I think it’s only appropriate to have a page on here that defines who the “Baby Boomers” really are. To be honest, it’s a term that has always made me bristle. I guess it’s the word “Baby” that I find irksome. It looks like no matter how old this generation gets to be, we’ll always have “Baby” attached to the term that describes our generation.

Imagine Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, the first of the Baby Boomers who was born on January 1, 1946 at 12:00:01AM, when she reaches 80 on January 1, 2026 (God willing) being referred to as the first Baby Boomer to reach 80.

See what I’m getting at?

Anyway, the Baby Boomer generation is the group that was born between 1946 and roughtly 1965 - the cutoff date seems to be debated. The group is further divided into two sub groups or more appropriately “sub cohorts”.

• Cohort #1 from 1946 - 1954
• Cohort #2 from 1955 - 1964

Cohort #2 (my group) is often referred to as “Generation Jones”. Why, I’m not sure. Maybe it derives from keeping up with the Joneses.

Cohort #1 is characterized as : experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented. Whereas my group is supposed to have these traits: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism.

OK, whatever.

This all comes from the Wikipedia entry for “Baby Boomers“. I won’t waste time and space reproducing it all here. It is an interesting read though. And yes, I know that Wikipedia can’t always be trusted, but for a lot of things I think it gets the core facts pretty close.

The Wikipedia entry lists no fewer than 20 labels that have been applied to the Baby Boomer generation.

Remember “The Me Generation” or “Then Now Generation” and my favorite “The TV Generation“?

Perhaps the one label that describes how I and a lot of my peers were raised is “The Spock Generation“.

And no, that’s not Mr. Spock as in “beam me up Scottie“, but Dr. Spock who penned that famous book on how to raise babies and toddlers back during the 50’s and 60’s. I used to get the two confused when I was a kid. I kept checking my ears for the tell-tale points that I was sure were going to develop because I was raised according to the teachings of the good doctor.

One thing that was hammered home during the 60’s was that it’s pointless to paste labels on things, especially people.

Yes, there are shared experiences and memories, such as the historic landing on the moon in 1969 and the incredible shock and sorrow of the assassination of President Kennedy, but there are millions of individual stories from this generation, like generations before it, that deserve to be heard.