Hey! Kerry is NOT a Boomer! What does this mean for America?

[KoKo]

He's a "Tweenie!" What is his music...what molded and shaped him?

He's NOT A BOOMER! What can we expect with this guy whose between Bush I and Clinton in age group?

What is that age group like? And what about his wife?

Who are these people who are going to be elected on 11/2 and how and why are they "Something New" in Politics?

[aquart]

1. They're sane. Good enough.

[Webster Green]

2. Not a boomer?

That is surprising to me. What is the cut-off date for being a boomer?

[Maple]

3. 1946-1965

is a boomer.

65-70 is gen X

70-80 is gen y

Kerry is a war baby.

Although why this matters to anyone I don't know

[greekspeak]

9. Where did you get those ranges?

I have always heard

45-64 Boomers
65-84 Gen X
84-04 Gen Y

Generations last 20 years.

[Radio-Active]

14. that seems about right!

[HuckleB]

17. That's much closer to the notion of generations.

Though cultural factors are also considered in such designations. Many of those born after 1960 are much closer to Gen X culturally than they are to Boomers, and many of those born in the late '70s on have much more in common with Gen Y than Gen X, etc...

[carolinalady]

37. actually Gen x starts at 1964 those of us born in 1965 are without

a home.

[Dems Will Win]

34. It's a flexible, not rigid border, a general demographic

It really depends what your parents were like.

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Depending on where you draw your lines...

The 'baby boom' was supposed to be the kids born to the returning WW2 veterans. By that logic, I'm NOT a boomer (born 1963) because my father was too young to serve in WW2 (born 1941). I consider myself a tweener, born too late for the boom (and to participate in the Vietnam era), to late for 'that 70's show' type life.

[Maple]

6. LOL yer a boomer

The baby boom was a population explosion continuing for many years after WWII.

Normal birthrates didn't return till 1965.

[HawkerHurricane]

12. Nope, don't accept the title.

Artificial thing designed to sell things to people, or classify them for other reasons.

[jdj]

35. wasn't it Pete Townsend that said, the baby boom generation

was the result of soldiers coming home from the WW2 and f*cking until there d*cks were blue??

Or something like that? I've always defined that generation that way, cause it made the most sense to me since the war ended in '46. As far as the end being 65, I didn't know it went on that long.

[HuckleB]

16. Sociologist have noted a fair difference culturally between those...

born after 1960 and those of "the boom" born before 1960. And many folks, as evidenced here, born in that era don't consider themselves to be boomers.

[yardwork]

29. I was born in 1960 and I've never identified with the "boomers"

and I've noticed that a lot of them don't like "my" generation. The boomers called us "apathetic" and a lot of other not-very-nice terms when we were in college. We called them a lot of not-very-nice terms.

Those of us born between 1958 and 1964 or so seem to inhabit a twilight zone, somewhere between boomers and Gen Xers.

[RobinA]

40. Born in 1958

I consider myself a Boomer come late to the party. My main influences were Boomer stuff and I wanted to BE at Woodstock, even though I was way too young. Felt left out because I never had the chance to join the SDS. No Xer apathy here.

[KoKo]

25. Some "drawing of lines" for Boomers.......links here:

A baby boomer is someone born in a period of increased birth rates following World War II. In the United States, demographers have put the generation's birth years at 1946 to 1964, despite the fact that the U.S. birth rate (per 1,000 population) actually began to decline after 1957. William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their book Generations include those conceived by soldiers on leave during the war, putting the generation's birth years at 1943 to 1960. (Strauss and Howe base their years on peer personality, not parental fecundity, so their years may not coincide with the actual "Boom".)

Interestingly, the birth rate actually began to climb in 1940: From that year through 1943, the U.S. birth rate rose four years in a row for the first time since at least the beginning of the 19th Century; following a brief interruption due to the wartime absence of would-be fathers, the "boom" picked up where it left off after World War II ended.

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:PsfNB054SZYJ:www.wordiq.com/definition/Baby_Boomers+1943+Boomers&hl=en

[camero]

5. Pat Buchanan is a Tweener, Bob Dole is one too

More than likely centrist.

[KoKo]

23. No on Bob Dole.........check him out...no "tweener" there...(n/t)

[American Tragedy]

26. Bob Dole a tweener?

He was in WWII, doesn't that automatically make him G.I. Generation?

