Age Is Just A Number, Right?
"Age is only a number"--at least that's what the Leading Edge Boomers tell me. This group represents those born from 1945 to 1957. These leading edge types are the cohort now heading toward the "waste handling" end of the boa constrictor that economists use to illustrate how the overall numbers of the Baby Boom move through the decades. The Shadow Boomers are those of us born from 1958 to 1964. We watched the Vietnam War on television and tend to remember more about Arthur Janov's Primal Therapy than we do about the political climate back then.
Today, the Leading Edge Boomers are the ones with children in college or even kids who have already graduated and are living and working on their own. The mothers among the LEBs had their kids early and now they can put their feet up--especially if they happened to choose Mr. Right for real back when they were 19 or 20.
To say that I have little in common with these folks is a vast understatement. These are the richest boomers--the ones who saved the most and will probably live the longest. They also tend to be the most smug but this will pass when they finally pass through the boa constrictor completely. I may resent them sometimes but I also have to admire them. They played the game differently than I did, that's for sure. For them the "you can have it all" message of the '70s probably went unheard as they raced after shrieking toddlers. For those of us in Generation Jones, who were born from about 1960 to 1960, the "you can have it all" message sounded different. We're the women who traveled, worked, played, traveled and then finally thought about having babies at around 35.
Some of us waited until long after 35. Every school year there is a day when my daughter comes home and tells me that the kids in her class played "Who has the oldest Mom?" and that once again, I am not the "winner". Phew... Somewhere in this tony town of 14,000 or so-comprising 6,000 blond stay- at -home moms, 6,000 towheaded kids and 1,000 exhausted dads who support this pyramid scheme known as suburbia--totters the champ. The oldest mom according to my often less -than -accurate daughter is 54. (I do not call her accuracy into question without reason. Once when she was two, she had a preschool teacher she didn't get along with. One day when I picked her up from school, she crowed delightedly "guess what? Lisa has a new job! She's leaving and moving away!" You can guess the rest. The next day when I saw Lisa, I offered my congratulations and best wishes and got a cold stare in reply. Whoops.)
Anyway, if this woman is truly 54, she deserves a medal just for getting out of bed in the morning. For many of these women, these late life babies represent winning skirmishes in the infertility battle. But others, like me just waited because we were busy. Having a baby and a husband when I was in my twenties would not have gone well for any of us. But that doesn't mean that when I look at women friends in their /50s who are now blissful empty nesters I'm not a little envious. Sure their self-absorption can be grating but I don't really blame them. While my son's enthusiasm for "Destroy All Humans" worries me, one friend's son worries about his lack of a muscular build. Meanwhile her son earns good money at a job he likes and lives on the other coast. Mine lives in the playroom on the third floor and earns only occasional dirty looks from his sister.
It's a tradeoff and a crap shoot. If you married at 20 and truly chose well, you really do have it all now. Mercifully, there aren't that many around and it's a good thing. Otherwise vigilante groups of older mothers might form to prank these LEB smugsters. Pranks might include keying their cute little convertibles or calling up the Y pretending to be one of these life-lottery winners and withdrawing from some hard-won spot in the hottest mid-morning yoga class, using her name. "But I never called up to say I wouldn't be in the Wednesday/Friday morning class with Temptress Diana! I waited six months to get in!"
Now, single again in my forties I find that it's harder to pooh-pooh the long ago choice to marry young--to sacrifice your twenties and thirties for your fifties. But the fact that I still see it as making a sacrifice means that I still wouldn't make the trade. I couldn't have enjoyed my kids if I'd had them when I was young. I couldn't have traveled with them and they wouldn't have been able to experience a lot of zany once in a life-time adventures.
Before I was 35 and before AIDS emerged, the world was a lot more fun and I took advantage. I wouldn't trade that. I suppose you could decide at 50-something to go back and experience some of the excesses of the '70s,'80s and '90s that you missed out on when you were 20 and knee-deep in dirty diapers, but it wouldn't be the same. Those decades required youth and abandon. Abandon isn't something you can recapture--not really. It's like planning to be spontaneous. I didn't do any planning back when I was 20, I had fun instead. Seeing the tradeoff for what it is, smarts some days more than others I guess.
