Boomers.

I don't remember charity shops, J52 but we always organised jumble sales and 50/50 sales at playgroup and school. And a 2nd hand uniform sale.
I remember a well-known (at the time) tv actress buying a whole lot of my DN's school blouses at a school uniform sale!

Mollie. Just read the Mumsnet stuff and was struck by the language and tone. It amuses more than angers me. It is envy, in the main, and my reaction is to book another holiday!

I bought nearly new school shirts for DSs at a local charity shop. They were a distinctive colour, so the school outfitter had a monopoly and they were expensive.

Each DS got 3 new ones at the start of the year. These were supplemented by the charity shop ones, so there was a clean one for each day.
Boys being boys, I was too mean to buy all new ones! x

As someone up thread has said, the Census of 1951 must have given some indication of what was coming. In my last year at junior school there were 52 pupils in my class multiplied by 4 classes so on average that was probably nearly 200 of us all born in 1946/47. If that was mirrored all over the country there was always going to be one hell of a lot of pensioners by now.

The one thing that always annoys me about these (very frequent) Mumsnet threads is how they all bang on about paying our pensions out of their tax. Hasn't it always been the case that the working generation paid for the pensions of the previous generation, or have I got that wrong?

I always think of the cost of things by the price of the pram we bought for DS1 in 1970, it was 19 guineas, I was earning £16 a week so slightly more than a weeks wages. When DD says she has no money until pay day she means they can't have a takeaway,when I said it I couldn't afford a loaf!

Exactly Juliette - a class of 52!!! I thought we were crowded with 40 - surely all this should have addressed at the time - we didn't suddenly just appear drawing our pensions etc.,

Someone, my age, I met on a course years ago, went to a Secondary School that was so crowded he had nowhere to sit for 5 years and had to work on window sills.

It was all there for governments to see and do something about and then we would have been spared Boomer Envy.

I always nod and smile when my adult children start moaning about how hard life is etc., but I slip in little anecdotes about returning lemonade bottles for about twopence when I was a young mum. Perhaps they imagine we were lucky to have lemonade.

I do resent the way the recent debacle about hospitals closing because of too many people was partially blamed on Boomers. We are here and have been for nearly 70 years.

My DHs treatment in the hospital was very poor indeed - but that's a different topic I guess but thanks it all who sympathised.

In my primary school, in 1952, there were three intakes of children in September, January and Easter, and they were fed from infants into classes 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d and so on, right through to juniors. I just checked out the infant class I was in and there were 48 of us! The a, b and c classes all had 40 children and the d class the remainder.

My dad worked 6 days a week, and mum looked after the four of us and the home. We had no TV, just a crackly radio, books, board games, about five or six presents at Christmas and for birthdays and we had no understanding of consumerism.

If those criticisers of boomers compare how they generally (not all, by any means) spend and waste belongings and food with the boomer generation, they might give us credit for not being the generation that eats up resources and expects more than we can afford.

I think it's just fact. There was a baby boom just after the war. The nurse wasn't necessarily being critical.

yes it was a fact but the nurse was stating this fact to her colleague with a critical meaning - there is a problem because there are all the 'boomers' taking up the beds.
if she had said 'because of the disabled' or 'because of the immigrants' that would not have been acceptable
the number of baby boomers is not the fault of the boomers themselves - blame the parents.

And it is not necessarily 'boomers' taking up beds and being unable to be sent home.

It would be those of 80+ and they are not 'boomers'.

I bet not one of that generation of resentful youngsters have a clue how to darn, mend or make do.

Alex57 sorry you are feeling like that. I'm the same today. There's a big black dog sitting in the corner of my room.

Anya and Alex . I refer to that mood as a huge back cloud just over me, and the days I feel it,it is there when I open my eyes in the morning. I hope tomorrow is better for you both.

Thanks Ann

Oh - Anya and Alex I feel the same - in quite a low mood. Hugs to you both.
This discussion has livened me up a lot - thanks all.

Mollie65. Yes at the time I felt like pulling back the curtain around my husband's bed and screaming - why blame us we didn't ask to be born but I was too preoccupied as you can imagine.

I think this generation of older people are the nicest for a very long time. We are mostly cheerful, accepting and generous.

mollie how can you know she was being critical? Were you there?

And anyway, no point in blaming the boomers themselves. Blame the returning soldiers.

J52, Rose, Anya and Ana thank you all for your concern. Just got out of bed to make dinner. Dh looked after me all day. Feel sheepish after listening to bbc5 about the run-away-truck. The beautiful little girl that died, and the other people who are without loved ones from this day forward. Puts things into perspective me thinks.

I was a war baby, as were my sisters, all 'pre-boomers'. We are far more likely to be 'bed blocking' than are those born ten years later. Bed blocking happens because of the poor planning and incompetent management. I have no intention of blocking any beds - yet - but if this happens I won't feel guilty. The guilty parties are the politicians and managers who have failed to plan for demographic change.

she was being critical because there was no other reason for saying anything in this context - she could have kept silent

Maybe she was just chatting innocently with another nurse. And stating a fact. Doesn't mean it was necessarily criticism.

There is no way you could criticise the actual patients for being baby boomers. It would be like saying, "Oh these stupid people. All born at the same time! ".

Doesn't make sense.

That's our fault as well, though jingls - didn't you realise?

Just to put the record straight regarding my poor DH and the Baby Boomer remark. The nurses were in fact male nurses and the comment wasn't about bed blocking but about the fact that the ward was full.

As it happens my DH wasn't a Boomer but a War Baby - born 1944. so they got that wrong.