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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Years of the Baby Boom

No less a source than the U.S. Census has declared the years 1946-1964 as the Baby Boom. It is the ONLY generation so formally defined. The article is complete and total garbage claiming "some" claim the years 1946-1964 are the baby boom years. It is a FACT those are the years because the U.S. government has declared it so. There is NO "generation Jones" that has ANY meaning whatsoever, at least in the U.S. sn 4 January 2019

But the drop in birth rates started in 1959, so why would you characterized that as a "boom" in births?2606:6000:6111:8E00:39F4:9C2F:1968:8540 (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Some debate exists regarding the generational identity of those born from 1961 to 1964, as some demographers and researchers consider these individuals to be part of the younger demographic cohort, Generation X. - references 40,41,42,43. This is a small group -that is misidentified in the generational groupings. depending upon their age difference from their parents they may have parents that were too young to have served in World War II (1939 to 1945) The may based on this NOT identify themselves as Baby Boomers, nor as as Generation X. If they are military veterans they may have signed up under the Carter Administration, and a period of lean still lower Military wages. People of this age may have what they identify themselves as biased by their siblings - do they have older siblings that are definite Baby boomers, or younger siblings that are Generation X? Wfoj3 (talk) 11:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Negligence of future generations by the Baby Boomer Generation

This section is poorly written, biased, and has been listed as containing original or uncited material for some time. As such, I have removed it. -Locke9k — Preceding unsigned comment added by Locke9k (talk • contribs) 03:20, 28 May 2008

Values, Attitude, and Lifestyle

This appears to be an uncited and entirely opinion based list with virtually no meaningful content. Unless someone wants to add citations or any objective backing, it should be removed. Locke9k (talk)Locke9k —Preceding undated comment added 03:30, 28 May 2008

Upon further reflection I have entirely removed this section as it is devoid of any objective information whatsoever. Locke9k (talk)Locke9k —Preceding undated comment added 04:14, 28 May 2008

Boomer backlash

Nothing about the hatred members of Gen X, Y and Z have for Boomers and the mess they left the world in? --68.81.70.65 (talk) 18:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Not unless you have citations to back it up. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 01:42, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
That's a bit selective. I see you have had a request for citations to back up one of the article's assertions sitting there for at least a year (and I have just requested citation for another of them). I've just stumbled on this article just now and frankly it does read like a slightly vague and biased account, so you may want to consider negative as well as positive claims. Bonfire of vanities (talk) 02:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't have my books on hand, but the Strauss and Howe books 13th Gen and Generations (book) refer to this.--Knulclunk (talk) 15:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Theres been a lot of articles on this subject. See here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/who-destroyed-the-economy-the-case-against-the-baby-boomers/263291/ --63.240.53.67 (talk) 21:36, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I tried adding the above but my edits were reverted despite my attempt to add this information correctly. Also, in terms of backlash the term the "Fuck you, I Got Mine" generation is becoming more popular and will eventually be added. http://uklife.org/2013/06/27/fuigm/ 208.54.36.186 (talk) 15:32, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Cultural imperialism of the Baby Boomers

I think this article has something to say about how baby boomers are using their social position to prevent cultural change. Again this will be clearer in the future as the Baby Boomers retire and are no longer managing companiess that play their music two months out of the year. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/12/why-the-christmas-song-canon-has-a-baby-boomer-bias/250344/ 208.54.36.186 (talk) 15:32, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Sucession Box

Does anyone else think the succession box is a little much? Since the U.S. Census Bureau [1], Strauss and Howe and many other sources carry the Boomers up to the Gen-Xers, the succession box seem a bit presumptuous. I realize that this is an ongoing debate here at WP, but since the Generation Jones concept is both recently coined by Jonathan Pontell and, by his own admission, made up of Boomers and Generation Xers, perhaps we should just loose it. The succession box seems to legitimatize something about which there is still debate.--Knulclunk (talk) 18:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I beieve the succession box is a fair representation as is stands now. The Census Bureau is irrelevant; they only are referring to the demographic birth boom 1946-1964, the govt. does not determine cultural generations at all. Strauss and Howe's work is most fairly represented on their pages on Wikipedia about the 13th Generation, their Generations book, etc. Proponenets of Generation Jones, including Pontell, do not see GenJones as a hybrid of Boomers and Xers, but rather as a distinct generation between them. I agree that this is still under debate, as generational stuff usually is, but it feels established enough for that box to remain, at least for now. I made a couple of minor changes to the article today, first to clarify GenJones' relationship with the demographic boom in births, and to use the word "usually" when referring to the name used for that age group, usually feels entirely accurate, since it is really the only moniker used for that age group.Wendy 2012 (talk) 01:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we should remove the succession boxes on all generation articles until there is universal agreement. They reek of original research. --Knulclunk (talk) 11:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

We have no sources for the succession box that is not WP:SYNTH, WP:RS, original research or worse. Please do not re-add as WP:3RR until consensus is reached.--Knulclunk (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

  • When the Hell did they change the outer date range for Boomer births to 1964? I had always understood it to be 1962 at the very latest; indeed the Wiki article on "Generation X" puts it in the early 60s with no real delineation, although the year 1961 is mentioned. The book "Generations" by Strauss and Howe was a definitive work, and they used 1962 or perhaps '61. This Wiki article is incompatible with the "Generation X" article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.126.63.41 (talk) 05:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I always thought the year range was 1945-1965 (20 years inclusive of two half-years, as the war in Europe effectively ended in May 1945). The birth rate graph supports this as it appears that the inflection point where births rose after the war appears to be the latter half of 1945 and the rate bubble returns to that level in mid 1965. 2001:470:D:468:7455:7A:1C17:3DB4 (talk) 20:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
When I was growing up (I was born in 1960), Baby Boom was specifically 1946-1956, or later 1958 - those people born in the post WWII era, to people who fought in that war. Most of us born in the 1958-1970 era were born to people who were children during WWII, but who had no real personal understanding of the Great Depression. We were also a smaller generation than the Baby Boom generation, but not as native to technology as those coming of age during the technological era of electronic Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and later, the Internet. In my understanding, GenX is the generation that came of age with the World Wide Web (specifically, graphical browsers such as Mosaic and Netscape), the generation that was targeted for recruiting by then-up-and-coming technology companies (birth years 1970-1980?). The generation in between was known as the "baby bust" generation because the birth rate fell after the ten-year period following WWII. (This parallels a smaller baby boom following the end of WWI.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.83.46.229 (talk) 04:35, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

intro

in my opinion, the intro should avoid a lengthy discussion of the specific years attributed to boomers, as this is an unwieldy and unresolved debate. Leave a general description of the time period and what boomers are... Also the stuff about the Jones generation, is also one of a myriad of potential subdivisions of the overall concept that doesn't need to be in an intro. Peregrine981 (talk) 23:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the intro should definitely deal with the question of birth years, and demographic vs. psychographic (ie. birth boom vs. cultural generation), and Generation Jones, becuase these are central issues in the boomer milleu and fundamental to any serious discussion about what the term Baby Boomer means in 2008. The fact that these issues have been in the intro for a very long time (until Peregrine just removed them) and survived many editors suggests that they should remain in the intro.TreadingWater (talk) 18:24, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I just fear that including dates side tracks the real issue. It is obviously an important discussion, but there is absolutely no consensus surrounding the issue, and the amount of space to adequately cover it would overwhelm a focused introduction. Perhaps we could include a note saying that most experts consider boomers to be those born somewhere from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s. I think that generation Jones could be adequately covered by some mention of the fact that being a boomer is not a monolithic idea, and that there are big differences between early and late boomers, and that any generational label is somewhat fluid. I'm not sure how widely accepted the term "Generation Jones" really is, and that including it risks overwhelming the intro with specific pet names or theories of different authors and theorists, but I'm open to being convinced.
Also, this article, as with many of the generations articles is a serious mess, so just because it has been this way for a long time is no excuse for anything. We should really make a consolidated effort to improve it, by adding reputable sources, and attempting to remove the fluff, as it is an important topic. Peregrine981 (talk) 18:39, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


