our 1960s or their mid-life crisis?

Marina always thought that the swinging sixties was her generation expressing itself, leaving childhood behind and hanging out as cool teenagers, but now that she is older and wiser and has time to think about it, she has come to the conclusion that the whole thing – from drugs to free love and rock and roll – was orchestrated by the Golden Generation going through their mid-life crisis.

“The guys behind the scenes, financing the bands and providing the drugs were all in their early 40s – the dangerous age – and they all preyed on young girls like me. After all, they fought for freedom in WWII, they’re war heroes; they deserved it, right?”

“I came to this conclusion after realizing that my whole life has been overshadowed by my parents’ generation,” explains Marina. “You know, the so-called Golden Generation, the depression kids and the war heroes born during the 1920s, and before, who came of age during WWII.”

“These guys were in their teens when the times were dangerous but terribly exciting,” says Marina, “and the world was their oyster then and, because of their continuing power and influence, it still is.”

“After the war they settled down for a while to raise families – giving birth to my generation of Baby Boomers,” says Marina, “and then, when they hit their 40s, they had the mother of all mid-life crises which ushered in the Swinging 60s, bringing back all the excitement of the war years that they missed so much.”


Read more by Marina on this issue:

golden generation v boomers

life extension on welfare

the gods of war

war hero frauds

dispelling myths

who invented nursing homes?

generational shadows

goodbye WWII

being young in an old workplace

revered wise elders or frauds?

the spoils of war vs survival

we’re ruled by dangerous old men?

generational shadows

Marina’s family was not so much cursed by generation wars as by an actual war cursing the generations which has overshadowed the entire 60 years of her life.

“Like all Baby Boomers, I grew up in the shadow of parents who had fought in WWII or been affected by it,” says Marina, “and they never ceased to tell us how grateful we should be for the sacrifices their generation had made for us.”

“My dad was a real war hero – he returned injured from the war and died before his time,” explains Marina, “but the rest of my extended family of his generation were merely serving time during the war and are undeserving frauds that peddle endless war films and stories and religiously attend veterans’ marches to glorify themselves at our expense.”

“My generation, the Boomers, fought in the Vietnam War or was affected by it,” says Marina, “yet we received no respect at all from our elders because they never saw it as a ‘real’ war, like WWII.”

“Also, the respect that I showed to my parents and extended family of the Golden Generation while growing up was not reciprocated when my own children grew up,” says Marina. “It seems that my parents’ generation has stitched up ‘respect’ to such an extent that only they deserve it because of WWII.”

“They stitched up ‘respect’ by schools focusing on WWII to the detriment of all wars before and after; by endless movies and television shows focusing on WWII; and the annual veterans’ march designed to glorify their deeds – and no other generation’s sacrifices.”

“I am totally sick of hearing my mother and my aunts and uncles talking about WWII and expecting me to me ‘grateful’ for what they did.”


Read more by Marina on this issue:

golden generation v boomers

life extension on welfare

the gods of war

war hero frauds

dispelling myths

who invented nursing homes?

goodbye WWII

our 1960s or their mid-life crisis?

being young in an old workplace

revered wise elders or frauds?

the spoils of war vs survival

we’re ruled by dangerous old men?

generations of stepfathers

Dania’s life dramatically after losing her father during the Vietnam War – as her mother’s life did when she lost her father during WWll – and she doesn't want her little grand-daughter to suffer the same fate of being raised by a stepfather and always wondering about what her life may have been like had her father not died in some stupid war.

"My son is only 22, the same age as many of the dead soldiers we watch every day at the end of the PBS News Hour on television," says Dania. "It breaks our hearts to watch this slide show of the young, fresh faces of boys once full of hope -- now dead -- and it should be mandatory watching for everyone responsible for this carnage, those in the White House and the Pentagon and every boardroom in the nation."

"My grand-daughter is the same age I was when my father got drafted," explains Dania, "and if my son gets drafted and he dies in some stupid civil war between Sunnis and Sh'ites in Iraq that has nothing to do with us then another generation of my family -- and millions of other families -- is going to grow up with stepfathers replacing their own fathers."

"I'm not saying that all stepfathers are bad -- mine wasn't," says Dania, "but I don't believe any stepfather can have the same sort of connection with children as real fathers can."

"My mom went on to marry someone else and had three more children," says Dania. "She tried hard to keep the memory of my father alive for me, but the pressures of a new marriage and new children made it an impossible task."

"My stepfather objected to pictures of my dad in my bedroom," says Dania. "He didn't like the idea of 'ghosts' in his house and made me keep all of my dad's stuff in a box which I kept under my bed. He definitely treated me differently to my half-brothers and sisters (his own kids)."

"If my son were required to defend his country from invaders, he'd be the first to volunteer," says Dania, "but he's as angry as I am over the terrible loss of young life in Bush's war for oil and world power in some God-forsaken place a long way from home, and if a draft were to come in he'd head for the hills rather than become a military slave."

“It is bad enough that many children lose their natural fathers due to unavoidable accidents," says Dania, “and we really don’t want to perpetuate this totally avoidable generational step-fathering through stupid wars.”

“Children need their natural fathers, not some guy who merely tolerates them because he’s in a relationship with their mother.”

Read more by Dania:

wars and fatherless grandchildren