This is one of those posts I need to write now because if I wait any longer I won’t remember to do it. Yeah, I’m getting to that age where what I had for breakfast is a mystery to me. Oh, yeah…, now I remember what I wanted to write about. It’s about how generations beyond us Baby Boomers are saying we are

disappearing into irrelevancy.

But I, as usual, have a different say in this matter:

• We were known for our rebellion against so many things of our parent’s generation. We got involved in the world around us, whereas our parents seemed to just do what they were told. In the 1960s, college campuses were awash with demonstrations. We let the government and military know that we didn’t want to die in a war on the other side of the world that had nothing to do with us. We marched in Civil Rights demonstrations that would start the change of the Apartheid South. We invented Rock Concerts for our favorite artists such as Peter, Paul, & Mary, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and countless others. Those were the days when the lyrics to songs actually meant something.

• We had a strong work ethic. During our years in the corporate world, we spent many unpaid overtime hours on the job. We wanted to get everything we did just right. We wanted to be known for what we accomplished. Our self-worth depended on that.

• Baby Boomers have a high purchasing power. – All you folks who came after us (I call you AfterBoomers) will someday envy how much we as a whole managed to save. With that savings, we now have wealth. What we do with that wealth is up to us. Many will choose to pass it on to their children, but many others will not.
• We became consumers – Where our parents, due to their experiences in the Great Depression, were about saving money, we became spenders and borrowers. Unfortunately, “Buy now, pay later” became a mindset for too many of us. In 2020, we Baby Boomers spent $230 billion on consumer packaged goods.
• Baby Boomers are digital – Unlike our parents, as we got older, we embraced new technologies. Even in 2013, a higher percentage of us spent more time on-line than we did in front of a TV. We were on-line an average of 27 hours per week. The most common reason to be on-line was the easy access of information, and staying up to date with politics and policy issues. Despite what Millennials believe, Baby Boomers account for more than half the on-line purchases. 54% of us also watch videos on-line regularly. Retirement communities better figure that out and move beyond the 20th century to draw us in.

Millennials and Gen Zs often hit on us because of our work ethic. They say we didn’t spend enough time on family matters. That might be true, but in the end they will be the benefactors of our work ethic. As we die off, our children will inherit a whopping $72 trillion from us. For those who are fortunate enough to have had parents who accumulated wealth, they will get an average of more than $500,000 each!

So, before you write us off as irrelevant, maybe you should wait for your inheritance checks. If you don’t, we might decide to give our money to a more worthy cause.