Life catches up with baby boomers

In our lifetime, when the glass ceiling was unbreakable, we lived a life in which boredom and alienation were primary factors for most of us.

In my life, at least, job security did not figure much.

As the film "The Hours" depicts, the 1950s was an era when decision-making didn't enter much into our perspective.

We lived through a period when women were suppressed and oppressed, and we had to deal with stultifying conformity, albeit in a confused and often contradictory fashion.

Looking back, our lives were hard, but contrasted with present reality, it is a moot point whether life for female "baby boomers" is as hard or even harder.

They were born during a period of full employment and increasing affluence and have grown up during decades of hedonism, the growth of corporative culture, economic rationalism and globalisation.

Now life is catching up with them in the form of high mortgages that require them to work many hours unpaid overtime at work and at home.

Property and possessions are the measure of success, and many boomers have put themselves in hock living off credit.

Some are forced into early retirement at a relatively young age when the push for excessive company profits renders many high achievers expendable.

The politicians are already running scared about the problems arising from the pending retirement of the large numbers of boomers, and this group will be a force to be reckoned with.

They have learnt what constitutes a comfortable life, and will be much more demanding in retirement than we were.

The big question is where are the organisations that exist for the female boomers on retirement?

There's our OWN (Older Women's Network) organisation, but how can we entice the boomers to join us?

I feel that a "preachy" approach is not the way to win them over to our particular organisational structure.

It might help, however, for us to examine from our own experience and strengths the issues that most affect boomers in a society where immense wealth is in fewer and fewer hands and democracy is an increasingly wobbly concept.

Having spoken to a few women in the boomer category, I think some of their stresses come from the flood of consumer goods they feel they've got to have, inadequate incomes from casual work and under-employment and the death or declining health of a parent or spouse.

Other stresses for women who've had a good career and are facing retirement are superannuation and budgeting, adjusting to new conditions, forging a new identity and dealing with funerals, family relationships, inheritance and making a will.

Additional pressures also come from the aspirations many have for their offspring, viz, further education, and the increasing cost of maintaining health and wellbeing.

I think we need to be tuned into these issues if we want OWN to appeal to the next generation.

Enid Harrison, Woy Woy