More Boomers are committing suicide
It’s particularly true for men in their 50s, for whom the rate has jumped by a factor of 50% (up to 30 per 100,000) during the first decade of the twenty-first century. For women ages 60-64 the rate jumped 60% during the same period, although their actual rate of suicide is a lot lower, 7.0 per 100,000.
In general during that same decade, suicide rates among the middle-aged rose about 30%, with men in that age group committing suicide about 3 times more often than women (if I remember correctly from my college classes on the subject, males have long been the ones who kill themselves more often, while women have historically had more attempts, at least partly because males tend to use the more fail-safe methods such as guns while women tend to use pills).
The article floats several theories, but no one seems to know. One that makes intuitive sense is that these men may be one of the groups hardest hit by the financial reversals of the past few years. However, the statistics are for 1999-2010, so it’s hard to see how that can be the main reason since the downturn only really got going in the latter part of 2008. It would be helpful to know more about whether the increase in suicide has been evenly distributed across the whole decade or whether it spiked after 2008, and whether it is higher among the newly unemployed or has marked regional or ethnic variations. For example, it’s not hard to imagine that being widely reviled as “old white men” could have a disproportionate effect on—well, on oldish white men.
Some, although not all, of these questions are answered by going to the report itself. The stats are not broken down there by years or occupations, but the report does mention that all four regions of the US experienced the increase. What’s more, although the biggest suicide increase was among native Americans, whites were next (men and women). The method with the greatest increase was suffocation (that’s almost always hanging), which may account for some of the higher lethality. And other age groups did not experience similar increases in suicide.
Another interesting fact embedded in the Times article is that Boomers have had higher rates of suicide than other cohorts for a long time, even as adolescents. Are Boomers especially prone to high expectations, and depression when they are not fulfilled? Are they less religious, or less connected to other people?
[NOTE: The comments section of the Times article—at least the first twenty or so comments, which are all I read—is filled with really sad stories about Boomers and job loss, providing anecdotal evidence that this could be a big part of the cause.]
I was going to say, in the worst sort of cynical black humor fashion, that this probably helps the unemployment rate.
It’s quite sad.
Boomers in particular (like my parents, like my in-laws) have tended to view their occupation as an extension of themselves. It’s a major part of their identity. Now surely it is across generations (after all, we still have last names that originated as a trade or profession), but in modern society, I think the Boomers have taken self-actualization through their jobs/careers to a different level. So I wonder if some of this isn’t related merely to financial hardship as it is to the depression related to a loss of identity in work.
“Loss of identity in work!”
While I had to work to raise my children, the workplace was a sordid pile of shit. Deliriously awful! The work was meaningless crap. The workplace was presided over by idiots without a clue. Sitting in an office or a cube is torture.
I lost my last full time job in 2006, and worked as a contractor until 2012. Thank God, I’m retired!
If you can’t find something better to do with your time than work at some godawful job, you’re going to put a gun to your head.
My advice… develop an identity and interests that are entirely your own, independent of work.
Who knows why people commit suicide. Approaching senility is a pretty awesome thing.
As a white, male, baby boomer, those figures make me feel very depressed. To the point that I want to shoot myself.
I wonder if the significant reduction in religious affiliation and spirituality could have anything to do with it? Nah.
I was unemployed for a few weeks in my 50s after my airline went broke. It was a very disconcerting experience. On the other hand, when I retired from the Navy it looked for a time as if I would not find a job, and so I jumped at the first thing that came along. That was a huge mistake. Fortunately, I was able to correct it within a few months. I don’t think suicide would have ever been contemplated; but, I do know that job interruption can be a serious emotional event. At least for a depression era baby.
I am in the last batch of war babies, born in 1945 and my sister born in 1947 had a high school graduating class that was twice as large as mine. The cultural shift during a five year period from 1963 when I entered college and 1968 when the nice young hippies were bringing enlightenment to the world was huge.
I think that during that time we jerked the lid off of Pandora’s box and all sorts of demons flew out that have resulted in long term consequences, some intentional and some unintentional, that we are dealing with today.
In my own little part of the world men my age 1945 had a sense of obligation, duty and honor that seemed to disappear in a few short years to be replace by entitlement, self-interest and in some cases cowardice. You don’t want to be drafted, go to Canada, etc.
Now these same folks are coming into a time of their lives when reality can bite them on the butt in the form of unfulfilled dreams, bad health, shattered relationships, lack of faith and post death accountability and an inability deal with the every day frustrations and crap of life in order to wake up with a new fresh better day.
