RECENTLY, THERE have been a plethora of articles that almost uniformly predict dire consequences ahead as the rapidly growing aging population clutters up the world with their wrinkled faces, sick bodies and lack of productivity. It is not just the oldest-old who are being singled out as the culprits who are leading us into this apocalypse. It is also the fault of aging, unemployed Baby Boomers who, because they “may never find a job again,” are tapping into their Social Security benefits early.
There are a number of things that make me raging mad about these articles, not the least of which is that almost all of the predictions are based on what things are going to look like 40 years from now. As someone who came of age in the early 1970s, I remember hearing this same kind of hysterical propaganda being used to scare people about the impending overpopulation crisis.
Young people were brainwashed into thinking that having more than two children would destroy the planet. Because we were both idealistic and naive, we believed what we were told.
Women of my generation started using birth control to keep their families small or decided not to have children at all.
By taking this action, we were fulfilling our civic responsibility in the same way our mothers fulfilled their civic responsibility by having as many children as possible after World War II.
