Can Baby Boomers Grow Old with Dignity?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are more than 77 million baby boomers in the U.S. By 2030, this group (born between 1946 and 1964) will represent an estimated 20 percent of the U.S. population.

This means more than 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65 every day for the next 19 years, writes Emily Driscoll, reporting for Fox Business News.

What caused the U.S. baby boom folk refer to? American soldiers returned from World War II in 1945 started having kids in 1946.

In a recent “World Magazine” article, D.C. Innes writes, “It’s 2011. Three score and five years ago, our mothers brought forth a new generation, a big generation, a baby boom that has now started entering retirement.”

Innes says about boomers: “Many of them, whether through exercise or Botox, have no intention of ceding to others what they consider rightfully theirs: youth. The baby boomers have been the center of everyone’s attention since they were born, beginning with the publication of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care in 1946.”

A Pew Research study tells us that “the typical Boomer feels nine years younger than his or her chronological age” and thinks old age begins at 72.

“They’ve made it our standard practice to speak of the aged as being so many ‘years young,’” Innes writes.

One reader commenting on D.C. Innes’ article about aging baby boomers writes, “Whaddya mean old age doesn’t start at 72? My father retired at age 62. He started to receive AARP stuff and went nuts. He always told the toll collector ‘Here you go, son,’ but when the guy responded with ‘Thanks, Pop,” he stopped. It was an adjustment. In his 70s, while waiting for my mother to get ready for church, he put his leg up on a kitchen chair (something we were not allowed to do), so I teased him. His comeback? ‘I’m old, I can do what I want.’ Every generation, every person, gets hit in the face with the fact that they are now “Der Alte,’ – ‘the old one.’ I do think it will be difficult for those who are not grounded in faith. They will have to come to terms with a lot of ‘stuff.’It will be my turn this year as one of those 10,000. It is sobering to realize how short it has been and how little there may be left. But I can with only increasing honesty and sincerity say that the confident trust I have in God makes the past, present and future a life of wondrous hope. I would live blindly in foolish cynicism were it not for the realized grace of The Timely God Who daily assures me ‘I Am with you.’ To believe otherwise is to fall prey to the desperate lie of our hopeless enemy.”

Another reader of Innes’ article about aging says, “I learned a long time ago I am nothing, formed from nothing, and yet He who is everything for some reason (love) cares about me, you, all of us nothings on the surface of a dust particle in space. Any worth that my life has is from Him, not from me, you, or this material universe.”

Romans 5:12 reminds us of this fact: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

The Psalmist wrote, “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply (get) a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

I was born in 1947, at the front end of the baby boom generation. I half-joked recently with a friend that I, being a boomer, thought the Lord would return before I became old. Growing up, especially during the 1960s, many of us boomers thought the world revolved around us, so when I learned about the Lord’s promised return, I thought my generation would be “it,” the “chosen ones” who would see Christ’s second coming. (Hey, I still might see it during my lifetime!). I light-heartedly told my friend that I hadn’t saved enough funds for retirement nor taken good care of myself because I’d assumed the Lord was going to return and rescue me from any old-age hardships. My friend laughed. He realized I was commenting on boomers’ tendencies toward self-centeredness.

A prayer for us Baby Boomers: Heavenly Father, deliver us Boomers from ourselves. Help us grow old with humility and dignity. Continue to teach us how to number our days and share your Gospel. Help us abandon the search for the Fountain of Youth and learn to trust You, the “Fount of every blessing.” In Jesus’ name, amen.