Some of these people are like little kids who don’t get their way so they just say I am taking my ball and going home which is a sad way to live and die. My good friends and I watch each other age out and the years between 65 and 80 are when the pieces and parts start falling off and infirmity sets in and life becomes a struggle.
In most of the cases of my close friends we still have our spouses who share this trip with us and laugh at us as we take care of each other and to me that might be one of the most important ingredients in hanging in there.
Along with a sense of humor I find that being part of a church and sharing fellowship with people that are going through stuff, singing and praying together and being close to folks who will listen to the current, what we call joys and concerns of each other helps me a lot.
I wonder if some of the people who chose suicide might be missing out on some additional fine years of their lives if they can just get past their present situation. I guess today is my day to be a little sappy because I found out yesterday that I will be having some, kind of complicated, spine surgery in a couple of weeks and I am working on seeing the sunshine in my situation and not getting caught of in my own woe is me thing.
Many who probably worked hard all their lifes are confronted with living out their last decades in penury dependent on a gov’t check.
@Shouting Thomas, I wasn’t advocating for people finding their identity in work, it was an observation. As an aficionado of Tim Keller (“Counterfeit gods”), I believe making an idol out of employment can be enslaving and devastating. I think some of that is being born out here.
Perhaps the breakdown of marriage, family, and church plays a role. Those all provide support and connect one to life.
So the Baby Boomers are killing themselves off? As a Gen Xer, I think I can speak for my entire generation when I say: GOOD RIDDANCE.
As a Gen-Xer, I would be happier if Gen-Y would start killing itself off. It’s hard enough to work to support my household without having to work for everyone else that Gen-Y (and the depraved tools that it tends to vote for) thinks I should be working to support.
chuck: but why would they disproportionately affect middle-aged people? Particularly men in their 50s and women in their early 60s?
Given the social isolatikn hamber i work in now
I would welcome slmekne shhot me
The permanent harm they have wrecked my life and desstroyed what progress i had made in my life
I am nit suicidal
There us just nithing left
Over 4000 hours with no human contact
People take pictures of the freaks office
Heat sterilized me as we been tryjng to have a kid
No rsses
Punished for trykng hard which whould i was told diwgraddthe others
Just killing time till timr kills me now
I have no rights
And despite their literally killing me slowly
I will stay for my wifes sake
Yes its been three tears neo
N the changes you mentikned is from the damage u forgot ghey were doing to me!!!! I never got any help
Its hopeless….
But… i cope…
Wont hurt myself ever
But that dont mean it isnt wgat it is!!!!
I hate phone typing
The difference inrates is due to response
She gets a crowd of help
He gets put out
If your failed attempt puts you out you better succeed
So women fake it a lotmen di it to notburden or take resourcds Way
Real providers dont allow backflow
neo, maybe the reason is because the post-50 divorce rate has doubled in 20 years:
http://tinyurl.com/brlercf
I wonder: Did feminism lead Boomer women toward unrealistic goals with its “you can do it all” message? Did the failure of many women to measure up to these kinds of expectations have devastating emotional effects? We’ve seen many examples of women who managed extraordinary achievement while raising children and maintaining a happy home, but what about those who didn’t? Perhaps this factor had some bearing on the statistics.
Affirmative action means nothing ghey do matters
Which is why it was part of germanies program fir the people who were dusfavored n not protected
So blind you cant see eugenics
I could list out whats happened… from sba8a to colldge entry since 80s, etc
Didnt u read the quotes i put upfrom femjnists???
How bout the quotes from radfemhub as they discuss how they damage boys mentally and secretly
That way their lives r dysfunctional later
Now ya cant put all that to say it as its not pc
So it doesnt exust
Note anyone who tries to infodm cant
So they get attacked not sypathy
No mens clubs allowed, right????
Game is over anyway… so it doent matter
Though ehen the demgraphic flip occurs
You canbet ovens n camps r near
As I understand it, men are disproportionately harmed by divorce, and are generally not the ones who choose it. Boomers are the generation of no-fault divorce; prior generations were more likely to stay married, and subsequent generations are less likely to get married. Couple that with the poor job market, and divorced men in their fifties who are out of work and facing punishing alimony payments might understandably be more likely to check out.
