I'm a Baby Boomer. There you go. I've said it. Now I'll just sit back and take a kicking. It's no more than I deserve, apparently.
Only today, writing in the Mail On Sunday, Vince Cable (who I quite liked!) has accused the old of shafting the young via the Brexit vote. I'm so angry I could cry.
It seems to me that those of us who happened to be born at the end of the SWW are being held responsible for pretty much all the ills of society. And we're not. We're individuals, just like the rest of you, and it can be annoying to open my morning paper or watch the TV news to find it's all my fault that the nation's going to hell in a handcart. It's not just annoying, it's hurtful and frustrating....and wrong. We are too easy a target and it's lazy journalism to make an entire generation into scapegoats.
To begin at the beginning, we can't seriously be held responsible for the fact that our fathers returned from the theatre of war and all its accompanying horrors to fall, with joy and relief, into the welcoming arms of our mothers. We didn't get a say in the matter. But there we were. A whole load of babies, an army of us, if you will, with the sole intention of being an over privileged elite for the rest of our lives....quite deliberately.....allegedly.
We kicked off by overwhelming the welfare state. There was barely enough of that vile orange juice that came in medicine type bottles to go round. But we glugged it down our greedy little throats and grew big and strong. And then we had to be educated, demanding little bleeders that we were. And this is where the 'spoilt generation' theory starts to come unstuck. We ended up in overcrowded classrooms with hardworking, well intentioned teachers who had simply too many kids to monitor individually, so the less bright ended up at the back of the room, overlooked and under-educated. I know this. Years later I would be a voluntary one-to-one teacher of the many adults who came out of that system unable to to read or write. Bright, capable people who fell through a net that was bursting at the seams.
But on we strode, towards the Eleven Plus examination. I was reasonably bright and general expectations were that I might, in fact, pass and go on to the Grammar School. But I didn't. Nor did a lot of my classmates who had also been rated capable of passing. Our parents smelled a rat. And we were not demanding people. I came from a lower working class family. We knew our place. We didn't make a fuss.....usually. On this occasion, however, the families of just too many children, not all of them from the poorer end of the village, were shocked by the results and a meeting was called, attended by my mother who came home furious at having been told, by men in suits, that yes, there were a number of children who had achieved the requisite marks but, as there were too few places for too many children, they had had no choice to but to cream off those with the highest marks and condemn the rest to secondary modern education. And hard luck. Our numbers were a disadvantage, and we'd just have to live with it.
And thus we did, eventually leaving school at fourteen to an undeniably plentiful job market. Not necessarily the jobs we aspired to, and not many of them open to those of us without any qualifications, but there was low paid work to be had.. So we took what was going and worked hard. The work ethic was strong in us Baby Boomers and we grafted for the deposits that would enable us to buy our first homes, a privilege denied to most of our parents, the majority of whom were still in rented accommodation. Interest rates were high, which was fine if you were rich, but most of us weren't and taking on that monthly commitment was a scary business. Then, eventually, as we neared retirement age, we became the owners of those homes. Lucky us. We had what we'd worked and saved and paid for.
Yet now we are reviled, as if we are directly responsible for the fact that the young have an almost impossible struggle to get a foot on the property ladder, and nobody regrets this more than I do. I have three children and I have to watch them, longing for homes of their own and repeatedly finding it beyond them. This situation was created by the ineptitude of bankers and governments, not me. And no, I can't solve the problem for my kids. I think I mentioned my origins. I have no inherited fortune in the bank. What we have is the little we've saved from working all our lives whilst raising a family. It didn't leave much over.
Yes, I eventually got an education, as a mature student, with my fees paid and a full grant, to boot! That would be unimaginable riches to today's students, and I too have a daughter still trying to pay off her loan, long years after leaving Uni. I'm eternally grateful for my good fortune. It transformed my life in so many ways. But nothing I've done has contributed to the tragic lack of that opportunity for today's generation.
I learnt my socialism at my grandfather's knee. I've been a staunch Labour supporter all my life. I voted Remain in the referendum and wept when we lost. Make note of that. I'm old AND a Remainer, along with pretty much all of my friends, colleagues and neighbours in the same age bracket. Obviously the Leavers are out there, but I don't know any.
Yet much of the media has turned me into some horrible caricature of a blue rinsed, selfish, right wing, immigrant hating harridan with more money than intellect, narrow of outlook and hanging on to my ill-gotten gains, along with my sense of entitlement, with the feverish grip of some uncaring dowager. And I'm none of those things.
I try to give back to the society that nurtured me by working in the charitable sector and, whilst I can't support my adult children financially, I help out by providing free childcare as and when I'm able. That too is my privilege and pleasure.
Nobody bewails the shit we're in more loudly than I do. Nobody rages against the iniquitous inequalities of our society more vociferously. If I had the means to change it all I fucking would!
But I don't. And I'm not responsible for it either. I don't belong to some strange homogeneous group that can be conveniently blamed for all that ails us. I am not over indulged. I have a state pension and a bus pass. I'm hugely grateful for both and lament the fact that they will almost certainly be denied to the next generation, but that's not MY call. My life hasn't been an easy ride. And I never take the fact that I'm now happy, healthy and have a nice life for granted. I wish it could be so for everyone.
So please, people of the media, look elsewhere for the cause of societies problems, because it's not me.
Thanks for reading.