I believe the birth years should be in the lead of this article, but for the moment, I went with the compromise of leaving out the birth years, but at least putting in the totally relevent bit about the demographic boom representing two seperate generations. This is a major component of the current definition of Baby Boomers, and regardless of whether the birth years are put back in, this crucual distinction between the demographic birth boom and the cultural generations born during this boom, needs to be here, at an absolute mininmum, to reflect an accurate take on how this is currently viewedTreadingWater (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that all of your references are WP:SYNTH. We cannot claim that just because a Fox commentator throws out a reference to Pontell and the recent U.S. election, all previous uses of the term Baby Boomer for the last 40 years are void... that we now have a "New Definition" of Baby Boomer. The problem isn't the concept of Gen Jones. It's the battle on the pages of Wikipedia as replacing the definitions of Boomer and X'er that everyone is uptight about. --Knulclunk (talk) 21:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is uptightness about the Boomer and Xer pages, much of it is felt by those who are aware of how usage has evolved to include Generation Jones, and who are frustrated at your constant attempts to deny that changed reality on the pages of Wikipedia. You have old school views about these generations that seem to fit your agenda, and you misleadingly play down the reality of GenJones' emergence. It is obviously established enough that it doesn't need to have Pontell's name next to it; the articles which I usually see about it don't mention Pontell. You say:"...a Fox commentator throws out a reference to Pontell and the recent U.S. election, all previous uses of the term Baby Boomer for the last 40 years are void." Misleading attempt to deny the reality of GenJones yet again. You know fully well that tons of high profile media have been using the GenJones term. And just that one video alone has about 25 top journalists using the term as well. The reality is that the old definition of the Baby Boom GENERATION has changed, very few experts still believe that only one generation occupies that 20 year demographic birth boom, and Generation Jones is clearly the name that has emerged to define the younger generation of that demographic boom.TreadingWater (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Pontell's name is specifically attached to all 5 sources provided and none of the sources mention a "new definition" for Baby Boomers. We can call the admins in, if you wish.--Knulclunk (talk) 23:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

What is the difference if Pontell's name is an article? It's natural that the person who coined a term for a newer generation's name would be mentioned. What you are trying to do is make Generation Jones seem less popular and established than it is, in fact. I agree with the others here who see exactly what you are trying to do. Who knows what your agends is, but you are being unfair to those who come to this online encyclopeda for an accurate representation of how terms are currently used. I just spent 5 minutes and easily found a bunch of references where Pontell's name isn't mentioned (although I think it's irrelevant).Wendy 2012 (talk) 00:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Can we use a word other than "experts"? It confuses me.--Knulclunk (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Jones booster

It would be nice if the booster for "generation jones" would stop trying to make that happen. It's lame, and all the citations are echoes of the same source.

Regular editors: doesn't this deserve to be addressed in the edit?

I myself have not heard of joines outside wiki LaidOff (talk) 13:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Seems like promtion to me LaidOff (talk) 13:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
There are many of us who are boosters of Generation Jones, and it's not a matter of us editors stopping "trying to make that happen", it's the reality that Generation Jones is "happening" for the millions of people who now use that term. If you haven't heard of GenJones outside of wiki, and think that it all echos one source, then perhaps you could spend a little time researching it, and you'd discover that it is being used by tons of influential individuals and media venues: New York Times, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc., etc. Promotion? I don't even know what that means here. The bottom line is that there are many of us who are fed up being called Boomers our whole lives (and then even called GenX sometimes), who are thrilled to see our separate generation finally getting the national recognition we deserve. Promotion? Well, yes, I suppose...promotion of the truth of how the culture has finally recognized our generation.TreadingWater (talk) 14:11, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I was inferring promo without truth, if there exist truth so be it LaidOff (talk) 14:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Although I am not exactly up-to-date on current wikipedia policy with regard to notability, it seems that generation jones has enough buzz to at least mention in this article or even the intro. That said, it seems overly pushy to me to include it in the very first paragraph. This seems to too much of a "negative" definition; defining the baby boom by what it supposedly is not. I am still worried that gen jones is too much of a fad, without staying power. We will see, I guess. Not really for us to decide anyway. However, it seems that any generation could be divided and subdivided in this way. Peregrine981 (talk) 16:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Too many references to Jones. It is way unbalanced and disproportionate. Some editors should rewrite to reduce the number of such references Hammer of the year (talk) 03:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Gen Jones is already mentioned. We shouldn't pepper every sentence in the article with the twp words "Generation Jones" merely because we can fit it in grammatically. This is way too disproportionate. We a new reader encounters the article, he should not be thinking he is really reading about Jonesers of the 1960s instead of clasic boomers of the 1946 cohort like Bush the Younger and Clinton the Male. LaidOff (talk) 00:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)90
I agree that Gen Jones is being "name dropped" too liberally in this (and other) articles. But I do think that it might be a useful bit of info in the section on "baby boom cohort #2." Isn't this precisely the pheonomeon that gen jones is used to describe? It seems valid to include the name there. If you have alternate names please suggest them, but it seems better than "cohort #2".Peregrine981 (talk) 14:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I think mr. Pilgrim here has a point. The title appears to be the appropriate place to use it. It is a name so a name goes into a title. Quite logical. Thanks LaidOff (talk) 17:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

"pepper every sentence in the article with the twp [sic] words "Generation Jones""?! "really reading about Jonesers of the 1960s instead of clasic boomers of the 1946 cohort..."?! What are you talking about?! Even with the couple of references to Generation Jones which I just put back into this article, there is virtually nothing in this article about GenJones. Easily 95% of this article is about the Boomers, and you say a couple of references to GenJones is "every sentence"? How could someone possibly think this is an article about Jonesers when there is practically nothing in the article about Jonesers?

Let's step back and try to look at this with some semblance of reality. The problem isn't that there is too much about GenJones here, it's that there isn't enough. The article defines, in its lead, Boomers as people born during the demographic boom in births, which includes Boomers and Jonesers. Then the article ignores Jonesers, as if they don't matter, and completely focuses on Boomers. This is a point which has upset so many Jonesers all these years...we're told we're Boomers but the typical portayal of Boomers only looks at those born up until the mid-1950s.

If we want to make this article about the Baby Boom GENERATION (which many experts now believe was born from approx. the early-1940s to mid-1950s), then it doesn't need to discuss GenJones. But if this article is about all those born during the demographic boom in births, then of course it needs to include GenJones, and I have no doubt that I and many others will make sure this article remains accurate and includes GenJones. And there is no other name for those born from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s which has caught on at all besides Generation Jones so of course it should be used here.TreadingWater (talk) 15:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, we have many sources that say mid-50s to mid-60s are called Baby Boomers.--Knulclunk (talk) 23:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a shame that knulclunk is so resistant to trying to find compromise and so insistent on the edit war approach to writing articles. As discussed above, any article discussing those born during the post-WWII demographic boom in births obviously needs to discuss Generation Jones in some significant way. This article does a woefully insufficient job of discussing GenJones, but in the spirit of compromise, I've only put a couple references into the article, which I will do again now. If compromise continues to be rejected, I'll re-write this article to include much more about GenJones, which is really the way it should read. I know there are other editors who feel this way as well. I've only avoided re-writing it to try for compromise. As far as the comment about some sources still using the old defintion of Boomers for those born mid50s to mid60s, that's true but certainly doesn't change the fact that GenJones should be a significant part of this article. Wikipedia readers should be presented with the current thinking, even if these is some controversy to that thinking.TreadingWater (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Heres the problema, there had a shift of years and terms used from the writers in the late 1980s to today. The reason Jones came up is the same reason GenX came up in 1987 or 1990 if you go by either Coupland's whining in Vancouver or the Time magazine article. These writers were on to something. Someone born in 1946 to 1950 were part of the Summer of Love and draft evasion experience. They were the Yuppies written about in 1983 and made the Cover Artcile as Time/Newsweek (I forgot) "Year of the Yuppie".... If the yuppie were 30 to 35 years old... after 35 then was con sifder middle aged in the mid 1980s (funny just last year I heard a 55 year old refer to himself as "middle aged"... seems like the same Boomer still so shallow, so self absorbed and denying his agedness) the he was born 1948 or 1952... The slacker youth written about in the time of the movie Clerks in the 1990s and McJobs were born in the early 1960s or late 1950s after being relived from the draft. I would guess that the years would be 1959 to 1965 but around then.
We need someone to write a crisp short paragraph to distuiguish these people born within the 1946 to 1964 cohort who really aren't boomers. But to repeatedly call it Jones and do it three or four times is too much. In fact it had other names. It used to be called Gen X. Next year when Jones goes out of popularity it may be called something else. What persists seems to be a no-name group whose experience was not a boomer experience even if they were born born Dec 31, 1964! LaidOff (talk) 17:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)c

