OK, Boomer

And ceremonial soda pop teas

“Oh my god, I totally thought it was ‘HARD TO impress.’” The wide-eyed, flushed-faced, open-mouth emoji of shame followed the text on the woman’s TikTok video.

“Fucking Boomer mothers, either way,” was the first comment.

The poster was talking about the lyric, “‘Cause I was raised by a woman who was hardly impressed,” from Zach Bryan’s moody anthem Bass Boat.

Jesus Christ, I thought. Talk about a distinction without a difference. Is this your people’s idea of a Mondegreen?

Back in my day (shakes cane in the air), when we got lyrics wrong we got them good and wrong.

“Just call me angel of the morning, angel. Just touch my feet before you leave me, baby…”

“I’ll never be your pizza person, my back is broad, but it’s a hurtin’. All I want is for you to make love to me.”

My mother enthusiastically singing, “Hang on stupid, stupid hang on.”

Now, I really don’t buy into the generation wars, but if you think “hard to impress” is a mortifying mis-hear, you’re weak. More importantly, you’re missing the point.

And also, how do you know it was a Boomer mother?

The whole, “OK, Boomer” trope is ridiculous when you think about things like Stonewall, and those who broke through all the barriers for LGBTQ+ people. Women couldn’t even get credit cards of their own until 1974, until Boomer women fought for the right to have them, and whatever other strides we have made in this country, until the hostile take-over of the Xtian Xtremists™, were made by the folks folks love to hate on the internet. It is still not easy to be a trans person, but one of the bravest people I ever knew was an Eastern-European-American fireplug of a contractor, hairy and hard drinking and on his second or third wife, who transitioned in the early 80s. Jaenia died in December, 2022 from liver cancer, but I’d go talk to her in her last weeks, reminiscing about the old days, people we knew, trouble we’d gotten into. At her request I’d bring my guitar and sing her songs, and I’d bring her food.

“Why are you so broke?” I asked her.

“The fucking electrolysis,” she said.

We watched TikToks and Instagram videos of Gen X and Millennials explaining why Boomers suck so much. Narcissism seems to be the general consensus. While many believe that the lead in our toys caused generation-wide brain damage, others insist that the lead plays a smaller part than the generational trauma caused by first the great depression, then winning the Second World War, which led to feelings of exceptionalism, which led to narcissism.

“Does that mean German, Italian, and Japanese Boomers don’t suck? And do you think we’re just narcissistic, or are we also brain damaged from lead?” I asked Jaenia after we’d watched a few videos.

“I think we’re brain damaged from the shitload of drugs and booze we did. Also, if you’re an adult and you’re still worried about what your parents are doing, and blaming them for shit, you’re the problem.” She laughed so hard she started choking and we had to take a break.

“Assholes,” she wheezed, chuckling.

She died alone, with only the nurses I’d introduced her to, without the community so many people who follow in her footsteps are privileged to walk in.

Generation naming was invented for marketing purposes, and the irony in that is deep. By leaning into it, claiming it, hating “others” and tribalizing “ours,” all we’re doing is making the billionaires richer, and creating a self-fulfilling marketing prophesy.

Beresford Research

Generational divides aren’t new, but technology is, relatively, and so the styles of expression, need, and affection are mismatched like never before.

“OMG, I text my mother and she calls me back!”

To someone born in the ‘50s and ‘60s, texting without ever talking might seem distant and cold. To someone born later, calling might seem intrusive and cloying. There’s nothing that says anyone’s rules are right, but we seem to have lost the ability to both tolerate the other style, and to communicate, and maybe compromise on, preferences. How about a 50/50 call-to-text ratio?

“Oh hell no. I fucking hate phone calls.”

“It’s too hard for me to text all the time.”

One of the worst side effects of technology, as far as I’m concerned, is that we no longer listen to each other’s music. We listen to music isolated, through our headphones or in our cars, but not on the family stereo, playing records our parents tell us to turn down, or listening to our parents’ idea of great music that, in fact, might be great. We lost generational perspective by losing that shared experience.

If people think the Great Depression and World War II led to Boomer Suckiness, what, I wonder, were the effects of hundreds of years of the enslavement of African people, the Black Plague, the Industrial Revolution, the “Spanish flu,” (called that only because Spain didn’t suppress the news of it) which wiped out a third of the world’s population, child labor, the massacre of Nanjing, and all the other tragedies and disasters that happen year after year, century after century?

“Boomers need to go to therapy,” I often hear on the internet.

And often I wonder if there have been studies on the confirmation bias of generational therapists and patients. Since Millennials/Gen Xers (or whichever gen is talking) are assuming Boomers don’t go to therapy—a fact not in evidence, but whatever—and assuming Millennials/Gen Xers do, are they only seeing therapist their own age? The sweeping generalizations about what Boomers “are like” are bizarre. So are the sweeping generalizations about what all the other generations are like, but people die on the hill of Boomer flaws and negative characteristics.

The scientists in me wants a randomized trial of cross-generational therapy, co-generational therapy, and a control group of “patients” who just take the dog for a walk every day and get off the internet.

‘Cause I was raised by a woman who was hardly impressed
And I carry that shit real deep in my chest
‘Cause I ain’t ever been one for cheap excuses
And apologies have always been a little late or useless
But if you give me four minutes and a little ‘bit of time
I’ll make them old days an old friend of mine
And I can talk to God and I can pray all day,
But you can’t heal something that you never raised

Eventually, we have to raise ourselves, just like everyone else has had to do throughout history, and that might include resolving the issues left behind by terrible or just flawed (read: normal) parenting, past traumas, and all the other things this life does to us all.

Then, perspective becomes a bittersweet ally. For some, that can include creating a song, “four minutes” in which to create a story about the hardships of the past that everyone can relate to, no matter the details.

My old man bought a big bass boat
When I think of that summer of hope I choke
Cause even if we didn’t catch a little bit of something
We’d park that boat by the bluff at the days end

If Kamala Harris wins the upcoming election, she’ll be our first Boomer President, a woman, and of African and South Asian descent.

She says one of the things she misses the most about private life is her group text chats with her family about Wordle scores, and using emojis.

OK, Boomer.

---

Morning Teaistisms

I just found the most confusing tea website I’ve ever seen.

It caught my eye selling “ceremonial soda pop teas,” which I obviously had to investigate, but as soon as I clicked on it I was sent into a fugue state of flashing Other Things that are goddess, or witchcraft, or tarot, or healing, or whatever. I don’t care, because the ridiculously expensive bottles are adorable, and I obviously had to order one two.

But I got so excited I forgot to order the soda pop tea, and now I’m sad, because I spent too much on the watermelon mint herbal in the violet glass apothecary jar, the dragonfruit lychee green in the violet glass apothecary jar, and the white magic sampler box to order more ridiculous tea today.