[camero]

42. Yeah it does

I stand corrected.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. Darned nice folks

My brother was born in '41. As an adoring little sister I can tell you that he listened to classical music but also liked rock and roll. He started working at age 9, making Paperboy of the Year twice. He went on to work at a grocery store, which he did until he joined the Army in '60. Like Kerry, he went to 'Nam, did two tours, won a Silver Star (thank God no Purple Hearts!). He has always been an internationalist (his first wife was German, his daughter married a German) and is bilingual. He has been active in charitble causes, and is well liked. His kids are active in music/dance/the arts and also dig social causes. His wife is a Boomer like me, and they are both Yellow Dog Democrats.

The other 'tweener I know something about is Sam Waterston-'nuff said.

[coreystone]

8. Ann Coulter is a "boomer"! I'll go with John Kerry! Any Questions?...

;-)

[name not needed]

19. Ann Coulter *has* a boomer

:P

[KoKo]

22. Ann Coulter is a Man...and she's clutching with her toenails to Boomer

status...:D

[KoKo]

24. Great Boomer Links........and BTW it's 1946 that's most commonly accepted

as "cut off" for "Boomer" births...despite what "books" have appeard since trying to lump "tweeners" with the Boomers...It was very different when you were born then. So much technology was just coming on the scened and what year you were born did make a difference in how you viewed the advances that the "true" Boomers took for granted. :D

A Google view with a little foreward commentary:

In Canada, the Baby Boom is usually defined as the generation born from 1947 to 1966 – Canadian servicemen were repatriated later than American servicemen, and Canada's birth rate did not start to rise till 1947, and most Canadian demographers prefer to use the later date of 1966 as the boom's end in that country.

Whatever year they were born, Boomers were coming of age at the same time across the world, so that Britain was undergoing Beatlemania while people in America were driving over to Woodstock, organizing against the Vietnam War, or fighting and dying in the same war, Boomers in Italy were dressing in mod clothes and "buying the world a Coke", Boomers in India were seeking new philosophical discoveries, American Boomers in Canada had just found a new home after escaping the draft south of the border, Canadian Boomers were organizing support for Pierre Trudeau, and Boomers in Mexico were discovering new hallucinogenic drugs and rediscovering old ones. Although the term "Boomer" has fallen into global use, the generation is also known in Europe as the Generation of 1968.

Definition of Baby boomer

The Boomer Initiative (also known as American Association of Baby ...
... A Profile of the Baby Boom Years: 1946-1964. This site developed and maintained
by SLACK Incorporated Submit comments and questions to the Webmaster.
www.babyboomers.com/ - 3k - Cached - Similar pages

Baby boomer - Wikipedia
... A baby boomer is someone born in a period of increased birth rates following World ...
States, demographers have put the generation's birth years at 1946 to 1964 ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

Welcome to the BOOMER BABY.com
... Boomer Factoids: The official years of the Baby Boom Generation (1946 through 1964)
saw a marked increase in the number of births in North America. ...
www.boomerbaby.com/ - 16k - Cached - Similar pages

Baby Boom Generation Factoids
... What are the official years of the Baby Boom Generation? 1946 - 1964 saw
a marked increase in the number of births in North America. ...
www.itseemslikeyesterday.com/BabyBoom/factoids.asp - 26k - Cached - Similar pages

The Baby Boom: Americans Born 1946 to 1964, 4th ed.
The Baby Boom: Americans Born 1946 to 1964, 4th ed. The Baby Boom: Americans Born
1946 to 1964 is the fourth edition of a definitive reference by a nationally ...
www.marketresearch.com/product/display. asp?productid=1005832&SID=60626602-302244599-295629917 - 25k - Cached - Similar pages

NC State Sports, Illustrated: The Baby Boom, 1946-1950s
... NC State Sports, Illustrated: The Baby Boom, 1946-1950s. The end of the
war was greeted with relief and elation. Birth rates hit ...
www.lib.ncsu.edu/archives/exhibits/sports/boom.html - 12k - Cached - Similar pages

Time divides baby boomers - 07/11/04
... There’sa great distance between Barry Manilow and Barry Bonds. Manilow, the singer,
was born in 1946, the first year of the postwar baby boom. ...
www.detnews.com/2004/lifestyle/0407/11/a14-208608.htm - 30k - Cached - Similar pages

Baby boomer
... United States, demographers have put the generation's birth years at 1946 to 1964 ...
In Canada the Baby Boom is usually defined as the generation born from 1947 to ...
www.fact-index.com/b/ba/baby_boomer.html - 11k - Cached - Similar pages
What age is a person who is considered a baby boomer?
... The babies were sort of a side effect. If you figure that WWII ended around 1945,
you could say that the baby boom started in 1946 (nine months later). ...
ask.yahoo.com/ask/19981207.html - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

[Dastard Stepchild]

33. no..no... Ann Coulter is a "boner"

n/t

[DuaneBidoux]

10. I'm a Boomer and I'm afraid my generation is proving to be a dangerous

group of people. The same zeal we carried to fight the war in Vietnam and search for ourselves is being used among right wing fundy Boomers in their search to "resestablish" a Christian America (you know, the kind where we lynched people without trials).