Only two references to generation jones belongs in this article? I couldn't disagree more. I agree with those who say there should be more, not less, about generation jones in this article.Wendy 2012 (talk) 18:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the concern that many editors are having is that the term Generation Jones in the lead paragraph of the Baby Boomer article mis-represents the usage of the term. While the Baby Boomer concept has been well established for some time (40+ years), Generation Jones has only recently (c.2000) been coined by speaker Johnathan Pontell[[2], to identify a cohort of people "between the Boomers and the Generation Xers". The term has been used a lot recently with the U.S presidential election of Obama, almost always attached to Pontell's name, who is also a FOX contributor.
Obviously the concept exists and has followers, but there is no WP:RS to indicate that the understood definition of Baby Boomer has been replaced or changed. Editor User:TreadingWater has added Generation Jones to a host of articles, including Baby Boomer, baby boom, Post-World War II baby boom, List of generations and Generation X. Any attempt to modify the language from from "now usually called" or "many experts believe" is met with accusations of edit waring, vandalism, agenda pushing and immediate reverting by User:TreadingWater or User:Wendy 2012. Mainspace reverts are made prior to talk page discussion and discussion revolves around hostility and protectionism.
To quote a reply from a recent talk page: "usage has evolved to include Generation Jones, and who are frustrated at your constant attempts to deny that changed reality on the pages of Wikipedia. You have old school views about these generations that seem to fit your agenda, and you misleadingly play down the reality of GenJones' emergence" Not terribly rude, but it is in response to multiple editors trying to solve this problem over a period of time. What has not been given is any independent source that matches the claim of changed reality. Personally, I think the term is a trendy neoglism, but I will be satisfied with Gen Jones being removed from the lead paragraph and language that does not overstate the term's usage. Qualification of "also called" "some call" will suffice.--Knulclunk (talk) 05:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I think part of the problem here is that some editors are genuinely not aware of the degree to which Generation Jones is now commonly used. It is admitttedly a much newer concept than the Boomer concept, and it is understandable that the older concept is very entreneched in people's mindsets. But especially in the last several months, GenJones has become a standard part of discussions about the 1946-1964 baby boom. And this is true not just in the popular press, but among experts in the field who automatically include GenJones when discussing 1946-1964. Perhaps this article should be changed to only discuss the Baby Boom Generation, which many experts now belive to be born from the early 1940s to mid 1950s. Then I don't think there would be a need to discuss Generation Jones. But as long as this article is talking about all those born during the demographic birth boom, it unequivocally needs to have Generation jones in the lead. As I and others have commented here before, GenJones should really be discussed much more in this article as it stands now (ie. a discussion of all those born during the 46-64 boom. I feel very emphatically that it would be a disservice to readers to not include Generation Jones in some prominent way in an article in 2009 about this topic. And the term and concept are clearly established enough to use language like 'many" and "commonly'. I think it actually more accurate to use words here like "most" rather than "many", but for now will use the weaker word.TreadingWater (talk) 15:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I just changed the article with as weak language as I can live with, in the service of seeing if this compromising language can avoid a new round of edit wars. I believe it should say something like "commonly" called GenJones, but for now, I've put in the weaker "often" called GenJones. No one can dispute that it is true to say that these people are "often" called Generation Jones.TreadingWater (talk) 16:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

This is for those of you who oppose the separate reference to nearly half of the years you want included in "baby boomer". I can't cite any books written by people from your generation about who is and isn't a baby boomer...All I can do is share my personal view as one you've attempted to include to your ranks, and who refuses to be a willing part of your scheme. As one born in 1959, who indeed has no cultural connection to your preferred Baby boomer" cultural identity, I feel quite ill at being associated with this group of cowardly, malcontented, self-serving, greedy, fratricidal idiots and wish you would stop with the perverse containment of our numbers into yours. We are not "Boomers" in any meaningful sense of the word, except by the arbitrary inclusion of our numbers by some bureaucrat, and I think I speak for many of those I know in my age group (~1957-1964) in saying this: we don't like being constantly added as silent partners in your devolutionary antics. Keep your overpriced replica muscle cars, 5.25 acre 4000sqft homes on formerly rich farmland, sell offs of American businesses to your cohorts in other nations for a quick buck, 12K mile jet rides for a 2 week "eco-vacation", and 100% medical coverage to yourselves. You've been doing it quite well for nearly a half century, so keep on, but please do it without us. I'm kinda tired of paying for your excesses, whether literally or figuratively. I oppose your generation wholeheartedly, and especially this bs you've written about yourselves, pretending that it's unbiased and accurate. The only thing I ever got from your generation was a pervasive sense of insecurity, a joint shoved into my face by one of yours when I was 8 years old, a gun by another for barging in on an impromptu love fest in a public park, and the realization that your generation is nothing more than a bunch of spoiled punks who deserve the guillotine far more than adulation for the supposed improvements you've made in the world. Wake up and smell the coffee. I can can smell the stench of your moderated apologetic from a mile away. As long as your generation continues to include us in your numbers, the GenJones (as much as I don't like any of your f-ing generation gap politics) needs to be cited in every sentence, if for no other reason than so people in future generations will know we we're NOT you, that we didn't support you, but opposed you. 26 jan 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.153.17 (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Generation Jones revisited

We need to find a language solution that does not imply that the term Generation Jones has replaced the term Baby Boomer for those born 1954-1965. The most recent sources from 2009 are still defining the the term and linking it to Pontell and Obama while acknowledging that they are still usually called Baby Boomers. I don't feel this diminishes Generation Jones at all. To imply that the definition of Baby Boomer has universally changed is terribly misleading. --Knulclunk (talk) 04:43, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


Arthur Rubin…you appear to be attempting to advance some personal agenda of yours by trying to paint an inaccurate portrait of Generation Jones as less than it is. There are several of us who regularly moniter these Wiki articles to make sure that people like you don’t succeed. We understand that there are many with personal agendas against the emergence of GenJones…authors whose books on Boomers are now being made obsolete, etc. But this is an encyclopedia, and readers have a right to accurate articles, and there are enough of us here watching this carefully to make sure those readers get this accuracy.

One tip off of your likely agenda is your changing “many analysts” to “an analyst” believes…in GenJones. Now it is possible that this edit by you doesn’t stem from a biased agenda and is actually just a reflection of your lack of knowledge about this topic. But that seems unlikely, since all you would need to have done is even just a few minutes of googling Generation Jones to see how blatantly untrue your edit was. To edit articles without even the most basic knowledge of the topic is wrong. But not as wrong as deliberately trying to misrepresent the truth to readers.