Women in their sixties is more of a conundrum, though I’d again look in part to effects of divorce. I hear it’s tougher for women to remarry when they are older. Also, they were the first generation to reap the benefits of Roe v Wade and the pill. Is it possible that more of them simply don’t have the extended family (and thus the support) they might have had, if they had stayed married, had kids, and had grandkids? Loneliness and aging are a frightening combination for many.
Knowing only the age and sex of those who commit isn’t really very helpful. Demographic information such as employment, marital status and family might shed a lot more light on the situation.
Besides the obvious, the breakdown of the family and church (synagogue), I think the proliferation of drug use, prescription & illegal, must enter into this reality.
he is lucky they admitted it, or else he would go to jail..
i was told i had no rights
i never did a thing
but the feminist judge favored a woman who later woudl take the child with her (and two younger ones) and rob a bank. she faked her murder and destroyed my life. now where i am, they are destroying it.
ie. what about schooling? from the 80s, women exceeded men in college… so where did all the men go?
Women have rights, men have responsibilities
Radfem Hub (Radfem is short for Radical Feminist), is a website featuring articles from well-known activists, many of whom are in significant real-world positions of political and social influence. The site has been the focus of some attention since Simon and Schuster novelist Pamela O’Shaughnessy, posting under the name Vliet Tiptree, penned an article there advocating human scientific experimentation and forced eugenics, in order to “extirpate” certain aspects of masculinity.
Women’s Lib: Love, Peace and Kill All The Men – Belladonna http://belladonna.org/Gynotopia/feminists.html
Who Needs Men?
In City of Women by David Ireland, men have been banished from Sydney, Australia, but still run amok outside the city.
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
even Disney is teaching girls to throw away men!!
Mars Needs Moms
Finally, A Disney Film in Which Mom Is Neither Dead nor Witch
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/03/24/finally-a-disney-film-in-which-mom-is-neither-dead-nor-witch/
few noticed that all the men were rastafarian dreadlocked people who picked garbage
then you have all the men represented on TV
where the only good white guys are – gay
as far as older women kicking off. from what i see, they are sitting in a pool of regrets for following the advice of feminism!!!!!!!!!!!!
last night, the downstairs neighbor got all tobacco up, alcohol up, and had one of her feminist yelling times with her mom… like clockwork
http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/2011/11/feminist-lets-eliminate-all-men-while.html
driving people to suicide is easier and cheaper than ovens, and you dont get blamed either.
you go grrrrls…
A casting call for a new host of a children’s program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the taxpayer supported, government-owned television and radio network of Canada, accidentally told the truth, when it specified “any race except Caucasian.” See for yourself:
and this!!!!!!!!!!!!
Meg Lanker-Simons
A well-known female liberal blogger and radio host at the University of Wyoming (UW) is being accused by police of fabricating a rape threat against herself to appear as if it came from a conservative.
The obscene message directed at activist Meg Lanker-Simons was posted on a college “crush” Facebook page earlier this week and immediately ignited outrage from the college community.
“I want to hate f**k Meg Lanker-Simons so hard. That chick that runs her liberal mouth all the time and doesn’t care who knows it,” it read. “I think its hot and it makes me angry. One night with me and shes gonna be a good Republican bitch,” the post reads, according to a screenshot.
http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4731
heck… type misandry
your spell correction does not know it
but it does know misogyny
🙂
Every time I see a post that contains the words “Baby Boomer”, or just “Boomer”, the negative comments come out – including some real hate: “As a Gen Xer, I think I can speak for my entire generation when I say: GOOD RIDDANCE.”
(No Mag, you do NOT get to speak for your entire generation or for anyone else but yourself, so FOADDB.)
Generations – boomer, Gen X, Gen Y whatever – do not DO anything. Only individuals can act – sometimes in concert – but individually nonetheless.
I don’t know why folks in their 50’s have a higher rate of suicide than most. Each of these is a solitary act committed for their own personal reason that most likely has no relation to their generation other than that as we age we start to encounter personal problems that seem insurmountable from the inside looking out.
I kind of took it that the baby boomers Mag was referring to were Biden through Obama but even so it’s a hard row to hoe being planted with all them hate weeds.
Perhaps as the most hopeful but impractical generation in history, as reality settles in and the truth of matters becomes clear, for those who have chosen a faith in man there isn’t much left? Even the blind can see not just America, but the world, is headed toward an epic series of disasters, none of which are preventable by cutting green house gasses or any of the other pretty idealistic notions of saving a falling civilization, if confusing civilization’s fall for the fall of nature. Men often mix things up so that they can seem easier to swallow? All of which, actually, will be caused by the green push and other false initiatives.
