The baby boomers

The history of the developed world in the second half of the twentieth century has been shaped by the trajectory of a great wave.  That wave is the passage of the post-war baby-boomer generation through the successive stages of life.

The wave began with the surge in the number of births back in the optimistic fifties; its flotsam includes the current surplus of red-brick schools and the plate-glass universities - testaments to the generation's progress through the educational system in the sixties and seventies.  Now that wave has turned into a second deluge; the baby boomers have been transmogrified by quirks of economics and history into the eighties insufferably affluent and ebullient yuppies.

Today they cover the green places of the earth like locusts.  They can be seen at myriad sports clubs, their bodies aglow with health and the pastel shades of designer sweatshirts; to cater for their unabashed appetites, new and exotic restaurants open daily; everywhere the style machine offers the essential but ephemeral rags, mags, books and looks.  But as the yuppies’ age profile slouches towards a peak around 30, many are being forced to face the omnipresent but unasked question which lies at the heart of their lifestyle: just what do you aspire to after you have achieved your £25,000 salary, the South London flat and company BMW? 

The answer is babies. Yuppie couples everywhere are espousing a way of life that seems an abnegation of all that yuppiedom stands for: the 24-hour freedom, egotistical self-projection, and constant storming of the successive citadels of ambition.  Instead they appear to be opting for the nuclear family, moderation, altruism.  A renaissance in the nannying profession will doubtless cushion the impact of this shift.  The need to pay for this increasingly sought-after and expensive commodity will also provide the perfect excuse to return to the world of the crowded filofax.

On the one hand a baby represents the ultimate consumable.  It is more interactive than the Gaggia machine, and higher tech than a CD player or Amstrad word-processor.  It even offers that most important of yuppie prerequisites, constant change.  The one thing they dread is running out of new experiences.  Babies come with built-in programmes of development; just start them up and watch them go - batteries not included. 

But the baby is more than the latest accessory.  It is an affirmation that the yuppie has grown up, is an adult.  For all their sophistication and worldly wealth, the baby boomers are aware that they are premature, that they have succeeded before their time.  It is as if their whole lifestyle were a kind of illicit sherbet liquorice, bought with pennies stolen from their mother's purse.  In their heart of hearts, they know that conspicuous consumption is simply a ploy to impress their parents.  Babies are the ultimate counter in this game.  See, they seem to say, like you we have children; ergo, we are no longer children.  What is worrying is the thought of this new baby boom thirty years hence as they battle it out with their still-redoubtable parents, now progressed from yuppies to euppies - ex urban professionals. 

(5.2.87)

Index