In case you really don’t know anything about this, I’ll give you a quick lesson in why this article reads “many analysts”. Here is a short list of just a small percentage of the analysts who agree with the GenJones conceptualization: David Brooks (New York Times), Karen Tumulty (Time Magazine), Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune), Jonathan Alter (Newsweek), Roland Martin (CNN), Michael Steele (Chairman, RNC), Chris Van Hollen (Chairman, DCCC), Stuart Rothenberg (Roll Call), Juan Williams (Fox News Channel), Howard Wolfson (Political Advisor), Mel Martinez (U.S. Senator [R-Florida]), Carl Leubsdorf (Dallas Morning News), and Peter Fenn (MSNBC). Note that these are just some of the very prominent analysts on the list. There are many more prominent analysts who believe in GenJones, and a huge number more analysts who aren’t very prominent, but who are nonetheless credible, who agree in articles and books and speeches and media interviews with the existence of GenJones.

I believe that it’s reached a point when it is accurate to say that “most prominent analysts” believe in GenJones, or at least “most analysts”. In the spirit of compromise, I’ve gone along with “many analysts”. “Some analysts” would be too weak to paint a fair picture. “An analyst” is a ridiculous misrepresentation. Similarily, I believe this article should read that it is “usually” or “typically” called Generation Jones. In the spirit of compromise, I’ve gone along with “often”. No good-faith editor who knows this topic can honestly say that this age group is not “often” called Generation Jones.

Re. Wiki rules: “Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism” . I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Arthur and assume that you just hadn’t researched this topic. But now that this has been clearly pointed out to you, and you can easily confirm this with just a little googling, any further attempt by you to misrepresent GenJones to readers would not be good faith, and would be vandalism.

Knulclunk, I thought we were past this. I’ve gone along with much weaker language in several places here in the spirit of compromise. If you want to start up again with this, we can, but bear in mind that I, and I assume others who care about this here, will fight hard for the stronger language supporting GenJones which we feel is more accurate than the current language. I don’t mean that in a threatening way, I’m just reminding you of the value of compromise and that if we “re-litigate” this, it is likely to end up with even stronger language, particularly given how much more established GenJones has become in recent months since we ended our edit wars. BTW, re. your comment, remember the key distinction between the demographic baby boom and the Baby Boom Generation. TreadingWater (talk) 17:31, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we should add to the END of the lead:
"The term Generation Jones has gained popularity to distinguish those born 1954-1965 from the earlier Baby Boomers."
This would show the division, the increasing popularity, and the reason why the term has gained acceptance. What do you think?--Knulclunk (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
It seems a reasonable phrasing, provided that it is not construed to imply that some (we can argue about "most", but clearly some reliable and trusted sources) consider the "Baby Boomers" to be a generation, and GenJones being a cohort within that generation.
I also renamed this section; it appears that an editor before TreadingWater/Wendy 2012 was overturned by consensus. Perhaps the consensus or real-world consensus has changed, but.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
A further problem with not considering the Baby Boomer's a generation, is that it makes the BBG and GenJones abnormally short, compared to historical and future "generations"; only having 12 years, while no other generation is less than 18 years. There may be reasons for that, but unless those reasons are stated in the reliable source, these "generations" have a distinct meaning from the ones before and afterward. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


I’ve gone back to “many” over “some” since it is clearly true that many analysts feel this way. I’ve added a few more references which I quickly found, but there are many more references. If you genuinely aren’t aware that many analysts believe in the existence of GenJones, look at this page from Pontell’s site: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html . No one could watch these videos and read these articles and deny in good faith that “many” analysts agree with the GenJones construct. I think that determining whether “most” analysts now agree with GenJones is more complicated to determine, but there’s no question that many analysts agree with it. And when an analyst indicates his agreement with the GenJones concept, it doesn’t make his opinion not count simply because he happens to refer to Pontell in the article in which he expresses his agreement with GenJones.

Since GenJones has become so much more established in recent months, this Boomer article needs a major re-write. I think this article should only deal with the Baby Boom Generation, not the demographic boom in births. We already have an article which deals with the demographic baby boom, why do we need a second one?

Part of the problem is the confusion between the demographic post-WWII boom and the actual generations born then. I was born during the GenJones birth years. I don’t consider myself a Baby Boomer in any way. If you research this topic, you’ll find that many others feel the same way. Yet this article begins by saying someone born when I was is a Baby Boomer. Misleading and not reflective of the evolution of this word. Arthur, you say this article is not about the cultural generation. What do you base this on? Many of us use the Boomer term only to refer to the Boomer Generation, not everyone born for 20 years after WWII. The way it reads now, this article is out-of-date and doesn’t reflect the increasing popularity of GenJones nearly enough.

Along these lines, I’ve removed the reference to the Census Bureau, which confuses the issue. The Census Bureau has never had any role whatsoever in determining the boundaries of generations. I’m reluctantly OK with the Census Bureau reference returning, but only if it is made clear what the Bureau’s role actually is. Otherwise, Wikipedia readers would mistakenly believe that this important official govt. agency endorses the old-school definition of the baby Boom Generation, which it definitely doesn’t.

If you research current expert opinion, you’ll find that there is a clear consensus that generations are getting shorter; most experts now believe that generations are approximately 10-15 years now, rather than the old-school 20 years. This is partly because of the acceleration of culture which leaves people 20 years apart with far less in common than they used to. I’ve even seen experts argue that we’re at a point now when generations are more like 8 years, but this is a minority view. The majority view is around 12 years, give or take. Many of the listings on the List of Generations Wiki page are far different than what most experts would agree with.

Knulclunk: I would be OK with adding; "The term Generation Jones has gained popularity to distinguish those born 1954-1965 from those born from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s” to what is already there now.TreadingWater (talk) 23:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking it would REPLACE what is there now. It makes the important points, the birth range and growing popularity, without distracting from the main point of the article: The Baby Boomers themselves. --Knulclunk (talk) 02:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


Knulclunk: Yes, this article should be about the Boomers, but should it be about the demographic Boomers or the Boomer Generation?

Let me try an analogy to make my point. Let’s say we were writing an article about “North Americans”, and let’s say we started it this way: “North Americans are people who live in the northern continent of the Americas and include Canadians, Americans and Mexicans”. If we then wrote the entire article only about Canadians, and barely mentioned Americans and Mexicans, it would be a badly-written/inaccurate/confusing article.

This article now begins: “Baby boomer is a term used to describe a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom”. More than half of these people were born during the GenJones years. To write this article only about the Boomer Generation and ignore GenJones is like writing only about Canadians in an article about North Americans.

We should probably make this article only about the Baby Boom Generation. That way we’d have an article about the demographic baby boom, one about GenJones, and one about the Boomer Gen. Seems reasonable and compromising to me.

I think the third paragraph under Cultural Identity should be revised as it implies that Vietnam was a global experience of boomers, which makes no sense. I did not revise it myself, because I am not sure what the author intended to say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tinpantithesis (talk • contribs) 06:01, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Arthur: why on earth would you yet again make the obviously false claim that there is only evidence of one analyst who believes in GenJones? Unequivocal evidence has been repeatedly pointed out to you that many analysts believe in GenJones. What is your problem here? Are you confused about the meaning of the word “many”? Is it that you’ve chosen to ignore the evidence that’s been shown you. Here, yet again, Arthur, is a partial list of some of the MANY analysts who believe in GenJones: David Brooks (New York Times), Karen Tumulty (Time Magazine), Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune), Jonathan Alter (Newsweek), Roland Martin (CNN), Michael Steele (Chairman, RNC), Chris Van Hollen (Chairman, DCCC), Stuart Rothenberg (Roll Call), Juan Williams (Fox News Channel), Howard Wolfson (Political Advisor), Mel Martinez (U.S. Senator [R-Florida]), Carl Leubsdorf (Dallas Morning News), and Peter Fenn (MSNBC). Is it that you don’t believe these analysts believe in GenJones? If so, why don’t you watch this 6-minute video and watch with your own eyes MANY analysts agree with the GenJones concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ta_Du5K0jk Or just google Generation Jones, and read some of the many articles written by MANY analysts who believe in GenJones.TreadingWater (talk) 22:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

So Treading, if we WERE to make this article about the Baby Boomer Generation, what changes would you make?