Could just be jobs though. Probably jobs. Still, one can dream.
anyone check wiki?
just remember the words..
providers cant be a burden
a provider cant be a taker
we are made to be sacrificed…
men, the disposable sex…
Suicide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide
A number of psychological states increase the risk of suicide including: hopelessness, loss of pleasure in life, depression and anxiousness A poor ability to solve problems, the loss of abilities one used to have, and poor impulse control also play a role In older adults the perception of being a burden to others is important.
no way to earn… their earnings not enough
they will do what my dad did
sacrifice their lives for their wives and children
if they dont have any
they go away to not burden the group
you cant take a beings purpose away
leave them nothing
and expect them to care to stick around
for what?
and men will deny the opposition their resources!!!
call it going GALT permanently
Only six suicides are recorded in the Old Testament. The most dramatic mass suicide of ancient times occurred at the fortress of Masada where the Hebrew forces, greatly outnumbered by the advancing Romans, followed their leader Eleazar, who led them to kill themselves rather than become Roman slaves
The suicide most highly regarded in Greek mythology as well as in Homer were the heroic suicides–the sacrifice of one’s life for the benefit of another, and in particular for the defense of one’s country. Such suicides were honored and admired. Society tacitly and sometimes alternately
encouraged him
unlike women, they cant fight their mates
and if their mates dont want them, then i guess its moot. no?
Especially dramatic was the ongoing pattern of the deaths of Christian martyrs allowing themselves to be killed to enter the afterlife promised them by Christ and the other early Christian leaders. But although there was still a pull toward the spiritual afterlife in the face of increasing worldly deprivation and hardship
but then, the leaders of society thought, maybe its best they dont do that.
and soooo…
St.Augustine (354—430) pronounced suicide to be a crime, since it was killing oneself, and, as stated in the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” (including oneself).
693, the Council of Toledo had proclaimed that an individual who attempted suicide was to be excommunicated.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274) saw suicide as flying in the face of the mandate to be charitable, including to oneself. Plus, committing suicide could harm one’s community. But, especially, “it usurps God’s power to dispose at his discretion of man’s life, death, and resurrection.”
[there are similar arguments that negate socialism, referencing the story of the talents… ie. god cant reward someone if its stolen… so socialism negates gods power to pick winners and losers in favor of a state that has people who pick themselves and their own children]
Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Epicurus, the Stoics, Seneca, Epictetus,Montaigne, Déscartes, Spinoza,Voltaire,Montesquieu, Rousseau,
Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Camus
all have something to say on the subject..
David Hume “On Suicide” 1777, then reversed it again but not towards heroic… which we still celebrate in things like the 9/11 firefighters. but since women joined the police force, the reputation is false now. they dont risk themselve for the public any more…
note that under feminism, harvard psychology (The source of neos point), did not want men to get nobel credit for doing so. so they moved it to just another anger impulse.
From The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, 3rd edition, we hear:
Male suicidal behavior usually involves an inability to control angry impulse … although adolescent men outnumber women in completed suicides by about 4 or 5 to 1, adolescent women outnumber men by about the same margin in numbers of attempts … among children and adolescents who commit suicide, a statistically significant number come from fragmented homes with missing parents … in a sample of 108 adolescents who attempted suicide, 49% came from homes with one parent missing.
but lets say harvard also produced obama and tons of others, so you cant really go by them any more. and i guess that is the problem with conversion, you convert, but then you lean on the old things without rejiggering them!!!!!!!!!! so your only sort of converted, the rest has not!
Emile Durkheim Le suicide 1897 posited four kinds
altruistic suicide to represent the kind that is expected and demanded by the rites and customs of the group (think Japanese warriors)
Egotistic suicides are carried out by individuals with too few connections to the community and too few demands from the community to continue living as part of it. (boomers who cant live without a purpose, and feminism took that away. grandchildren dont exist, and do not care to come)
Anomic suicides stem from the shattering of a relationship that the individual was accustomed to and valued, such as the loss of a job, close friend, or loved one, or loss of one’s financial security and well-being.
fatalistic suicides come from excessive regulation, oppression, or denial of essential freedoms or birth-rites.
if you look at them, the boomers are suffering SEVERAL of these at once thanks to socialism, eugencics, social planning, and bad advice to your opposition who believes you are friends
The Ten Commonalities of Suicide – Shneidman
1. The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution.
2. The common goal of suicide is the cessation of consciousness.
3. The common stimulus in suicide is intolerable psychological pain.
4. The common stressor in suicide is frustrated psychological needs.
5. The common emotion in suicide is hopelessness [or] helplessness.
6. The common cognitive state in suicide is ambivalence.
7. The common perceptual state in suicide is constriction.
8. The common action in suicide is egression.
9. The common interpersonal act in suicide is communication of
intention.
