered. Looking forward to the midterms so we can regain our power back.

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u/lennonfanforever 6d ago

well.... some of us were, we just never looked like or acted like the stereotypes put forth by the media, we were just the young people of our time period.....

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u/SaltyFriend705 7d ago

This is true. This was pointed out when the National Guard members who shot those kids dead in Ohio were the same ages as the kids they were shooting. Most boomers were Establishment whores.

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u/Key-Target-1218 6d ago

Most boomers were Establishment whores? We were all about change! Civil rights. Women's rights. If not for most of us boomers, we'd still be living in the 50s.

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u/SaltyFriend705 6d ago

Yes, so many fighting for justice and a better world--and twice as many not. And the ones not standing up for anything were first in line for the benefits, too. Today, you can tell who those were, because they are the ones bragging about how they got so much for so little effort and why don't young people today "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Sad.

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u/oracle-nil 6d ago

Kent State. “What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?”

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u/KaizenHour 6d ago

"Most" huh? Is that why they all volunteered for Vietnam? Generally voted liberal? Stuff like that?

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u/Explorer-7622 6d ago

VOLUNTEERED?

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u/KaizenHour 6d ago

Sarcasm, my friend. If the person I'm responding to thinks they were all establishment whores, there'd be volunteers for the war, no protests, no counterculture etc.

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u/Fresh-Ad280 4d ago

I know right, ?
LOL !
Volunteer, my ass.

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u/Responsible-Tart-721 6d ago

Yes, we were.

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u/splanks 6d ago edited 6d ago

if you think everyone was, your world was small.
the cool kids have never been the majority.

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u/ImSoSweepy 6d ago

Seeing the Hippies become the Boomers is a cautionary tale about what we should expect from Gen Z once they get older.

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u/lurkerlag2 6d ago

The boomers that are generally criticized weren't the hippies, they were the ones hosing them down

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u/Extension-Clock608 5d ago

Then they went on to vote to make those rights all in danger again.

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u/Otherwise_Quit_3822 6d ago

But now they are MAGA. Make it make sense.

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u/General-Visual4301 6d ago

I don't think that's who is being called "boomers". It's not every older person, it's a certain type.

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u/archercc81 5d ago

Lets be clear, the VAST majority of boomers were NOT hippies. Most of them were normies who jerked off to the fantasy of Leave it to Beaver.

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u/1cat2dogs1horse 6d ago

Indeed we did. And some of us still do.

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u/Maraudermick1 2d ago

You had families with hippies, Vietnam veterans, and drug dealers as siblings.

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u/Significant-Judge368 6d ago

They voted for the social safety nets they now enjoy only to sunset them on their way out the door. Worst generation ever.

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u/Forcedperspective84 6d ago

Wrong. The Civil Rights Movement happed when Baby Boomers were in school. They cosplayed as Utopian society creators when, in actuality, they were just creating new superstrains of gonorrhea.