Knulclunk, I'm not sure, I'll take a look at it when I get a chance, and give my suggestions...TreadingWater (talk) 01:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Definition of Gen Jones

As there is constant confusion over the Gen Jones reference, I have moved it out of the first paragraph. Note that I did several things to make it CLEARER:

  1. I gave the actual dates that Pontell uses, so there is no confusion.
  2. I mention the REASON for the term Gen Jones; to distinguish them from the traditional Boomers.
  3. A separate mention, not in the lead, both points to the term's recent adoption and its singular importance.
  4. Most of all, it draws a HARD and SEPARATE line between the Gen Jones cohort and the traditional Boomers. When we include the mention of Gen Jones in the second sentence of the Boomer article, it seems like we are trying to pull a fast one... like we have some ax to grind. Jonsers are worth a stand alone paragraph!
  5. I kept all the sources.

Hope this helps!--Knulclunk (talk) 04:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with these moves. Perfection eludes us, but I think that you have made the article better. At this point, Gen Jones should be mentioned in the lead, but it should not be such a focal point of attention. It is an important distinction that has been made, but I still think that it is a relatively small point in the overall point of an article about baby boomers. Most academic sources still refer primarily to boomers rather than gen jonesers. Peregrine981 (talk) 22:41, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
I have taken a chunk of time today to try to find a solution to the problems we’ve had with the Boomer article. A big source of confusion has been about those born during the demographic birth boom vs. the generations born during that boom. I think the changes I’ve made today are a vast improvement on what has been there, and will hopefully avoid the confusion this article has been causing. I’ve broken up this complicated issue into three articles, which makes logical sense to me: the demographic post-WWII birth boom, the Baby Boom Generation, and Generation Jones. I did some re-arranging of text from these articles into a more logical form (e.g. I put definitions of demographic boom years on the post-World War II baby boom article where they more logically belong), as well as writing some new text which hopefully clarifies these issues.TreadingWater (talk) 23:19, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a fascinating concept. We should continue the discussion on the Talk:Baby Boom Generation page. --Knulclunk (talk) 03:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Being A Baby Boomer I wonder?

Being a Baby Boomer I wonder?(Jan 29,1945) Is there a list or such for the "accomplishments" baby Boomers have made? Doesnt seem to me like we did that much for this world?HAAPSPENDEN (talk) 03:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Your generation should take pride in its accomplishments. Under your management we have ---

1. Increased drug addiction.

2. Loss of national pride.

3. Increased numbers of wars worldwide.

4. Reduced birthrates in "1st world" countries.

5. The greatest economic depression since the 1930s.

6. The re-emergence of the aristocracy.

7. Decreased freedom in the US and other 1st world countries.

Shall I continue? (and no, I will not cite articles by boomer authors to back up what is self-evident from a quick glance at the world.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.153.17 (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking at this statement from an economists point of view as most of the topics fall into that frame of reference.

I like Mr. Franklins point of view.

" Ere you consult your fancy, consult your purse." Benjamin Franklin

Or two,

Attribution of the worlds problems that resulted over 100 years of our nations history to one generation is simply rather presumptuous.

I find it insulting to the intelligence of this community and its mental deficiency should not stand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reelstuff (talk • contribs) 13:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Which generation responsible for the the bulk of the accumulation of $12 Trillion dollars of US debt? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wickland (talk • contribs) 03:11, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge

This article and Baby Boom Generation have roughly the same structure, and lots of text in common. They should be merged, or a really clear separation between them should be made. – gpvos (talk) 10:18, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the merge proposal.--Knulclunk (talk) 05:02, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I also agree with the merge proposal. Both articles are very similar in content and create redundancy within wikipedia. Corenabh (talk) 18:38, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
I also agree with the mrege proposal. Sae1962 (talk) 07:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Introduction

This article is very US-centric. The first sentence gives the wrong impression. Baby boomers are a phenomenon in the UK and Europe too.Dave Dunstan (talk) 22:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment copied from 69.142.93.63/talk

I have reverted the edits you made to Baby boomer. I believe that the previous version was a more accurate definition of Baby boomer, in that no people born between WWI and WWII are considered boomers. The baby boom was a post-WWII phenomenon. Also, all people born during the baby boom time period are considered baby boomers, not just those that were born to parents returning from the war. In addition, your edit removed a considerable amount of information about the baby boom in countries other than the U.S.

If you believe your definition is correct, I suggest you add this definition to the article as it is now, rather than replacing extensive work done by other editors. You could phrase it something like "An alternate definition is..." Please also add an appropriate citation to a verifiable source for the definition you support.

I am also going to copy this comment to the article's talk page.--Susfele (talk) 00:48, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Size and Economic Impact

The economic impact section said that there were 76 million American boomers and they spent $500 million per year on holidays. Both statements come from http://www.thirdage.com/about_us but in combination they're absurd - seven dollars per year per person on holidays. I deleted the $500M figure but maybe we have to be nervous about source, which means being nervous about the whole section. I'll see what the source has to say. David Bofinger (talk) 12:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I modified the reference to the article about boomers wanting to leave their money to charity instead of their children. Though the headline of the referenced article is misleading, the article itself makes clear that the study was limited to boomers with at least 3 million in assets. Though it is a single word, I am not flagging it as a minor edit because it changes the meaning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tinpantithesis (talk • contribs) 05:46, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

More grafics?

Wouldn't it be nice to have more visual statistics such as the ones in this article? http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2009-11-10-topblline10_ST_N.htm Ottawahitech (talk) 16:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The last thing this article needs is more reinforcing the notion that Baby Boomers were an American generation. FanRed XN | talk 01:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Idiotic article

This article is a disgrace to wikipedia. To stereotype a whole generation based on world events over which 99.999% of boomers had no control is hate propaganda. Shame on the author(s). 77Mike77 (talk) 20:31, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Conflated Concepts of "Baby Boom"

The article does address the lack of a consensus of the meaning of the term "baby boomer" but does not do so sufficiently, in my opinion. The problem with the common use of this term in media is that it usually involves the conflation of several unrelated concepts. There are two different but related phenomenon commonly associated with the term.

The first is the statistical fact that there was a surge in the number of babies born in the first 15 years or so after World War 2. There are different theories as to why this was so, but certainly the oft heard explanation that this was the result of soldiers returning from WW2 eager to have children is untenable (a child born in the 1950s can hardly be ascribed to recently returned soldiers from WW2, much less children born in the mid 60s!).

The second and more common association is with a particular subset of the baby boom generation (more properly called "baby boom generations" since people born in the 40s, 50s, and 60s are clearly not of the same 'generation' in any meaningful sense), those that came of age (were in their late teens or early 20s) during the Vietnam War era and the tumults of the 1960s (who realistically would have had to be born in the mid to late 1940s). I don't think someone who was 15 in 1979 can reasonably be seen as a member of the 'flower power' generation. Certainly, a person born in the early 60s is not a member of the same generation as those that protested the Vietnam war and were active young adults in the late 60s and early 70s. I don't think the article adequately addresses the confused conflation of generations that the term "baby boomer" often gives rise to.