10. The common consistency in suicide is with lifelong coping patterns
in my life, i have lost several friends
and even saw a catholic priest as a child take a head first dive not 100 feet away… nothing in the movies matches that!!! nor have they ever reproduced the sound… hard for a 8 year old to forget..
as a EMT, i saw too many.. and even more dumb accidents that left them in bad embarrasing (For their family) conditions… just think of what happen to the actor that played the lead in kung fu… hung in his hotel masturbating in drag… not the best way to go.
then there is the famous death of the gay mathemetician alan turing… he bit an apple he poisoned with cyanide and died like sno white
the man who invented pk zip.. gone
the man who invented FM radio.. he too his hat, brushed it off, and walked out the window..
lots here, and this is the source of many quotes above
http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/pdf/1556436211E.pdf
Men’s rights movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement
They’ve been reading the upcoming Medicare changes and their B.O. care applications, and figure they’ve got nothing to lose.
Here’s my story. My brother committed suicide on January 23. He was 48. Although I don’t normally think of him (or me) as “middle-aged,” when I heard this story on the radio I realized that, yes, in an objective sense that he’s probably included in this group. He’s very tail end baby boomer, depending on how it’s defined.
In the last three years he had lost a good job, lost his house to foreclosure, separated from his wife, worked temporarily for the Census and another part-time job, found a new job that was paying him way less than he needed and which he found increasingly unsatisfying and finally got divorced. Oh, and his car broke down twice and cost him (or me) a lot of money. Plus, he had issues with his kids and custody, etc. Plus, he’d been on depression medication for 10 years. Plus, after his death we found out he had an outstanding $60,000 home equity loan on the house he no longer owned.
So, why did he commit suicide? I don’t think anyone can say. It’s a take your pick situation. But my final conclusion is that it’s one of life’s mysteries because I don’t think there is an actual “reason”. Because in the news just the last couple of days we have the story of Brenda Heist, who ran away from her life and lived as a homeless person for the last 11 years. My brother could have done that, but didn’t. He could have become a drug addict, but didn’t. He liked beer and could have become an alcoholic to deal with his self-evident problems, but he didn’t. He could have done a lot of things, but he committed suicide. I don’t think even he knew why. His very short suicide note apparently said, “There’s something wrong with my brain and I don’t know what to do about it.” Can I blame that on the economy?
P.S. In the papers we found, the tax value of his home as assessed by the local government went from $194,000 in 2009 to $114,000 in 2011. That one I think we can blame on the economy.
OldTexan 12:13 pm:
“The cultural shift during a five year period from 1963 when I entered college and 1968 when the nice young hippies were bringing enlightenment to the world was huge.”
Man, you said it! I was born in ’51. In 1967-68 marijuana came to Atlanta. LSD in 68-69. I started college in 1969 (in the South). Anyone who was a year or two older than us was a 100% Motown and Beach music fan. We were all into Hendrix/ Blind Faith/ Etc. Etc. By the time I was a senior in 1973 Nixon was on the run, and everyone was marching on Washington, having been excused from attending college classes (but nonetheless given a “Pass” if not an “A'” for all coursework).
I’ve always thought the watershed period — the tectonic (and tragic) shift in American Culture — was from late 1967 through the moon landing in July 1969.
But we each have our own perspective, I guess. Like the blind men and the elephant.
As a Boomer who just passed through my 50’s, I wonder if it has something to do with the Boomer obsession with youth. My 50’s were terrible in terms of health… a lot of new problems kept happening. I actually feel better now, and seem to be in better health at 61 than at 55.
I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve seen a lot of men die in their 50’s due to health issues. If a man makes it to 60, then things seem to calm down.
And Mag: I am in total sympathy. Boomers can’t exit stage right soon enough… my generation has totally F***ed up everything.
I just ordered the Rod Dreher book about moving back to his home town after his sister developed cancer and died. He realized the value of being connected.
I just got back home with my husband who will start a 6-month sabattical. In making preparations for the trip, I had my brother to help with finding us a car, getting insurance, doing banking, etc. He knows everyone in the area and his friends have been so helpful.
