379. The World of the Baby Boomers Now

Post War Baby Boomers - Italy

The Baby Boomers, who as the young adults of the sixties, struggled to write their stories on Remington or Olivetti manual typewriters kicked against their parents’ outlook that children should be seen but not heard, stripped away all the taboos around the words sex, divorce, morality, single parent, shagging up together and not to mention dress- legs, thighs, boobs and belly-buttons uncovered to the four winds.

 

Baby Boomers broke away from society's established norms
as identified by their parents above

The Catholic Church too had a good knocking with the appearance of Pope John XXIII who made young nuns thrash about with the headbands and habits of the old nuns, had priests face the congregation instead of their backs and Mass was said in the vernacular in place of the pontifical Latin. While the cinemas were churning out major box office successes like Zinnemann’s “The Nun’s Story”.

With Pope John XXIII the Catholic Church underwent an upheaval too

In the world of art, the pop culture of anything goes emerged, not to the best advantage at times, but that was the risk one had to take to break away from the established precepts of art. However,  music flourished unrestrained - Elvis, Cliff, Bob Dylan, Joan Biaz, just to name a few- the Beatles of course stood in a class of their own; it was also the era of bands and rock n roll. All this added to the golden period of popular music giving out sounds with a freshness unheard of before and which was to remain unforgettable even fifty years on.

 

Baby Boomers growing up in the sixties

And now, where are the Baby Boomers of the sizzling sixties? They are still around in great strength, wealth, power and retired- all over 72 million of them in the U.S. alone.

Eva Ulian as a Baby Boomer

According to the Population Reference Bureau, they control 80% of the nation’s wealth and expanding continuously with the retirement of four million every year. They are on facebook and they twit, but most of all, they read books- because they can!

So, publishers, why shun writers who with their stories tap on these times, waiting to be swallowed up by grey haired, bald heads, long in the tooth, but not yet far gone in the head to appreciate a bath of nostalgia in the “lost world” brought to life for and by the Baby Boomers?