Applying the same reasoning that informs the concept of the "baby boom generation" to "the generation that fought World War 2 generation", we would define the latter as including anyone born between 1926 and 1944, and as such would include persons born during the war, which is clearly absurd. A lot of the confusion seems to stem from the informal definition of a generation as a twenty year period (which derives from the fact that it's takes approximately twenty years for today's newborns to be old enough to produce a new generation) and erroneously concluding that it follows that a particular generation must consist of people born within a twenty year period. A generation may last twenty years, but everyone born within those twenty years is not of the same generation. Several distinct generations will be spawned over the course of any twenty year period.

In reality, only those born within a few years of each other (for example, between 1945 and 1950) might reasonably be considered of the same generation. They were all born around the same time, grew up with the same pop culture reference points, world events, etc. Hence, the generation that fought World War Two consists of those born in the mid 1920s. The generation that protested the Vietnam War were born in the mod to late 40s. Generation Xers were born in the mid to late 60s, millennial a were born in the early to mid 80s, etc. Using the sense of 'generation' that is used when people talk about "the baby boom generation" would lead one to think that someone who graduated high school last year (2012) is part of the same generation that graduated high school 30 years ago in 1983. It's ridiuclous. We should really speak of the generations (plural) of the baby boom period (roughly 1945-1960) rather than "the baby boom generation (singular)." CannotFindAName (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Your concerns don't seem to be specific to the baby boomer concept, but instead address the theory of generations. Perhaps you would like to improve that article? We also have an article on the Strauss–Howe generational theory which defines the generations as following:

  • Arthurian Generation (1433-1460)
  • Humanist Generation (1461-1482)
  • Reformation Generation (1483-1511)
  • Reprisal Generation (1512-1540)
  • Elizabethan Generation (1541-1565)
  • Parliamentary Generation (1566-1587)
  • Puritan Generation (1588-1617)
  • Cavalier Generation (1618-1647)
  • Glorious Generation (1648-1673)
  • Enlightenment Generation (1674-1700)
  • Awakening Generation (1701-1723)
  • Liberty Generation (1724-1741)
  • Republican Generation (1742-1766)
  • Compromise Generation (1767-1791)
  • Transcendental Generation (1792-1821)
  • Gilded Generation (1822-1842)
  • Progressive Generation (1843-1859)
  • Missionary Generation (1860-1882)
  • Lost Generation (1883-1900)
  • Greatest Generation (1901-1924)
  • Silent Generation (1925-1942)
  • Baby boomer (1943-1960)
  • "13th Generation"/Generation X (1961-1981)
  • Generation Y (1982-2004)
  • Generation Z (2005-)

Your comments on these generations? Dimadick (talk) 19:45, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Cultural Identity

"It is jokingly said that, whatever year they were born, boomers were coming of age at the same time across the world; so that Britain was undergoing Beatlemania while people in the United States were driving over to Woodstock..."

The facts are weak and the generalizations sweeping. Hindsight brings up anachronisms. (Obviously the writer didn't live through the era.) British Beatlemania was 1963, while it hit the U.S. about 1964. I was in about 3rd grade. Woodstock was 1969, when I was in 9th grade. Huge difference. Not only were they were not simultaneous events, but none of us innocents in our 1964 Beatle haircuts and go-go boots could have imagined the hippie era to come.

Galliv (talk) 06:04, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

RM

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved as requested. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Baby boomer → Baby boomers – As per the bottom section of WP:PLURAL, this should be one of the few instances where we use plural titles (I've been around WP a long time, I know what our policy is about plural titles, and this is one case we can use them - and I think we really should). Groups of people use plural nouns. See Australians, Canadians, etc. Thanks for your consideration. Relisted Hot Stop talk-contribs 02:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC) Red Slash 03:23, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

All that tells us is that the phrase can be used in the singular, which was never in dispute ("Joe Johnson is a baby boomer"). How many results for the plural form? --BDD (talk) 18:18, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose. To make a decision like this, one that modifies an article title that has stood the test of time, a glance through some of the categories that are either at the bottom of the page or are subcategories of those is helpful. There are both singular and plural titles in those, and in some categories one outnumbers the other, but in others the ratio is reversed. There are Eritrean Canadians and Ethiopian Canadians, then there is the European Canadian and the English Canadian. I personally feel that to say "baby boomer", which focuses upon the single, individual member of the group, has much more meaning than to say "baby boomers", which has less focus for readers. But then, I myself am a baby boomer, so that might affect the meaningful feeling of the term for me. By the looks of the various categories for demographics, I don't see that Wikipedia has ever been overly concerned about singular v. plural, at least not for this particular type of article. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 10:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Certainly fits WP:PLURAL's standard of "groups or classes of specific things." Of Paine's examples, European Canadian and English Canadian look to me like adjectives, or else that they're discussing some sort of archetype of the European Canadian. But like this one, those articles are about groups of people, and should be titled accordingly. --BDD (talk) 18:18, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
    Not to be argumentative, BDD, but WP:PLURAL cites examples that are either always thought of in the plural form or about multiple subjects, such as endorphins, provinces of Sweden and Zeno's paradoxes. It appears that, according to the naming convention guideline, even Eritrean Canadian(s) and Ethiopian Canadian(s) really should be moved to the singular form, because one can easily talk about a single Eritrean Canadian, a single Ethiopian Canadian, a single European Canadian or a single English Canadian as noun phrases – "She is an [...]". And just as I did in my !vote above, one can refer to oneself as a "baby boomer", so I don't think this really fits the group exceptions in WP:PLURAL. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 19:16, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
    Okay, but if that's the case we shouldn't have any titles in the plural at all. Take Arabic numerals, which is listed at WP:AT as one of the examples for a good plural title (see WP:NOUN for the direct link). You could easily talk about a single Arabic numeral. Red Slash 03:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
    I agree – there are some items that one set of "contributor" would deem okay to pluralize and another set would deem those items okay to singularize. And each of these sets of "contributor" would be able to make their case based upon the policy and/or the guideline. This is why there is no particular consistency; each case has been decided on its own merit by a local set of page custodians (involved editors) who came to consensus based on their interpretations of policy. To make it better would involve gaining community consensus for a stricter definition within the policy and guideline. Until that takes place, it may be best to maintain the status quo on a page-by-page basis. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 17:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support - 2,890,000 Google Book hits for "baby boomers" and 186,000 Google Book hits for baby boomer". The title should reflect plural since it is a large group of people. Frmorrison (talk) 17:57, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
    Should we really see this as an issue of how many hits each name receives? This is a style issue, and the controversy lies with the different ways that the MOS and policy can be interpreted. By your rationale, a great many articles would need to be pluralized just because the plural form gets more hits? Besides, to trust Google means to accept that none of those 2,890,000 plural hits were actually singular. Are you sure Google is strict about singular v. plural distinction? My Google books search returned 513,000 for the plural in parentheses and 161,000 for the singular. My regular Google returned more than 8 million hits for the plural and just under 3 million for the singular. I still liked the singular return better, because this article was the 1st entry on the singular's first page, whereas it was only the 2nd entry on the plural's!>) – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 20:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I'd support this based on the fact that all other generation articles (Millennials, Greatest Generation, etc.) are titled for the group, rather than individual representatives of that group. If we're really going to be bound by WP:PLURAL, I'd argue that "Baby Boom Generation" would be the more appropriate singular title (though it's less common). I'd say that either this should be treated as an exception to the guideline, or the guideline should be made more clear.--Cúchullain t/c 18:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Hi there, just checking, but aren't those mentioned as key members under the 1st baby boomer cohort in reality key members of the 2nd Cohort instead? 68.146.223.162 (talk) 01:49, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

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Chart

Moved from my talk page:

Why would you apparently allow and/or support misleading info. on the population chart on Baby Boomers? It's not credible when users read it. It's better to completely remove the chart than give it a caption that's clearly erroneous. 2606:6000:610A:9000:78BF:A2EE:4833:BE55 (talk) 16:16, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