[American Tragedy]

27. many members of your generation seem to have very short memories

judging from current events. Where the hell did that Vietnam/Watergate political conscience go?

[DuaneBidoux]

32. Amazing how priorities change when you got an $1800 a month mortgage.

[RobinA]

41. Hell, I'm a Boomer

and I wonder this too. I tell myself it's different people dominating the culture at different times, but then I read in the paper that Boomers who should know better are now school principals who support searching student cars for contraband and I just have to wonder.

[madrchsod]

11. ahhhhh what?

how old are you? Kerry-bush-Clinton and i are all born right after the war that`s pretty much the start of the baby boomers...music-well it al depends cause there was ,believe or not,many forms of music in the dark ages...hmmm my parents listened frank delia and sarah, then throw in some c&w..my sisters listened to rock and roll and boy singers and bands, then i grew up on little richard ,major lance, gene pitney..then it was the 60`s.....
they are not something new in politics--Lyndon Johnson was in his 50`s Kennedy was in his 40`s....

[Old and In the Way]

13. Kerry and Clinton are about the same age.

Kerry has mentioned the Grateful Dead as a band he liked....another reason to vote for him.

:-)

[KoKo]

18. NO! They are Not about the same age...there's a difference...here's a

link to infamous Boomers...

* http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:PsfNB054SZYJ:www.wordiq.com/definition/Baby_Boomers+1943+Boomers&hl=en
*

* 1943 John Kerry
* 1943 Arthur Ashe (died 1993)
* 1943 Janis Joplin (died 1970)
* 1943 Joe Namath
* 1943 Oliver North
* 1944 Angela Davis
* 1944 George Lucas
* 1945 Steve Martin
* 1946 Bill Clinton
* 1946 George W. Bush
* 1946 Steven Spielberg
* 1946 Sylvester Stallone
* 1946 David Stockman
* 1946 Donald Trump
* 1946 Gilda Radner (died 1989)
* 1947 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
* 1947 Mark Rudd
* 1947 David Letterman
* 1947 Arnold Schwarzenegger (born in Austria, holds dual citizenship)
* 1948 Al Gore
* 1948 Samuel L. Jackson
* 1948 Jerry Mathers "The Beaver"
* 1949 George Foreman
* 1949 Bill O'Reilly
* 1949 Bruce Springsteen
* 1950 Julius Erving
* 1950 Jane Pauley
* 1950 Jay Leno
* 1951 Lee Atwater (died 1991)
* 1951 Rush Limbaugh
* 1951 Luther Vandross
* 1952 Jimmy Connors
* 1954 Chris Evert
* 1954 Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons)
* 1954 Patty Hearst
* 1954 Howard Stern
* 1954 John Travolta
* 1954 Denzel Washington
* 1954 Oprah Winfrey
* 1955 Steve Jobs
* 1955 Bill Gates
* 1956 Larry Bird
* 1956 Mel Gibson (born in US, moved to Australia at age 12, dual citizen)
* 1956 Joe Montana
* 1956 Martina Navratilova (born in today's Czech Republic, US citizen)
* 1957 Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert)
* 1957 Gloria Estefan (Cuban-born US citizen)
* 1957 Spike Lee
* 1958 Michael Jackson
* 1958 Madonna
* 1958 Prince
* 1959 Magic Johnson
* 1959 John McEnroe
* 1960 John Elway
* 1960 Greg Louganis
* 1960 Cal Ripken, Jr.

Two U.S. Presidents were born during the years 1943-1960: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It is estimated that the Boom Generation will not hold a plurality in Congress until 2015, the White House until 2021, and will have a majority in the Supreme Court from 2010 to 2030.

Non-U.S. peers of the Boomers include Lech Walesa, Mick Jagger, George Harrison, U2 frontman Bono, Daniel Ortega, Charles, Prince of Wales, and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Their cultural endowments have included the following:

* Doonesbury (comic, Garry Trudeau)
* All the President's Men (book, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, later a movie)
* The Fate of the Earth (Jonathan Schell)
* The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
* Cathy (comic, Cathy Guisewite)
* "American Pie" (song, Don McLean)
* Saturday Night Live (television show)
* Close Encounters of the Third Kind (film, Steven Spielberg)
* Strawberry Statement (James Kunen)
* Green Rage (Christopher Manes)
* Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Maya Lin)
* Do the Right Thing (film, Spike Lee)

[Old and In the Way]

28. 3 years difference is "Not about the same age"?

