Wooley: Charles Wooley’s Talkin’ ‘bout his generation

How did the best intentions of a such a peace lovin’ generation who wanted to save the world result in a generation who only want to save themselves? laments CHARLES WOOLEY

How did the good vibrations of the 1969 Woodstock music festival and the best intentions of a generation who wanted to save the world result in such a selfish generation?

“ I HOPE I die before I get old.”

Thus sang The Who in their 1960s anthem of angry teenage rebellion, My Generation.

Fifty years later, how things have changed. Clearly the Baby Boomers having failed to fulfil their earlier death-wish have grown old and apparently now want to live forever. At least that’s how it looks as the greedy old duffers trample mothers with young children and even each other for dunny paper, rice, pasta, mince and anything else to ensure they survive well into their one hundred and twenties.

Perish that thought. And perish this bunch of entitled, selfish, grey misanthropes with their precious franking credits. They even have the temerity to complain about being disadvantaged by low interest rates which allow their kids to buy into the inflated housing market the greedy old buggers created.

And yes, all the more distressing is that this thoughtless and self-centred cohort are indeed My Generation!

I ask myself how could this mob have ever evolved from the Summer of Love and from those anti-materialist, fun loving hippies who chanted, “Never trust anyone over 30.”

They were doubly right as it turned out. No wonder my kids certainly don’t trust anyone over 60. Present company excepted. (I don’t think).

My whole generation has been tarred with the same selfish brush, although before the last election many of us had never heard of or cared about franked credits.

Many of us are not hoarding rice and dunny paper but we are all condemned by the miserly actions of those who do.

My generation’s rot started with a book. Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care (1946) has been blamed for destroying parental authority and social discipline by putting the baby in charge of the creche. It sold more than 50 million copies in 42 languages and was accused of subverting family life and creating a generation of spoilt brats.

Spock encouraged my generation’s parents to see babies as individuals and to cater to their individual needs. Feed them when they demanded and let them sleep when they wanted. If they pooed on the floor, pat their little heads but whatever you do don’t rub their cute little noses in it.

Contrary to conventional baby advice the Spock revolution announced that you could not love your baby too much. The whole Victorian tradition of restrained affection went out the window. The once reserved mothers and the stern fathers of the past were replaced with parents who mollycoddled and doted.

The result was my generation.

Thanks for the fun Dr. Spock but just take me through it again. How did the good vibrations of Woodstock and Sunbury, and the best intentions of a generation who wanted to save the world now result in a generation who only want to save themselves.

Bad potty training no doubt.

How did the good vibrations of the 1969 Woodstock music festival and the best intentions of a generation who wanted to save the world result in such a selfish generation?

Of course, not all of the awful behaviour recently should be attributed to the bulk of this column’s mature, though mostly decent and thoughtful, readers. The kind of readers I used to hear from in a vanished world where people met and we talked in the street.

I fear the gregarious and needy boomers will not do well alone.

I am sure the traditional unopinionated and temperate reasonability of this column will survive today’s crossover from magazine to newspaper. Accordingly let’s concede that generational analysis is often a bit like defining national or racial character. It blurs at the edges and large nails are often hit not quite on the head. Still you get the drift, in letters to the editor and the online protests of the keyboard warriors, that many of them (especially the ones who can spell) are baby boomers defending the indefensible. They protest too much. They have had the best innings and the longest in Australian history.

And they know it.

At the end of their dream-run the decent thing to do would be to declare and send in the kids to bat.

Not all boomers are selfish. Take the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick 69, who told Fox News this week that America should accept the risk of COVID-19 and “go back to work”. He accepts the elderly are in danger but believes most American grandparents would accept the risk so as not to sacrifice their grandchildren’s future. He asked America’s boomers, “As a senior citizen are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?

Knowing the Australian baby boomers, I would think the answer here would be a resounding “NO”.

The lieutenant governor’s thinking might in some ways align with Scott Morrison’s reluctance to interrupt the Australian education process.

Regardless, I’m off the hook as my kids have pulled my grandchildren out of school and now, we only worry about the welfare of my son-in-law who teaches snotty-nosed primary schoolers.

You might think a selfish baby boomer grandparent would stay well away from him.

I couldn’t possibly comment.