It's gotten to the point where I was almost loathing them myself – those baby boomers. Such is the venom directed at boomers by the young that it seems ungracious not to get on board and blame them for everything.
But I won't join in. Much of the hate is the mere cant of complaining, grasping youths who, heaven help them, want what someone else has achieved.
More than once I have been informed by some whining new graduate of a journalism program that he would like to be the television critic for The Globe and Mail and, if yours truly and other baby boomers would stop squatting on the good jobs, he could take over.
This amuses me. While I fall into the age category of baby boomers, I spent the 1960s running around the fields of Ireland in short trousers. I wasn't at Woodstock. I wasn't really aware of the Beatles until they had broken up. For Christmas I got a stick, the better to poke the potatoes from the ground. For my birthday I got a sod of peat turf. Happy days.
In the matter of the baby boomer generation (that is, in the U.S., born 1946 to 1964), the year 2014 marks an important shift, because the last boomers turn 50. How do I know this? A fine and thoughtful program airing tonight tells me so. It will annoy the bejeepers out of the young.
American Masters: The Boomer List (PBS, 9 p.m.) is a cornucopia of boomer memories and insights. The idea is they are "American Masters," the lot of them. Mind you, many women are included, so the "Masters" in the title is a tad dismaying. The list also includes Kim Cattrall who is, of course, an English-Canadian actor of some distinction, but we'll have to let that go.
The point of the program, made by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, is to "tell the story of this influential generation through the lives of 19 iconic boomers – one born each year of the baby boom."
The interviews are short and pithy. Billy Joel (born 1949) kicks it off and describes how his parents dealt with the Depression and Second World War, so they should be admired for that. He talks about the impact of the Beatles and how he worked on an oyster boat at 18 and the older guys made fun of him for wearing gloves.
He remembers passing big houses on the shore and now he owns one of those houses. He seems pleased, not so much with himself, but with his generation. Hard work, creativity and drive to succeed made him rich and famous.
Samuel L. Jackson (born 1948) talks about his mother working as the hired help in rich, white homes and resenting the patronizing attitude. He cheerfully rejects assumptions about black men in America, pointing out that he's never been arrested or jailed.
In his introduction, Greenfield-Sanders says of the baby boomer generation and its history, "We tend to idealize, compress and mythologize."
This comes into focus with designer Tommy Hilfiger (born 1951), who presents his story as that of old-fashioned grit and guile. He started his own clothing company but got nowhere. So "I went to the Gap, cut the labels out and put my own labels in. Put them in a duffel bag, went to Bloomingdale's, knocked on the door, then Saks Fifth Avenue, and I sold my line to them." He hustled, and hustled. "I'm not embarrassed to call myself a redesigner," he declares happily. "Pants were invented a very long time ago."
Author Amy Tan (born 1952) points out that she was 37 when she was first published. She talks about the experience of being Chinese-American in her youth. "I thought I didn't have dates because I was ugly and I thought I was ugly because I was Chinese."
When Kim Cattrall arrives she's funny, dry and self-deprecating. "I did Porky's to pay the rent," she says. But also she notes that early in her career she realized what women actors faced. "If we stood up for what we believed in, we were thought of as being difficult or a bitch." She points out that someone of her age had the experience of the arrival of AIDS. "What changed things for all of us was the AIDS epidemic. You could die from having sex." About getting older, she says, "I have wrinkles. Let it be part of the story." And then with a hearty laugh, adds, "If I'm well-lit!"
If there is a theme it is to remind us – and the young if they bother to watch – that the idea of an easy route to success for the baby boomers is an act of mythologizing. Some things achieved were hard-fought and through bitter battles. The acceptance of gays and lesbians in mainstream society. The advancement of women. The message too is this – be nice to people who made the world better and more interesting.
Pre-Twitter, pre-Google, life was actually exciting, as it is now. So be nice to boomers; don't hate us for being great.