Boomers.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks Ann

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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 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!

Falconbird
That was an unforgiveable remark that you overheard from someone who should be compassionate at a time like that - why be in the profession at all if that is how you feel about older people you are supposed to be caring for?
She obviously didn't have a clue what a baby boomer is, and it is not baby boomers who are causing 'bedblocking', it is the inadequate system of after-care for elderly people - and perhaps some of those resentful youngsters who are failing in their care of their elderly parents.

I am just about a baby boomer and I remember the struggles we had to bring up a family on low salaries - at the same time as caring for elderly parents, none of whom went into care homes.

The media and some of these 'think tanks' are whipping up inter-generational resentment.

Hope your day gets better alex

I sometimes think that charity shops would have made a big difference to my younger days. I can't remember them much before the 80s, although I'm sure they did exist.
As a student I think I would have enjoyed shopping in them and had a greater variety of garments! There were jumble sales, but they lived up to their name and were a mad scrum. x

I think it's sad that Boomers are coming in for all this criticism.

Yes, we could buy houses in the 70s and 80s but we really did have a hard time paying the mortgage and couldn't ask our parents for help because the attitude was "you've made your bed now lie in it."

In the 1980s a lot of people including my DH were made redundant under the excuse of weeding out the dead wood and we lost our family home which we had done up over a period of 14 years. This happened to a lot of people at the time.

Our story is not one of endless privilege but one of struggle to provide homes, clothes food etc., for our children. A lot of us are still struggling. We're not all jet setting off or cruising about in yachts.

I used to take lemonade bottles back to get the money!! Never thought I was terribly hard done by it was just something we did to make the money go round. Discovered Charity Shops and hobbled about in ill fitting shoes because they were made of leather in those days and did stretch.

By the way who is Hunter Davis??

Sorry you feel so upset Alex and Falconbird. What an awful remark.

It is a struggle for young people to get on the property ladder. The issue seems to be deposits. DS is paying £100 per month than we did in 1991. He has borrowed 2/3 more than we had. So the repayments, with low interest rates are not so different.

However, we bought our first house with a 5% Deposit. Which I saved on a teacher's salary. DH was still a student on a long Architecture course.

Deposits now have to be so much, in order to bring down the monthly repayment.

We were helped by a friend who lent us his house, ex. bills, for 6 mths.
I hope I have repayed this kindness to others over the years.

Another problem is the cost of energy bills and maintaining a house. Any first time buyer in London will have problems that are exceptional, unless they commute in and then they have travel costs.
Not an enviable position. x