The if the chart has problems, we need the consensus of other editors to decide if it should be altered or removed. You may be right, but I'm not a terribly active editor on this article, so I don't feel comfortable unilateally removing it. But the relevant policy here is WP:RS. The sourced text trumps the pictures. Montanabw(talk) 19:50, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Current Age of Boomers

Look on the Baby Boomer page at the Strauss and Howe references all throughout it. They use 1943 as the first birth year. That would make the oldest Boomer 72 this year. Please stop changing information if you are not interested in the references that are included below. Slow down and read the page before making a change. Thank you. 2606:6000:610A:9000:8547:5B6E:711:E5E2 (talk) 19:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't care about the exact years, but that's unrelated to the fact that you've been removing the references to their ages. Change the years and the ages if the sources warrant it (but use the templates please, just putting verbatim ages is silly... time passes, you know?), but don't arbitrarily remove one of these, or make it not match the other. --LjL (talk) 19:23, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
We always need to go with the sources, so I wouldn't recommend any change unless they warranted them--but I can still speak my mind for the sake of reflection: I've always thought that demographers have missed the mark by a few years. Maybe it's just me, but I tend to view the boomers as "the 60s generation"--which is largely how I would guess they viewed themselves at that time. Roundabout 1969, you'd hear the phrase "Never trust anyone under 30". Well, if that is so, then someone 29 years old (safely under the bar) in 1969 would have been born in 1940. Now, you might say that might be stretching it back too far. But, consider this. If it is true, as the article points out, that certain late members of what is usually thought of as the previous generation (late members of the Silent Generation), turned out to be the most influential people with the Boomers (Lennon, McCartney, Dylan, etc.), then what would they have in common with the Silent Generation? They were anything but silent. And, if you look at the graph presented at the beginning of the article, you can clearly see that an upturn in births begins right at the very end of the 30s and beginning of the 40s. It makes a temporary downturn around '44 and '45, but that does not seem to be indicative of a trend, but rather an aberration to an otherwise upward trajectory that had been going on a few years. When Dylan first arrived on the folk scene in the early 60s--long before he went electric, he was clearly thought of as coming from a younger generation--say in comparison to people like Pete Seeger, or even the Kingston Trio. And, I think that even though they championed him as their "new hero" for a year or two--I have a gut feeling that there was a tension between he and they, even then. It was clearly on display when they gave him the Tom Paine award in early '64 (go read about it in any good Dylan bio). Dylan was clearly on the other side of the generation bar amongst the folkies, and I have a huch that they were always suspicious that he'd go eclectic. And, when the Beatles arrived in early '64, they were clearly seen as part of a new generation, not of what came before. I think that demographers make the mistake of looking too much in terms of what happened only after WWII when defining the generation, and miss that there might have been something going on before 1946. I like how the previous commentator mentioned something about 1943, three years before '46. Do demographers say you have to have been born after 9-11 to be of a certain generation? I don't think so. So why this fixation with post-war? I think that generations would be better off being defined by historians than government agencies (although I guess someone has to plan out their Social Security pensions). Generations are based on shared value systems and cultural paradigms of people born in certain periods in time. And, personally, I think that people born as early as 1940 or 1941 could be considered boomers. But, I'd grant that maybe one of these days they could come out with "cusps" between the generations, "buffer zones" of a few years, and allow for a bit of grey area. Garagepunk66 (talk) 09:00, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

While I personally think that both the theory of generations and the Strauss–Howe generational theory suffer from rather arbitrary divisions between the generations, we can not really base articles on our personal views or research. Remember the policy of Wikipedia:Verifiability: "In Wikipedia, verifiability means that anyone using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it." So to change what the article presents so far, we would need one or more sources that support the changes.

And the article on the Silent Generation (covering the people born from the mid 1920s to the early 1940s) points that the term was coined in 1951, before many of the members came of age. Some of these so-called "Silent" people included Malcolm X (born in 1925), Robert F. Kennedy (born in 1925), Miles Davis (born in 1926), Allen Ginsberg (born in 1926), Andy Warhol (born in 1928), Noam Chomsky (born in 1928), Martin Luther King, Jr. (born in 1929), Ray Charles (born in 1930), Stephen Sondheim (born in 1930), Little Richard (born in 1932), James Brown (born in 1933), Quincy Jones (born in 1933),Gloria Steinem (born in 1934), Elvis Presley (born in 1935), Bill Wyman (born in 1936), George Carlin (born in 1937), Ian Stewart (born in 1938), John Lennon (born in 1940), Ringo Starr (born in 1940), Richard Pryor (born in 1940), Charlie Watts (born in 1941), Jimi Hendrix (born in 1942), Paul McCartney (born in 1942), Brian Jones (born in 1942), George Harrison (born in 1943), Mick Jagger (born in 1943), and Keith Richards (born in 1943). Far from being silent, they turned up being among the most influential people of the 20th century. Dimadick (talk) 14:52, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, of course I wouldn't advocate any change in absence of sources--but it was nice to reflect. Maybe the name "Silent Generation" was misleading term. I'd clearly view Ginsburg and Malcolm X as people of the pre-boomer generation, but influential on and in the 60s. Young people in the 1960s clearly viewed them as part of the prior generation, but profoundly connected and influential. Whereas, young people in the 60s viewed Dylan and the Beatles as theirs. Dylan was often viewed as the lightening rod of the generation gap, and that was present even when he was in the folk world. Maybe it's just that there is some overlap in the years 1941-1945. Perhaps we might find sources that convey different perspectives and point them out, but within the framework of the article the way it is currently defined. Maybe, it is that I tend to look at it too much in terms of the 60s. This thing I call "the 60s Generation" might have been a combination of late Silent and early Boomers. But, there was clearly a thing viewed as "the 60s generation" that fell along those lines. Garagepunk66 (talk) 18:04, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Unreferenced stereotyping.

"One feature of the boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before." Every new generation thinks they are different. It is absurd to steretype by birth date. Some boomers were hippies, some were stock brokers, some were communists, some were far-right. Most of the article is completely ridiculous. No mention is made of the problems with inflation, 25% interest rates, the oil crisis, the Cold War, and the article simply echoes the myth that boomers all "had it easy". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.147.120.87 (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

The whole article is like this, as is most wider discussion of the subject. Younger people have always felt resentful of older people and rational argument has little to do with this. --Ef80 (talk) 11:56, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

"Ascribing universal attributes to any generation is tricky,. . . " That's a monumental understatement. Hard to believe that this article actually exists in this form. Stereotyping is not supposed to be good, right? Avocats (talk) 01:48, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

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Cause of Baby Boomer Generation?

The article does not state the causes of the baby boomer generation. --203.198.185.6 (talk) 02:48, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

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Unreferenced notable people section

I removed the recently added notable people section because it contained no references. Also, it included people born in Boomer/GenX cusp years, such as Barrack Obama, who has said publicly he does not consider himself to be part of the Baby Boomer generation [3] --DynaGirl (talk) 23:20, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

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Healthcare

Is Medicare going to crash under baby boomers? Tyram99 (talk) 17:30, 8 September 2017 (UTC) tyram99 9/8/17

Grammatical Errors and Missing Content

I suggest making grammatical revisions to the first sentence in the section about aging and end of life issues. Also, there could possibly be more information added under the healthcare section due to its brief nature. In addition to adding more information to the healthcare section, I recommend making the information that is currently there more clear for readers to understand.Chynichart (talk) 03:03, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Barack Obama

I removed the recent addition of Barack Obama. Obama was born in the Baby Boomer/GenX cusp years and he has stated he's not a Baby boomer. He personally identifies as a "post-boomer" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/weekinreview/21broder.html --DynaGirl (talk) 02:26, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

