Free love and education v free downloads and a fee-paying education

Generation Y’s pigeon-like attraction to the family home is widely known. ABS figures indicate that 21 per cent of 20-somethings lived with their parents in 1976, compared to over 30 per cent today. While economic factors undoubtedly add to the allure of rent-free accommodation and complimentary hot dinners, a generation happy to stay at home indefinitely can hardly be equated with a generation at war with their parental figures.

Indeed, according to findings from the Australian Institute of Family Studies' Australian Temperament Project, which has followed 2,500 children since 1983, Y-gen kids are likely to see their parents as friends, not evil oppressors.

As University of Queensland geography professor Martin Bell noted recently in the Sunday Mail: "When I was in my 20s everyone couldn't wait to leave home. But now young people can do at home what I was never allowed to."

The study also found that the subjects were most likely to be working or studying, with a strong tendency to act responsibly (i.e. no funny mushrooms or unsightly piercings) and planned to get married or settle down (i.e. much like their parents).

Figures also show that generation Y is turning conservative in the political stakes. Almost 40 per cent of those between 18 and 34 support the Coalition’s IR changes, according to a report last month in the Sun Herald. While left-of-centre commentators are wondering where the radical youths have gone, it’s hardly evidence of a generation gap if young people are supporting a government that their parents have already voted into office four times.

And while politics may be heading back to the fifties, current fashion is awash with sixties and seventies revivals - as we all get about looking like Mum and Dad in the twin sets, the minis, the hippy beads, the platforms, the pumps; even dare we say it, the tweed. If it’s not vintage, then it better look like it is. The current edition of Vogue features Australia’s top model Gemma Ward in mod makeup and Jackie O-style trench dress.

At 47 years of age, Madonna is still at the top of the music charts with her latest album, Confessions On A Dance Floor complete with her 1970s leotard and ABBA sample, while everyone’s favourite, Jessica Simpson has been in the top ten for weeks with her (albeit sacrilegious) cover of Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Were Made For Walkin.

And at the movies, the most shocking thing out is Inside Deep Throat, a documentary about the 1970s porn-classic our parents snuck off to see when they were our age.

Yep, everything old is new again. And again, and again.

Alternately, boomers are hardly staying away from the trivial pursuits of youth. Nothing is sacred, not even technology - stereotypically the domain of the young and the brainless. Internet use is booming among Australian adults, according to the ABS, increasing from 31 per cent in 1998 to 52 per cent in 2002.

Every second middle-aged commuter you see on the train owns an iPod. George Dubya Bush owns an iPod. Hell, even Queen Elizabeth owns one. And my mum text messages me using abbreviations previously known only to rappers.

But it doesn’t stop there. Boomers are stuck on high rotation when it comes to pervading pop culture. Bob Dylan is flogging his latest CD in Starbucks stores, Germaine Greer made a guest appearance on Big Brother - not to mention Madonna getting about in those leotards looking more buff than most girls a quarter of her age.

And while Y is renowned as the “me, me, me” generation, boomers are certainly giving them a run for their money. Literally. Recent research by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute found that 25 per cent of boomers expected to spend all their assets before they die. One wonders what Peter Costello would have to say about that?

The battle lines in this clash of generations are far from clear. Not only are we all living with the enemy but we are dressing and sounding like each other as well. While this could be some sort of elaborate guerrilla tactic, it is more likely that predictions of out-and-out conflict between boomers and their children belie an even scarier generation trap.

Gen Y is more like their parents than either party would care to admit.