Close enough in my book.

[KoKo]

30. No! The music the culture were different...In America at that time

there was a big divide with the advent of "Rock & Roll" and when and where it hit. It changed EVERYTHING!

[Old and In the Way]

36. Well, you might find this response from Kerry interesting-

From an MTV interview:

Yago: Well, we know that you were into rock and roll when you were in high school, and we know that you play the guitar now. Are there any trends out there in music, or even in popular culture in general, that have piqued your interest?

Kerry: Oh sure. I follow and I'm interested. I don't always like, but I'm interested. I mean, I never was into heavy metal. I didn't really like it. I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important. I still find the musicians of our generation are appreciated and extraordinarily relevant to most of the young people I talk to today. When I go to a Bruce Springsteen concert or when I did go to the Grateful Dead, when Jerry Garcia was still alive, or when I'd go to the Rolling Stones, for instance, it's all gens — there's a lot of people there of all generations. And I think that young people are still growing up appreciating an awful lot of the music that came out of our generation, '60s and '70s. But I love to play guitar and hack around. I was in a band when I was in high school. I never learned to play very well, but I enjoyed it. And we had fun. So I try to stay up with it. But I still think if you wanted me to choose the greatest ... the bands from the '60s and '70s, that's still where my head is.

--------------------

By the way, Phil Lesh, the Dead Bassist is 64, Charlie Watts, the Stone's drummer is pushing 70, so I think that puts Kerry squarely in the middle of the cultural revolution....

[indie_voter]

15. Sure he is, he is just one of those cusp people.

Kerry shares similar cultural experiences (growing up) with Clinton, *, Gore and others in that age range.

I was born in 1964, I am not a boomer except that I fall in the range.

Those of us born around 1959-1966 share many similar experiences growing up. Tweeners was one label I've heard to describe the tail end boomers.

The tail end boomers are the middle children, caught between the boomers and Gen X.

[porphyrian]

20. Maybe he'll refrain from talking incessantly about himself...

...as the savior "generation" of the world.

[KoKo]

21. A little more about who is a Boomer...and Clinton...etc....

-
Baby boomer
From Wikipedia

A baby boomer is someone born in a period of increased birth rates following World War II. In the United States, demographers have put the generation's birth years at 1946 to 1964, despite the fact that the U.S. birth rate (per 1,000 population) actually began to decline after 1957. William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their book Generations include those conceived by soldiers on leave during the war, putting the generation's birth years at 1943 to 1960. (Strauss and Howe base their years on peer personality, not parental fecundity, so their years may not coincide with the actual "Boom".)

Interestingly, the birth rate actually began to climb in 1940: From that year through 1943, the U.S. birth rate rose four years in a row for the first time since at least the beginning of the 19th Century; following a brief interruption due to the wartime absence of would-be fathers, the "boom" picked up where it left off after World War II ended.

In Canada, the Baby Boom is usually defined as the generation born from 1947 to 1966 – Canadian servicemen were repatriated later than American servicemen, and Canada's birth rate did not start to rise till 1947, and most Canadian demographers prefer to use the later date of 1966 as the boom's end in that country.

Whatever year they were born, Boomers were coming of age at the same time across the world, so that Britain was undergoing Beatlemania while people in America were driving over to Woodstock, organizing against the Vietnam War, or fighting and dying in the same war, Boomers in Italy were dressing in mod clothes and "buying the world a Coke", Boomers in India were seeking new philosophical discoveries, American Boomers in Canada had just found a new home after escaping the draft south of the border, Canadian Boomers were organizing support for Pierre Trudeau, and Boomers in Mexico were discovering new hallucinogenic drugs and rediscovering old ones. Although the term "Boomer" has fallen into global use, the generation is also known in Europe as the Generation of 1968.

The term is derived from a historically significant rise in the birth rate following the Second World War. Several factors have been credited with this rise, among them a general sense of relief at the war's end, and the resurgent economic conditions of the period. At the time this spike in the birthrate was named the "baby boom."

Boomers' typical grandparents were of the Lost Generation; their parents were of the G.I. Generation and Silent Generation. Their children are of Generation X and the Generation Y and their typical grandchildren will be of the Generation Z (born circa 2004-2025).

