Youngest of boomer generation ponder their impact on the world

By Janie Magruder
The Arizona Republic

	AP Sen. Barry Goldwater, above, ran for president in 1964, the tail end of the baby boom. The youngest boomers, who turn 40 this year, didn't witness many 1964 events that shaped the lives of older boomers.
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Ripped from the headlines of 1964:

• Three young men, registering black voters in Mississippi, were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan one month before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law.

• The surgeon general warned about the dangers of smoking, a message Congress then required on all cigarette packs.

• Sen. Barry Goldwater ran for president.

• American fashion designer Rudi Gernreich introduced the "monokini," a topless swimsuit.

• The Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Also that year, about 4 million infants were born in the United States, the last of the baby boomers. They brought up the rear for a generation that spans 19 birth years and includes 80 million Americans.

Older baby boomers demonstrated, burned and marched to change the world. But those who were born in '64, who are turning 40 this year, missed the war protests and civil unrest. By the time they came of age, they thought to better the world by bettering themselves. They dove into self-help programs such as Lifespring.

They are individualistic, like Generation X, but driven and optimistic, true hallmarks of baby boomers, and they are still out to make their mark.

Breaking down the boom

The baby boom refers to a dramatic spike in the U.S. population that occurred from the end of World War II to 1964, about 4.2 million babies per year, according to the Census Bureau. Before 1946, the average number of births per year was 2.6 million; after the boom, starting in 1965, it was 3.4 million.

	AP The Beatles performed for the first time in America on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in New York on Feb. 9, 1964.

"First wave" boomers, according to generational experts, were born from 1946 to '56 and became adults in the mid-1960s to early '70s. Chuck Underwood, a generational consultant and president of Generational Imperative Inc. in Cincinnati, describes the older boomers as "save-the-world revolutionaries"; their younger counterparts are "self-improvement partiers."

"When everyone thinks of baby boomers, they think of the '60s," Underwood says. "But the second wave boomers came of age after that, forming their core values when America had shifted from 15 years of social activism and made a dramatic switch to the party era."

Playtex learned a lesson about baby boomers in the 1960s, when sales of its girdles were expected to skyrocket along with the population boom. Instead, young women whose attitudes about comfort differed from their mothers, who belonged to the Silent Generation, rejected the heavy, rubber garments. Playtex had to adjust.

Whether it's shunning girdles or saving the world, the values that are common to any generation tend to bleed around the edges, Underwood says, and that's true of the youngest boomers.

	FLIP SCHULKE Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader of the civil-rights movement, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1964.

"Forty-year-olds have the boomer quality of appreciating the opportunities that have been given them by the extreme sacrifices of the older generations," Underwood says. "They are driven to succeed and to lead productive lives, more strongly than some other generations."

If Leah Vanpoelvoorde, who turns 40 in July, has missed out, it doesn't show. She has participated in a seminar geared to improving self-esteem, motivation and confidence, and has enrolled in Outward Bound programs, which emphasize personal growth through wilderness challenges.

"I'm very much focused on my career and doing business, on personal development and self-actualization," says Vanpoelvoorde, who is single, owns a business-coaching firm, has two patents pending and practices massage therapy.

Her perception of baby boomers — someone who "spends a lot of money on x, y and z" — doesn't fit her life at all. Vanpoelvoorde owns a modest patio home and shops for clothes only twice a year.

The Jonesers

Jonathan Pontell, a California-based pop-culture expert, has coined a term for the 53 million Americans born from 1954 to 1965, who he says are neither true baby boomers nor Generation Xers (born 1965-81). Ninety percent of Pontell's "Generation Jones" feel they fit somewhere in between, according to a 2000 survey by New York City-based Omni Research Group.

These "Jonesers" expected great things of themselves but fell short when the economy soured in the early '80s. As a result, Pontell says, they've become cynical. They still crave doing great things, but fear it may be too late.

"It was hard for us to jump in and make money, but we put all our self-fulfilling dreams on hold and went first for the cash," said Pontell, whose research is at www.generationjones.com. "And now, we're at the point in our lives when we've started to feel like it's now or never."

Underwood says baby boomers owe much to their parents, who taught them a strong work ethic, gave them a sense of their family roots and pounded away at the notion that anything was possible. The generation's second wave is clearly flexing its can-do muscle.

Doug Ducey, president and chief executive officer of Cold Stone Creamery, joined the company in 1995 at age 31 and was promoted to his current post a year later. Ducey, who turns 40 in April, views his mother as a baby boomer, though she was born in 1945 and thus missed the cut-off by one year.

"She's closer to a baby boomer than I am because of the people and experiences she was around ... MLK, JFK, protests, the rebellious nonconformity," he says. "I don't feel a part of the baby boomers or Generation X, but somewhere in between."

Aligned by outlook

Some young boomers identify more with the generation because of their personal experiences between birth and age 20, when most values are formed, Underwood says.

"Their core values could be influenced upward into the boomers or downward into Generation X by the age of their siblings, by longer stays in the classroom or by going into the military," he says.

Mary Jane Rogers, who turns 40 in May, considers herself a "card-carrying" member of the baby boomers. She spent part of her formative years in the San Francisco Bay area, with politically active parents and two older siblings, both baby boomers.

She bounced to the Beatles at age 6 months and knew all the words to the Doors' "Light My Fire," when she was 4. At 10, she was glued to the television set when President Nixon resigned.

"I may have missed out on some of my current peers' coolness," says Rogers. "But I can play Trivial Pursuit, and people don't expect me to be able to tap into that old baby boomer knowledge of my siblings."

Hope springs eternal among baby boomers because they grew up during a wondrous, prosperous time in America.

Edwin Benoit, who started an advertising company four years ago, feels that optimism and is borrowing the best qualities from baby boomers and Generation X.

"I wouldn't want to feel like I was on the tail end of anything," Benoit says. "What I pull from Gen X is technology, and from the baby boomers an interest in music, a lust for improving life."

Still, there's no doubt which group he respects more.

"Baby boomers — you got to hand it to them," says Benoit, who talks about the generation as if he wasn't part of it, though he turns 40 next month. "They rewrote music, they were trailblazers, they had great vision. They always were a spark, they were going to turn the world upside down. How can you top them?"

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company