Today, the Leading Edge Boomers are the ones with children in college or even kids who have already graduated and are living and working on their own. The mothers among the LEBs had their kids early and now they can put their feet up--especially if they happened to choose Mr. Right for real back when they were 19 or 20.
To say that I have little in common with these folks is a vast understatement. These are the richest boomers--the ones who saved the most and will probably live the longest. They also tend to be the most smug but this will pass when they finally pass through the boa constrictor completely. I may resent them sometimes but I also have to admire them. They played the game differently than I did, that's for sure. For them the "you can have it all" message of the '70s probably went unheard as they raced after shrieking toddlers. For those of us in Generation Jones, who were born from about 1960 to 1960, the "you can have it all" message sounded different. We're the women who traveled, worked, played, traveled and then finally thought about having babies at around 35.
Some of us waited until long after 35. Every school year there is a day when my daughter comes home and tells me that the kids in her class played "Who has the oldest Mom?" and that once again, I am not the "winner". Phew... Somewhere in this tony town of 14,000 or so-comprising 6,000 blond stay- at -home moms, 6,000 towheaded kids and 1,000 exhausted dads who support this pyramid scheme known as suburbia--totters the champ. The oldest mom according to my often less -than -accurate daughter is 54. (I do not call her accuracy into question without reason. Once when she was two, she had a preschool teacher she didn't get along with. One day when I picked her up from school, she crowed delightedly "guess what? Lisa has a new job! She's leaving and moving away!" You can guess the rest. The next day when I saw Lisa, I offered my congratulations and best wishes and got a cold stare in reply. Whoops.)
Anyway, if this woman is truly 54, she deserves a medal just for getting out of bed in the morning. For many of these women, these late life babies represent winning skirmishes in the infertility battle. But others, like me just waited because we were busy. Having a baby and a husband when I was in my twenties would not have gone well for any of us. But that doesn't mean that when I look at women friends in their /50s who are now blissful empty nesters I'm not a little envious. Sure their self-absorption can be grating but I don't really blame them. While my son's enthusiasm for "Destroy All Humans" worries me, one friend's son worries about his lack of a muscular build. Meanwhile her son earns good money at a job he likes and lives on the other coast. Mine lives in the playroom on the third floor and earns only occasional dirty looks from his sister.
It's a tradeoff and a crap shoot. If you married at 20 and truly chose well, you really do have it all now. Mercifully, there aren't that many around and it's a good thing. Otherwise vigilante groups of older mothers might form to prank these LEB smugsters. Pranks might include keying their cute little convertibles or calling up the Y pretending to be one of these life-lottery winners and withdrawing from some hard-won spot in the hottest mid-morning yoga class, using her name. "But I never called up to say I wouldn't be in the Wednesday/Friday morning class with Temptress Diana! I waited six months to get in!"
Now, single again in my forties I find that it's harder to pooh-pooh the long ago choice to marry young--to sacrifice your twenties and thirties for your fifties. But the fact that I still see it as making a sacrifice means that I still wouldn't make the trade. I couldn't have enjoyed my kids if I'd had them when I was young. I couldn't have traveled with them and they wouldn't have been able to experience a lot of zany once in a life-time adventures.
Before I was 35 and before AIDS emerged, the world was a lot more fun and I took advantage. I wouldn't trade that. I suppose you could decide at 50-something to go back and experience some of the excesses of the '70s,'80s and '90s that you missed out on when you were 20 and knee-deep in dirty diapers, but it wouldn't be the same. Those decades required youth and abandon. Abandon isn't something you can recapture--not really. It's like planning to be spontaneous. I didn't do any planning back when I was 20, I had fun instead. Seeing the tradeoff for what it is, smarts some days more than others I guess.
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