Baby boomers knew fewer safety nets growing up, faced harsher expectations and had hard lessons thrust upon them early on, and many think that this created the tough mindset generations know them for.
Hard knocks
Growing up, physical punishments were the norm both at home and school. “Sparing the rod” meant you were a bad parent. Boomers learned at a very young age that if they misbehaved, there would be swift and painful punishment. So they learned to respect authority as a survival tactic.
No participation
If you won first place in the Boomer generation, you got a trophy. If you came in last place, you got absolutely nothing. No one threw you a participation ribbon. That you either win or you lose mentality created resilient people who were never sensitive about failing.
Total independence
“Be home when the streetlights come on.” That was about the extent of parental supervision for most Boomer kids. They explored their neighborhoods, stood up to bullies, and fought their own battles with no parents or cell phones to save them. This latchkey mentality taught them independence and how to be resourceful at a young age
Mental silence
Emotional problems or depression were something you suffered in silence or sucked up behind closed doors. If you admitted you were feeling depressed or out of control, you were perceived as weak and your social standing or even your job was on the line. You became a generation of people who value being stoic and getting on with it, no matter what the cost.
Cold war
Boomers lived with the very real possibility that nuclear war would break out at any moment. Students learned to do duck and cover drills in school, covering their heads underneath their desks, hoping it would protect them from an atomic blast.
Physical danger
From lead paint to asbestos to riding in the back of pickup trucks without seatbelts, the world was literally dangerous to kids. They survived childhoods that we would consider violating multiple safety laws. This “I survived it, so I’m fine” mentality can even cause people to scoff at modern safety rules.
Manual labor
Before computers, video games, and labor-saving devices, people had to change their own tires, mow lawns with push-powered machinery, and just generally work harder to get things done. Life used to take more elbow grease before gadgets and machines made work easier. Growing up like this develops a mindset that real work means physical work.
Limited choice
Baby boomers did not have hundreds of websites to choose from. They had 3 channels on TV, 1 local newspaper, and whatever the corner shop had available. Boomers figured out how to do more with less. Boomers don’t stress about finding something that is perfect. They know how to work with good enough.
Job loyalty
The unwritten Boomer employee mantra was to work for 40 years at a company and earn their pension. This required extreme patience and swallowing your pride after forty years of corporate drudgery and bad bosses. They were raised with a working-doggedly-mentality focused on the future, not happiness.
True scarcity
Parents of Boomers who lived through the Great Depression instilled a culture of true frugality in their households. Nothing was wasted. Clothes were patched until they no longer could be. Luxury items were special rarities. They live by a waste-not, want-not philosophy that makes the modern throw-away society feel foreign to them.
Face confrontation
When you had an issue with someone, you had to tell them to their face or deal with it in person. There were no screens to hide behind and you couldn’t block someone like you can today. You had to learn the social tools to deal with confrontation in person. This created an interpersonal strength and directness we view as blunt today.
Unfiltered reality
Life wasn’t filtered or sanitized down for kids. The Boom Generation saw life, death, and everything in nature without soft-filtered versions of reality. From farm chores to graphic footage on the evening news, Boomers knew the harshness of the real world at an early age. They became realistic, if not cynical, about human nature.
Dead ends
Imagine living in a world without Google, where if you didn’t know something and it wasn’t in the library, you just didn’t know it. Information was a gatekept resource, and you needed extensive memory and a lot of street smarts just to get by. This generated a generation that trusts their instincts rather than an algorithm.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.