It’s all about lifestage–not age. USA Today writes that age is diminishing in importance as a factor limiting what people do with their lives. Crux of the story:

Age used to be an important way to organize life, but now, the picture is changing: People are living longer and often staying healthy into their 70s and 80s; many go back to school and start second careers. Meanwhile, more young college graduates are delaying entry into a tight job market. Some opt for grad school or public service; many put off marriage and family. And children seem to grow up faster, trading toys for cellphones and buddy lists while still in elementary school. In many ways, the confluence of these threads has made a person’s chronological age less relevant. And those new attitudes about age are spawning laws and policies that reflect such changes.

The paper cites examples, including an increasing number of young people covered by their parents’ health care insurance up to age 30; the U.S. Army’s decision to lift the maximum enrollment age from 40 to 42; and the FAA’s decision to lift the maximum age for pilots from 60 to 65. Increasing longevity opens up a range of new options to people in their 70s and beyond.

SF Weekly printed several interesting letters about the Martin Kuz indictment of the Boomer generation, including a good rejoinder from Paul Kleyman, editor of Aging Today:

“Instead of offering an informative debate, Kuz treats his readers to a diatribe of cheap shots and generational bashing. Especially bizarre is how Kuz conflates our two Boomer presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, as evidence of their generation’s profligacy. But, as the Don Imus crowd knows well, bashing groups larger than a basketball team is easier than investing energy in good journalism.”

Marketing consultant Brent Green weighs in today on Boomtastrophe and other recent anti-Boomer screeds. Green, who specializes in the Boomer market, focuses in particular on Rocky Mountain News Gex X columnist Lisa Bornstein, who’s annoyed by the spotlight thrown on the 50+ crowd by the New York Times Magazine and other media outlets. Her basic message: we’re tired of you, get out of our way. Things must be awfully quiet in Colorado if this is the best thing Bornstein can find to write about. But Green’s open-letter response makes for good reading.

The Internet is awash in inter-generational bilge and plenty is directed at Boomers. I ignore most of it, because it’s usually a lot of angry nonsense. But here’s an article worth reading: Boomtastrophe by Martin Kuz in SF Weekly. Overall theme: how the Boomer generation ruined everything for for everyone (actual subtitle: “Baby Boomers hoped to die before they got old. They lied. And now they’re dragging the whole country down”). Kuz starts off with an amusing dissection of Ken Dychtwald’s recent PBS series “The Boomer Century.” I didn’t see the show, but with a theme this self-indulgent, why not just title it “Hit Me, Please”?

. . . the program began by exalting the early years of the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Archival video showed how their idealism inspired the feisty youngsters to torch buildings and sit in the lotus position. In on-screen interviews, an array of aging Boomer luminaries — Erica Jong, Rob Reiner, Oliver Stone — affirmed that their generation ranks as the finest to grace Earth. Or at least to practice est.

The look back provided a glimpse of the 1960s and ’70s through rose-tinted revisionism. We learned that Boomers deserve nearly all the credit for every major sociopolitical advance of the last 60 years, ranging from women’s lib and civil rights to the anti-war and green movements. Indeed, the lone event for which they stoop to recognize another generation’s role is their birth, an admission of mortality that sent many of them into therapy.

The Boomer Century’s second half explored what awaits the generation that, after lopping off its ponytail and donning a tie, hopped in its Volvo, picked up the kids from private school, and headed home to a gated community. Fortunately for his fellow Boomers, Dychtwald delivered a soothing prognosis for their Maalox years: “Increasingly liberated from parenting and full-time work, we’ll be free to seek out new experiences and adventures.” So long, pesky kids! Across the screen flashed images of gray-haired men playing football and driving race cars, proving once again that while a human be-in happens only once, hedonism lasts forever.

Kuz goes on with a lengthy attack on the social and economic policies of our two boomers-in-chief (Clinton, Bush), and the hypocrisy of Boomer “conservationists” driving around in SUVs. There are many quotable lines here, like….

Boomers piously insist that conservation remains high on their to-do list. After all, they haul their recyclables to the curb each week and volunteer to clean up riverbanks every Earth Day. They saw An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore is one of theirs, don’t you know). Some sat in a Prius once.

Over on the “Killing Earth” side of the ledger, fully one-quarter of Boomers own a second home, and roughly half of the SUVs and RVs on the road belong to them. To this generation, conservation means buying a smaller Cessna.

If you read this article with a sense of humor and self-examination, and your blood pressure shouldn’t shoot up. . .too much.