OVER CONSUMPTION? LET’S BLAME BABY BOOMERS

Over consumption didn’t start January 1, 1946, the dawning of the baby boom generation following WWII.

Though not everyone agrees.

Let’s call them short sighted for now.

Instead, they see a world dominated by big houses and expensive cars.

Too big? Too expensive?

Not everyone agrees. Where did it start?

With my dad, your dad, it’s always the dad even when it’s not.

My dad was born into the rural Northwest, a spitting image of what the NW looks like to outsiders: A logging town, a company town.

He was born the year after the Great Depression started.

Safe to say his boyhood wasn’t a walk down the red carpet of life, but it never matters when everyone is doing the same thing.

I’ve seen the town.

There wasn’t a fancy side, or a hilltop of glass fronted houses. Instead it had a Levitown feel to it, a sameness, back in the 30’s.

Was he dreaming of showering his future children with the bounty he never had while eating a breakfast of brown-water oatmeal and lumpy milk?

Grandma made me the same breakfast when I was ten. I tried to eat it. She told my dad he was raising ‘soft’ sons.

She was a Depression-era mom who raised three kids. And she was right, I was soft in comparison.

Did I dream the dream?

WWII Domestic Production Lit The Over Consumption Fuse

The war to save the world from a new dark age took more people and material than it’s possible to imagine.

More impossible is the psychological effect of material, food, and clothing on the deprivation, Depression-era, men.

When you hear, “I found a home in the Army,” that’s what they’re talking about. Three hots and a cot, baby, and new clothes.

WWII shifted production into over production to beat back Germany and Japan, and Italy for a while. Can’t leave them out.

The guys who made it home were used to a certain abundance. Guys who had never experienced the land of plenty wanted it and they got it.

Housing, education, families, and, “Johny’s a little cranky, let’s get him a new bike.”

Johnny: “But I wanted a bike like Tommy’s dad got him. His dad is better than you.”

Then there’s:

Sybil graduated from high school, first in her family.

Ralph graduated from college, first in his family.

Adam graduated from medical school, first in his family.

Call It A Competitive Culture

‘More’ is the word. More what? Doesn’t matter, just more and it’s never enough.

One year of food? Why not two?

A two bedroom apartment?

Why not a four bathroom house?

Who needs four bathrooms? I’ll take a stab and say, “No one.”

Who uses four bathrooms? And for what?

Baby boomers may look like flower children stealing all the sunlight, but blame them? For what?

Four cars in the driveway isn’t some kind of statement or generational signature.

Instead of pointing fingers and making broad assumptions, break it down to the inciting character, the dad.

All real dad’s know this one thing: when baby needs new shoes, baby gets new shoes.

That there’s nothing wrong with the old shoes isn’t some sign of over consumption. Is it?