The Baby Boom That Was And Then Was Not

The media seems to have lost track of when the baby boom was. Actually it was after World War II* and ran into the 1950's, ending before the decade did. I am not old enough to be a baby boomer, but I am old enough to remember that it was discussed as a past event during the 1960's. They had charts in the newspaper that showed that it had ended sometime in the previous decade. I don't have a copy of one of those charts, but I did find a chart that showed the birth rates during and after the baby boom.

Reblogged from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom

This chart shows that the birth rate was falling off during the later part of the 1950's. The period when the birth rate fell off was the beginning of the baby bust that followed the baby boom.

"Generation X", the term used to describe the next generation after the baby boom, was originally said to have begun in the late fifties. That term is now being misused along with the term "baby boomer" as the modern media has lost track of when that all was.

The media made a big deal out of being a teenager when the baby boomers were teenagers, but by the time I reached my teens they no longer had the same emphasis on that age group. At that point the media focused on what they called "young upwardly mobile people", which was the same group they previosly had been pushing under a different name.

People born after the baby boom did not share the same experiences that the baby boomers had. And as a group they tended to be more conservative than the baby boomers; this was something that was noted by 1980's television programs, such as FAMILY TIES.

The technological age changed.  Baby boomers were in the atom age. I was in the space age. There was a great deal of interest in the space program in this period, particularly when they landed on the moon.


* Actually the birth rate went up while the war was still going on, as the chart shows. But they tend to ignore that along with the decline in births toward the end of the fifties,  because it doesn't fit their story.



Baby Boom Said To Have Been In 1940's And 1950's In 1980 Article:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19800617&id=zj4eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9L4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=4764,9110327&hl=en

Baby Boom Identified with the 1950's:
https://1950s.weebly.com/the-baby-boom.html

Baby Boom Said To Have Begun During War:
https://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2014/08/14/1943-the-baby-boom-is-born/

FAMILY TIES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Ties

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