ADULT RESPONSIBILITY TAKES AN ADULT? SAYS WHO

No finer whine comes from any other generation. Should we all take a lesson from baby boomers’ and our adult reponsibility?

Of course, and here’s why: no age group has shouldered more burden. And it’s so, so, hard. Just ask us.

Ask the next old person you see who insists they are as vital and energetic as they’ve ever been.

They’re not lying. And they’re not delusional, either.

One in a million aren’t lying or delusional. It could be you, or you’re really good at lies and delusion.

Like generations before, we like to think we’re The Greatest Generation, except that tags already taken.

Maybe Tom Brokaw could give boomers a break and call us the Almost Greatest Generation?

Before that happens, we’ve got work to do.

Society pushed baby boomers, and continues to push poor, put upon, boomer who largely ignore the push.

After all, why are we called the ‘Me Generation?’ Here’s a heads up: we’re not the ‘You Generation.’

At the same time we’re not the F-U Generation, either. Even if it looks like it sometimes. Faking adult responsibility isn’t easy.

From get a haircut, get a job, be more like your brother Bob, now we hear a chorus of just retire already and get out of the way.

That’s not momma talking, that’s GenX and Millennials angling for boomer jobs that make deals on golf courses, live in big house barns, and drive stupidly expensive cars.

The message is often conflicted, which is a problem for others, not us. We’re too busy.

Seek your bliss, but be responsible? Not a problem. We’ve got time for one more round and six pack to go. For now.

Drunken bliss isn’t the same as the other bliss, otherwise we’d see the Dali Lama on a beer label wearing a lamp shade coordinated to the color spectrum of his robes.

A wasted holy man isn’t something boomers need to see, not after so many other idols have taken that road down. Re-hab born agains and funeral celebrations of self indulgence are not a pretty picture.

Neither is a casket with flame decals for a former wild child.

Grow up, but feed your inner child? Talk to us after you catch up on child support for spawning a population of neglect.

Not every grown up is a law onto themselves. This is where society steps in to the make the rules, even if your local boomer imposes their distorted reality on neighbors.

If you’ve been threatened by a Q-tip slathered in sunscreen you know the drill.

There you are going about your business when some sensitized do-gooder steps in and warms you to stop kicking your dog.

You say it’s your dog and you’ll do what the hell you want. “What are you gonna do about it? Huh?”

Or maybe it’s the other way around. You step into a problem with aging boomer and they ignore you.

Who’s better at ignoring than boomers? We’re the people all the warning labels were made for, labels about smoking cigarettes, chugging booze while pregnant, sticking a fork into an electrical socket.

And who’s more proud of surviving it all. “I didn’t need a bike helmet, or braces, or sunscreen.”

If you hear that you know they hit their head once too often and never show a smile in the middle of their creased face.

Let your hair down, but get it cut first. Start with that nose hair. Even if you’ve lost your hair up top to age it doesn’t mean cultivate a new crop in another location. Unless you’re a cigar smoking Englishman with nicotined stained nostrils on proud display, clean it up.

Change the world, just leave me alone. We had a chance at changing the world and some of it worked.

Today’s boomer isn’t so concerned by most accounts. Old men in power want one thing: more power. It makes them feel needed, important. Most important, it makes them feel virile. That and a wood pill.

Ask any rubber lipped lounge lizard about clean air, clean water, and attention to global needs and brace yourself to hear about their productivity, yearly income, affairs, wives, knuckled under kids.

The message is look at me, be like me, and do what I do. We like showing off. The hidden message is, “I don’t care what you do as long as I get paid.”

Don’t waste your breath telling us the power of karma. Boomers invented karma, just ask. Any idea of ‘what goes around comes around’ just makes us dizzy.

Try explaining the power of objects to a tone deaf boomer and you’ll get, “Okay American Road Show, you’ve been watching too much PBS and it’s rotting your brain.”

Don’t bother wondering where the disconnect happened. All you need do is tour the local Walmart, K-mart, Home Depot, and look at where stuff is made.

Good enough is the new excellence.

I’ll leave a few extra hooks to hang ideas on. Give it a try. Use your boomer adult responsibility.

Tell someone to be a difference maker that fits in. Like you did.

Express yourself, just do it quietly while we ignore your noise in favor of Classic Rock songs we’ve heard thousands of time.

Try new things, but respect old ways, like how it was done in 1972. Anything before is too old to care about. Besides, we don’t remember.

Live long and be happy as long as you’re not ruining it for the rest of us.

Do meaningful work as long as you’re not keeping others out of the job market.

In a world of stress, anxiety, and expectation, boomers get the load.

If there’s a problem, it’s boomer’s fault, or will be. That’s when adult responsibility kicks in.

We’ve been hearing the same song forever. Too many, too selfish, too free, too smart, too long.

Since the vanguard Boomers started retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day according to experts, America is bracing for a tsunami of aimless geezers wallowing in social entitlement programs. When you hear that, hold your breath. It’s a load of whooee.

That’s bully talk. What’s happening instead is a careful review of how to age better than anyone ever has.

Does that sound good to you? If not, give it a few years.