Henrietta Hay's Column

Some things, once passed through, are better forgotten. That includes, among others, the process of childbirth and the passage from youth to middle age. I cannot remember whether I spent a lot of time thinking about the imponderables of the world or the meaning of life when I was 45. If there was trauma, I have long since forgotten it. But now I am being exposed to the symptoms all over again.

1947 was a prime year. One of my kids and a lot of my friends were born in that year. Unless my arithmetic fails me, that means they are all turning 45 this year and the angst is spilling out all over the place. They are the first of the Baby Boomers and there are an awful lot of them.

My younger son has informed me that he went hunting for his lost youth, found it, and decided to put it back. I believe this conclusion was reached after a camping trip he took with his older brother in which he slept on the ground in a rainstorm. Said brother, having gone through this passage several years ago and gotten smart, slept on an air mattress in the van. Camping never was a major activity for either of them, so I can only guess that Dave picked this particular test of youth because it was fairly safe and not too uncomfortable. His somewhat bemused older brother went along to give support and to see what would happen.

Dave's lost youth included experiences, which would have turned my hair white years before nature did it, if I had known about them at the time. Once he hitchhiked from Warsaw to the Black Sea and then rode to Athens in the luggage rack of a slow train. Apparently he chose not to try to regain that particular piece of his "youth."

The 45-year passage hits different people in different ways, but many of them experience panic or depression or both. From my position as a senior who went through it more than thirty years ago, I can be objective. I can even laugh at them, but they don't think it is funny. I keep telling them that it will get better, that they are really just beginning the most productive and interesting time of their lives and they tell me to buzz off.

Regardless of their struggles, they are taking their places in the World and doing vital work. As seniors we must accept that fact with grace. The Baby Boomers and their younger siblings have taken over the world. Everywhere I look some young thing is doing something important. My Boomer son, to say nothing of my friend the philosopher, my doctor, my editor, my lawyer, my minister, my computer guru, and now my President-elect are much too young to know the things that they know. They must have learned it all when I wasn't looking. No longer am I smarter than the younger generation. Wiser maybe, but not smarter. This upsets some people my age, but I think it's high time. Let the Boomers have at it--with a little advice from me--and give me time to relax and enjoy watching them.

Of course, with some 80 million Boomers, they are a mixed lot but they do have some things in common. As children they watched Mickey Mouse, and later listened to the Beatles. Oh how they listened to the Beatles, as did everyone else in the house. They are the generation of flower children with long hair, shaggy beards and love beads. It is estimated that by 2030 they will have a majority in the Supreme Court. Life goes on.

My nomadic hitchhiker is now wearing a suit and tie and trying to stay ahead of a pair of teenagers. As I watch his struggle with amusement I consider it a parent's ultimate revenge.

To all those who turned 45 this year, Happy Birthday. It does get better. I say power to the Baby Boomers, all 80 million of them. They sure can't do any worse than we did.