Boomers - your time is up ...

Wouldn’t you know it - the generation that hoped they’d die before they grew old are still hogging the limelight at 60.

We were the “it’s time” generation who imagined peace and egalitarianism but too soon discovered that money, success and power were the ultimate trip.

But tell a Boomer that and we’ll quickly spring to the defence of our spoiled cohort and point out “our contribution”. There’s no doubt some truth about the nation-building capacities of Baby Boomers but we’ve seen to it that the spoils we enjoyed stopped with us.

The lucky generation had access to jobs, permanent ones, with sick leave and holiday pay thrown in for good measure. We could borrow money and plan a future. And if we dropped out of the workforce or had some time between study and the now long-forgotten 38-hour week, a welfare system stepped in to make sure we had money to pay for shelter and food.

While unemployment was frowned upon, it was more or less tolerated as a child's rite of passage: you might have been called a “dole bludger” but you weren’t made to feel like a Centrelink loser.

Most of us who went to university didn’t have to work 20 hours a week and more, in fact many of us didn’t work at all. Boomers got to laze around on manicured lawns beneath ivy-clad walls, enjoyed well-maintained facilities and had plenty of time for reading, research and university life.

And at the end of a hard day’s night, after smoking a little pot and pondering the meaning of life, we had stay-at-home mums who were ready and waiting to cook, clean and pick up after their too-indulged children.

We were free, Baby, and so were our universities. Now degrees are auctioned off to the highest bidder but are worth a lot less than when there was no price tag attached.

There’s less opportunity to study politics and philosophy - they’ve been ditched in favour of more vocational subjects. And there’s no time for existential angst anyway, when there’s a mounting HECS debt to repay, and a dole queue to join.

So, while literature and history units shut down in many Australian universities, degrees in business and economics that teach our children “bottom lines” and “economies of scale”, are flourishing.

But not even this economic “nous” will help Y and X generations when it comes to buying a home close to where they work and play. They’ll have to come up with a more than cool deposit to buy even a bed-sitter.

Ignore negative gearing and the Baby Boomer’s no-fault hegemon is preserved.

Even so, the X and Y generation brood are less interested in playing house than we were - not only can’t they afford to, they don’t want to. Could it be they’ve seen the error of their parents’ ways? After all, we’ve hardly painted a picture of domestic bliss.

Monogamy and children are now passé in a society that has neglected the family, put the brakes on equality and in many ways deserted its children.

Why get married when divorce beckons, and who cares about zero population growth when reproduction puts your career on the line and good affordable child-care is put in the too-hard basket?

Despite all this X and Y generation gloom, Baby Boomers are optimistic, and why not? They’re set for long and agreeable retirements, funded by big fat cheques, comfortable real estate and juicy portfolios. But age shall weary us, and when it does, it will be generation X and Y who look after our future.

Nursing homes and the health system are already in crisis mode; generations deprived of opportunity may well look to their inheritance as a means to securing what they have otherwise been denied.

Blame it on the Boomers: they framed the policy that ensures permanent full-time work is out of younger people’s reach; insisted on payment for higher education; and fostered competition, consumption and individualism.

Move over Baby Boomers, it’s time to let someone else drive the car.