Unlike the previous generation (the Silent), Boomers lack any childhood recollection of World War II. Unlike the next generation (Generation X), many American Boomers fought in Vietnam or organized opposition to it, or were reaching adolescence or lingering in "post-adolescence" (a term coined for them) as the Vietnam War drew to a close. See also Generation gap.

Celebrities born during the years 1943-1960 include:

* 1943 John Kerry

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:PsfNB054SZYJ:www.wordiq.com/definition/Baby_Boomers+1943+Boomers&hl=en

[BamaGirl]

31. Interesting comments here on what makes a Boomer

My Dad was born in 43 (same as Kerry), went to Vietnam, protested the war, etc. He is definitely NOT a Boomer and will tell you so gladly lol. My Mom was born in 51, and is all Boomer. (I'm a 72 Xer and she drives me up the damned wall lol!) I see a lot of similar characteristics between Kerry and my Dad, and frankly that gives me hope. If you go to fourthturning.com, they seem to think Kerry is a Boomer. Having grown up in a house with a member of the Silent generation and a member of the Boomer generation, I completely disagree. When Kerry wins, he will be the first President of his generation too.

[PurityOfEssence]

38. "WarChild, dance the days and nights away ---

sweet child, how do you do today?

When your back's to the wall,
and your luck is your all,
then side with whoever you may."

(That's "The Third Hoorah", from Jethro Tull, I believe Ian Anderson wrote the lyrics...)

Kerry's a child of war, born on an Army base where his father was training far from home. Yes, he's pre-boomer; he was born in the crucible of great change. As a young boy, he lived with his mother and diplomat father in Cold War Berlin; he saw great changes up close.

Tom Brokaw's an asshole, an idiot and a tool; the war generation wasn't necessarily the greatest generation. The upheaval and global polarization that made the post-war world's conflicts so heightened were the constant background to Kerry's life; it informs his thoughts and serves as a great underpinning of seriousness and duty. Kerry has elected to look at a world that virtually everyone forcibly demands to be simple and binary as what it is: nuanced and complex. As such, he is a truly modern man.

He's a child of war.

[neebob]

39. I was born in 1960

and I don't identify with the boomers. I work with a bunch of the early boomers, and I don't think they identify with me, either. Which is not to say we don't get along. I think it's more of a decade thing - people in their twenties, thirties, forties, and so on tend to kind of flock together. I feel more affinity with the Gen-Xers than the boomers.

[cootiez]

43. Enough with the baby boomer crap!

It is so silly to define oneself by a tool demographers use to pigeon-hole people, to bring people down to the lowest common denominator so that others can sell them stuff. Do you really think that the year Kerry was born-- whether it's 1943 (before the big post-war "baby boom") or 1946 (during the boom) is as important as his values? And do you really think that the music he may or may not have listened to is as important as the actions he has taken in his life? Why does he have to have been born in the same time frame as you to be a person of integrity? My two older sisters were born in 1963 and 1964. I was born in 1966. Based on demographics, they are baby boomers, but I and my younger siblings are not. We're slacker gen-Xers. Sorry, but our upbringing was not radically different. We all listened to the same music, and had the same parents (born in 1938 and 1942). (And if I'm the slacker, how come I'm the one with the advanced degree?) My parents are of the same "generation" as Kerry and they are good people, even though they did not embrace most of the late sixties and early seventies lifestyle. Having children tends to do that, I guess. They were a little too old for most of the hippest trends of that time. They wore the ugly clothes, though. Lots and lots of polyester. Consider this-- the people who most influenced the "baby boom" generation were not baby boomers themselves (this almost always seems to be the case with entertainers). Let's see: George Hamilton, 1939, John Lennon and Ringo Starr--1940, Bob Dylan, David Crosby, Cass Eliot and Paul Simon--1941, Paul McCartney, Jerry Garcia, Lou Reed and Jimi Hendrix--1942, R. Crumb--1943, Mick Jagger, Janis Joplin, Keith Richards, Jim Morrison, Joni Mitchell and George Harrison--1943. And lest you think everyone born in that time period were icons of the baby boom generation, consider who else was born in that time frame: Lee Harvey Oswald, 1939, Dick Cheney, Slobodon Milosevic, Kim Jong Il, and Martha Stewart--1941, Ted Kaczynski--1942, Newt Gingrich--1943, ... Judge Kerry and everyone else by their actions, not where they hung out or what they listened to.

[HawkerHurricane]

44. Good Answer.

nt

[cootiez]

45. Thanks!