Boomer Camp Part 1

For the past several years I have ruminated over something that for lack of a better name I am calling Boomer Camp. The basic idea involves bringing a group of between 10 and 25 boomer aged men to a destination place for 3-5 days for a time of collaborative learning about the factors involved in living well and finishing well in the second half of life. I will lay out a series of blog postings that explain why it is that I am doing this, and why I think it is so important.

This year (2010) baby boomers who were born between 1946 and 1964 range in age between 46 and 64. 2006 was the first year this huge cohort began turn 60 at the rate of about 4,000,000 per year! I have a friend who refers to the baby boomers as the "New Olds". I like this designation, because it refers to a new brand of older adults who for the most part will not do "old" in the same way that their parents did it. Many people wonder what the future impact of the boomers will look like in America. Marc Freedman in his excellent book, Encore--Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life, presents two contrasting scenarios as possible answers to this question:

Worst-Case Scenario--The year is 2030

The youngest baby boomers are midway through their sixties and starting to claim their Social Security benefits. And none too soon, since the coffers are nearly empty. As many boomers say with only a touch of irony, at least we got ours.

The fittest boomers still boast that eighty is the new sixty, but the rest of the country has gotten tired of footing the bill for their lengthy retirement. After a seemingly endless run, America is ready for the baby boom generation to finally get off the stage.

With more than one in four Americans over sixty in this future society, generational conflicts abound. Walkers outnumber strollers; nursing homes proliferate while schools close. The millennial generation, now mostly in their thirties and forties, have taken "extreme working" to new heights, pulling extra shifts to support not only truly needy children and the elderly, but also a vast cohort of "greedy geezers" spending one-third of their lives on subsidized vacation.

The nation owes a debt to the boomers, in the form of an intractable deficit pushing the country ever closer to default. Spending on boomers' pensions and health care has replaced nearly all investments in the nation's future. Not only children, but the environment and the economy are suffering from these lost opportunities. America, like its swelling population of pensioners, is visibly and painfully well past its prime.

As the 2032 presidential election nears, boomer political power is finally on the wane. But the generation's legacy is assured. Boomers will be remembered as a self-absorbed, self-serving horde of over-indulgers who used their votes and their dollars to push their own interests to the forefront, posterity be damned. (Encore, pp. 1-2)

Best-Case Scenario--The year is 2030

The hysterical predictions of academic economists and assorted policy experts that once dominated discussion about the inevitable demographic trends have proven false. Few even remember concerns that the nation was headed to hell in a hand basket because of the huge population of "retiring" boomers. The feared "Gray 2K" was a nonevent, just like Y2K before it.

Instead, there is a palpable sense of progress. Longevity, demography, human development, generational experience, fiscal imperatives, labor market dictates, and the particular historical moment combined to lead boomers to contribute longer and to use their education and experience in areas with jobs to offer, deeper meaning to confer, and broader social purposes to fulfill.

Faced with the practical necessity of extended working lives, boomers have made it a virtue, N busy on their next chapters, second acts, or Careers 2.0. Some of the ills that seemed intractable at the beginning of the twenty-first century are fading, and others that appeared only to be worsening have made a 180 degree turn--all thanks to boomer labor power, now known as the "experience dividend."

Now, nearly everyone looks forward to an encore career. The oldest members of the millennial generation, entering their fifties, are getting ready for their own second acts, and younger people clamor for "purpose-driven jobs" in the same way earlier generations embraced early retirement. The goal now is to be able to stop climbing the ladder and start making a difference, to trade money for meaning, to have the latitude to work on things that matter most.

As the 2032 election approaches, political power is indeed passing to a new generation. But the boomer legacy is assured: A generation that set out to change the world surely did, by hanging the way the world thought about the purpose of work and the definition of success, and by rolling up its sleeves and doing the work that needed to be done. (Encore, pp. 3-6)

Which of these scenarios would you prefer to be a part of?

When I first read the following quote from Freedman's book some 3 years ago, it hit me right between the eyes:

Today, we face the prospect of tens of millions of boomers moving through their fifties and into their sixties...For most, it's a divide in the life cycle, a move from well-established terrain to a new phase of life and work that remains poorly defined but will last for decades. If they fail to navigate this transition successfully, if they are left at loose ends, underemployed, lacking purpose, feeling diminished and betrayed, the results could be disastrous for the economy, for society, and for individuals.

Who is going to help this huge cohort of people to "navigate this transition successfully"? I am hoping that Boomer Camp gatherings will create a platform that will help boomer men to identify what are the variables involved in finishing well. It is also my hope that these gatherings will equip hundreds of leaders to prepare other boomers for what could well be the best years of their lives.