I think part of the reason the boomer generation came out as it did has to do with the generation that went through WWII — if you read what people were writing during the war, it was a lot of longing for life to return to “normal” and a fantasy of home and family as soon as the war would be over. What they failed to take into account was just how radically society had changed because of the war effort. For example, women had become more independent as they took on jobs formerly done by men, but after their men returned, gave up their jobs to go back to the home and raise a family. Then in the 1960s they began to feel frustrated and cramped by the household life. And both men and women often felt that “what they were fighting for” in the war was to give their children a completely different life — untainted by the hardships the parents and grandparents remembered from the Great Depression, and hopefully in a world without war. Thus, a quite normal parent’s dream became a nightmare when the boomer generation they fostered “rebelled.”
Still, I wonder just what the percentage of those aging hippie protesters in pink actually is from among the whole boomer generation. I never did quite fit in as a hippie myself, though Lord knows I tried… I know there are many like me who also grew up eventually and had a long re-think about the issues and what we did back then.