What I have been saying forever I think that in the last several years the end date of the Baby Boomer generation and start of Generation X has retroactively changed from 1964/1965 to 1960/1961, I think what has been happening is that people have been realizing that those born in the early '60s identify more with those born in the rest of the '60s and into the '70s than those born in the late '40s and '50s so it was probably best to put them with those born in those years, plus to say that the "boom" lasted until 1964 is at best incredibly misleading if not downright false, because while it may have taken until 1964 to get back to the rates they where "during" World War II there was also a big spike down in births during World War II for obvious reasons, birth rates had really gotten back to their Pre-World War II rates by 1961 at the latest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:4A:403:3F70:D11C:2656:EAF4:C1F3 (talk) 03:13, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

If you are going to be factual, you cannot remove Barack Obama because he does not "personally" identify as a Boomer or was born in the cusp years. Many of the 75 million people born in this period do not identify with the Baby Boomer label for whatever reason, however they are lumped in. The period ends in 1964. This article has been accused of negative bias and this is just one example of that, leaving out a president who was a Baby Boomer with a very high approval rating. I agree that Generation Jones was very different, but until that is recognized as it's own generation on a broad scale, this edit is inaccurate and looks like bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trailscout (talk • contribs) 21:43, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I support the article as it is now (to make no claim what generation Obama is in). It is well-known that boundaries between generations are fuzzy, that there are multiple conventions in use, and that one might use one or the other convention depending on what you want to focus on. It appears (to me, anyway) that the 64/65 boundary (Pew, etc.) is used when looking at birth rate numbers (and when interested in related statistical analyses, etc.), while the 60/61 boundary (Strauss/Howe) might be referenced when looking at cultural/attitudinal cohorts (which is often more interesting). Note that the Strauss/Howe definition has also been used by the National Science Foundation and National Geographic (as mentioned in the Generation X article). Therefore, early 60s births could legitimately be categorized as being in either generation, depending on what it is you're studying, and so I think the edit in question (Aug 2016) is valid. -- HLachman (talk) 05:23, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

HLachman U.S. birth rates started dropping precipitously starting in 1959, so why do you say what you did? A drop from 1959 to 1964 would not be a "boom" in birth rates. Look at the chart in the article to see what I mean. 2606:6000:6111:8E00:39F4:9C2F:1968:8540 (talk) 22:10, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
That's why I said "it appears". I don't actually know why Pew (etc.) use 1964 as their end date. I only know that statisticians have their own kind of logic (moving averages, second derivatives, standard deviations, etc.). No matter, it seems the article accurately represents that there are different definitions, with adequate citations. -- HLachman (talk) 17:02, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
Because that's the end date of every related source. We don't get to decided end dates here on Wiki. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE 19:31, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Obama was born in 1961, making him a Baby Boomer as it is defined by this article. Dates are fuzzy when it is convenient for a biased message is bad for Wikipedia. Read through the talk to see how this article is viewed as ageist bigotry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trailscout (talk • contribs) 23:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

According to the article some use 1960 as ending year for Baby boomer cohort and 1961 as first year for Post-boomers/Gen X and Barack Obama apparently personally identifies as a post-boomer. See article link provided at top of this section. DynaGirl (talk) 04:37, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Obama doesn't get to decide what generation he's in. He's a boomer, end of story. The end of the boomers was 1964, and that hasn't changed at all. Any removal of him is not based on expert sources. Obama needs to added back to the list of US Presidents that have had history effect. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE 19:29, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Two cohorts of baby boomers

Hi everyone, I previously signed in as an IP and tried to address the two cohorts of baby boomers part. It says baby boomer cohort 1 was born from 1946-1955 and baby boomer cohort 2 from 1956-1964. What I was trying to address is that most of the time baby boomer cohort 2 refers to this phenomenon known as “Generations jones”, referring to those born from 1954-1964 (the cut off begins then as 1953 babies were the last to be drafted for Vietnam). Does anyone think that we should change it to baby boomer cohort 1 being “1943-1953” and cohort 2 being “1954-1964”, with a disclaimer that 1961-1964 can sometimes be Gen X? CarlosTristan (talk) 12:15, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

A confusing post. Where does “Generations jones” come from? I've never heard of it, and I'm classical baby boomer who's been interested in these things most of my life. Why does it have anything to do with Vietnam. That obviously had no influence on when they were born. And you say "drafted". Does using that US term mean you are talking about just the USA? remember, this is a global encyclopaedia. Do you know the "draft" age in my country? (I don't need to tell you what it is.) And where did 1943 in your proposal come from? It's new to me. HiLo48 (talk) 21:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Generation Jones is an American term, rarely used elsewhere in the world. Jim Michael (talk) 16:03, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. HiLo48 (talk) 02:52, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Neil Kinnock, John Major

I've removed them multiple times because they certainly aren't baby boomers. Kinnock was born in 1942 & Major in 1943. The UK's baby boom began in 1946. Jim Michael (talk) 16:02, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense to me. HiLo48 (talk) 02:52, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
While I think there's grounds to debate all of the info in that unsourced section (stating definitively there has been 3 prime ministers without a source for this seem problematic, given varying dates), but the IP hopper has not been debating and instead of debating outright deleted this talk page discussion [4] and reverted again [5]! I reverted IP and added citation needed tag for the debated unsourced information.DynaGirl (talk) 13:03, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. You're right, of course, about the broader need for sourcing. I was somewhat busy when I first saw this fight, but could not abide the certainty with which Kinnock and Major were being added, especially given the uncertainty in the sources about when the Baby Boomer period began. To me, a boomer born in 1948, it began when servicemen returned from WWII, got married, and began producing children. That would be 1946. All the figures and graphs show the population "boom" at that time. My view came from the adults and media around me when and when I was a kid. It is matched by the Pew Research source. I cannot see how earlier dates make sense. I know that what I "know" is OR according to Wikipedia, even if it's right. But let's try to get some sense into the article. HiLo48 (talk) 22:08, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
The IP incorrectly claims that everyone born in the 40s is a baby boomer. The baby boom in the UK certainly began in 1946; the birth rate shot up that year. In addition, the sentence is unsourced & I've never heard Kinnock or Major being referred to as baby boomers. Jim Michael (talk) 00:01, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

"it began when servicemen returned from WWII, got married, and began producing children."

In other words, the demobilisation phase at the end of the war, when servicemen and servicewomen were waiting to be discharged. Part of what was going on is covered in Demobilisation of the Australian military after World War II, Demobilisation of the British Armed Forces after the Second World War, and Demobilization of United States armed forces after World War II. All three articles consider the demobilization to have been completed by 1947. Dimadick (talk) 14:35, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Many servicemen were already married, but regardless of that, a disproportionately high number of people had children in the years following the end of WW2.
There was also a baby boom after WW1, but those people aren't referred to as baby boomers. Jim Michael (talk) 19:26, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Birth years in the article

We should use the phrase "birth years starting from the early- to mid-1940s and ending anywhere from 1960 to 1964." because we can find a bunch of articles to back this up for example https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/06/millennials-are-happiest-in-cities/563999/ 2606:6000:6111:8E00:C1DB:7256:CE5A:BD11 (talk) 16:20, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

This article is so many claims with no citations

All over this article is just wild claims, just wild agist claims, and I don't like old people but generalizations like this are just as usless as racism.

"One feature of the boomers was that they have tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before or that has come afterward"

How could you even prove this? This article is afwul. People who push generation theory are awful too.

I mean seriously, this is just a stupid sentence. And this article is full of them.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cowgirlbeebop (talk • contribs) 07:38, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Checked and this statement was referenced. It appears you've added citation needed tag to referenced statement as well as added multiple unreferenced statements to the lead.DynaGirl (talk) 10:51, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Cowgirlbeebop The characterization comes from a 1976 article about the Boomers being the "me generation". See http://nymag.com/news/features/45938/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:6000:6111:8E00:39F4:9C2F:1968:8540 (talk) 22:15, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
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