We are the grandchildren of the depression, you know, the “Great Depresssion”, the other one, in the 20’s and 30’s. We were raised on the abundant hope and prosperity of the fifties. 

WW11 rescued the economy and a whole generation from poverty and desperation.   We flourished on the income of one salary.  We had ballet lessons, sometimes private schools, graduation trips to Europe.  We shared a common and a sincere belief that our future was ours to determine if we worked hard, saved some money and got an education.  Our parents: butchers, plumbers, engineers, homemakers, secretaries and firefighters taught us from our diaper days that our job was to ”do better than them”.  Our teachers prepped us for college, and the promising jobs that were right around the corner from graduation. “Middle Class” meant being in the middle of the American Dream. 

  

Of course, the girls could be teachers, airline stewardesses, librarians or  nurses until they got married. Then the 70’s ushered in feminism and gradually the options changed so that a few might consider medicine, architecture or another “white collar” career, if her father agreed that it wasn’t too threatening to potential husbands.Men were expected to work at the same job for 40 years, while women were not “expected” to work once a husband was “caught” and the babies arrived.

The 80’s changed that. Women demanded, and won, the right to pursue their own passions, talents and careers.  Two income families became the norm, just to keep up with the bills, the college funds, the medical insurance, car payments and mortgage. Many flourished, had large “nest eggs” and boasted of “my son the doctor” or my daughter the engineer. The houses got bigger, the cruises longer, the diamond anniversary pendants worn as medals of success.

It’s 2011. For the children of the 50’s the American Dream is keeping us awake at night.  We’re wondering how it all went so wrong when we worked so hard to follow the rules. Millions of our houses have been foreclosed upon,  our cars repossessed. The pendants have been sold on consignment to stall foreclosure, pay the student loans, or health insurance premiums that are steep enough to make us sick. The retirement plans have run amok and we’re gradually beginning to truly understand what our grandparents meant when they talked of no work, no food, no hope.

I have an intense curiosity about my boomer peers.  Just what are their  lives looking like today with high unemployment, dwindling savings and less hope for the future that we ever imagined.   Who are we?  Really, who are we, this aging generation, on the cusp of retirement,  who “did better” than our parents, and ended up doing worse?

I’ve taken my curiosity to friends, Facebook and coffee shops, in search of the boomerangst that seems to be a well kept secret.  I am writing their stories because I want to break the silence about the newly impoverished who are struggling and surviving, often times with the same gumption and pride that our grandfathers mustered to feed their families, find work and hold their heads high.

In one day alone, after a posting on Facebook, I had 5 willing truth tellers. There are millions more.    I will write their stories, as a celebration of spirit, consolation for loss, and a respite from my own musing about becoming a bag lady.

Today Sandra told me a bit of her truth:  “ I eat breakfast and lunch and never eat dinner…I NEVER eat dinner.  I move into my bedroom so I don’t have to heat the whole house . I have a camping 9 volt battery lamp so I don’t run up electric bill. I sit in bed with my electric blanket to save on heat.  I really struggle.” 

Sandra’s story is waiting to be told.  I will do the telling.