I was born in 46, but I grew up in a rural area and had a huge extended family. When I was young I stayed with aunts and uncles who had outdoor toilets and raised their own food. I learned that it’s possible to survive on very little if you don’t worry about “things.” I am so glad that I had a chance to learn what is important in life.
OldTexan @ 12:13
Hardly sappy. My best wishes and prayers for your coming surgery.
It would be so much easier if suicides were specific, singular causes, but they’re not. Usually, suicides result from the totality of multiple causes, some big, some small – actually, mostly small that become big in concert.
Yes, suicides did increase during and after 2008. Many articles have focused on just that time till now.
HuffPo 07/26/10 says, “Though experts say we may not know for years how much the rate has increased, calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline increased by 36 percent in 2008, and another 15 percent in 2009.
“Data compiled by The Wall Street Journal in late 2009 showed increases in several states. Of the 19 states surveyed, 13 had seen marginal increases in the suicide rate. Tennessee had the highest rate of increase, with over 15 percent more suicides in 2008 than 2007. Across the 19 states, the average increase was 2.3 percent.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/suicide-rates-up-since-re_n_658668.html
TIME Feb. 09, 2009, reports there is a strong correlation between finances and suicide, but adds, “What you find is that suicides happen because of the total burden the person is feeling, how much they feel things can’t get better and they can’t tolerate the psychological pain they are experiencing,” says Dr. John L. McIntosh, a psychologist and suicide expert at Indiana University. “Sometimes it takes years for the effect of economic downturn or instability to trickle down to the level of the psyche or penetrate the psyche, to get under the skin to produce some of the negative outcomes such as suicides.”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1878044,00.html
But why men in this particular age group? Maybe it has something to do with the role men were once expected to play in society and what has actually resulted. Men who thought they were supposed to take care of the wife and family, and did for a time, no longer can. Whatever security they amassed is gone and there’s no time to recoup or their skills no longer match the market. Everything, it seems, conspires to tell them (us, because I’m one of the this age group) that what we were, what we knew, what we could do and offer is obsolete with 30, 40, 50 years ahead of us.
With the war on men and boys coupled with the advances of women in all areas, men are left with few traditional touchstones and only nebulous ideas of what the role of a man is today. Movies and TV show men as bumblers and fools, not competent people. Even the most popular cop shows are populated with majority women in traditionally male roles. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but it’s just another little thing telling men of a particular age bracket that they are failures.
In recent days, men find they fall short of gay basketball players, too. Hell, men aren’t even needed in procreation anymore now that individual egg cells can new DNA inserted and the donor sex doesn’t matter. Seems the only places men still have a place to dominate is pro-sports and cooking shows.
but why would they disproportionately affect middle-aged people?
That’s when things start to hit home. Parents pass, if you don’t have kids it’s too late, and you realize the head of the line is in sight. I don’t know that any of those things account for the statistic, just speculating.
}}} More Boomers are committing suicide
Was there supposed to be a downside to that, or was it an invitation to PAR-TEEE?
}}} As a white, male, baby boomer, those figures make me feel very depressed. To the point that I want to shoot myself.
As a white male Gen-Xer, I want to dance for joy.
There are clearly exceptions, but Boomers are the worst pox that ever hit humankind.
They fully embraced PostModern Liberalism, which is a societal cancer of the worst sort. They’ve given lip service to civil rights, while doing their hypocritical best to destroy all actual civil rights.|
The world would have been a better place without them, and it’ll be a better place when they’re gone.
Mag, Kyndyll, and others:
I strongly recommend the book The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It was published in the late 1990s and I just read it a few months ago.
The authors have an interesting cyclical theory of history, in which there are recurring roughly 20 year phases, or “turnings”, which have different characteristics. The generations that come of age in the different turnings also have their own characteristics, or “archetypes”.
No matter what your age or which generation you are a part of, this book will help you understand what makes other generations tick.
As I said, the book was published in the late 90s. The authors predicted a “Crisis” phase beginning in the mid-to-late 2000s. I don’t believe that anyone can deny that we are now in it. And the Crisis phase lasts for about 20 years, so it’s just getting underway.
Previous Crises in American history were the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Depression/World War II. So if the authors are even close to being correct, we are really in for it. Each generation will have a role to play.
Full disclosure: I’m a late Boomer, born in 1958. I’m not offended by some of the comments I’ve seen in this thread. Like I said, reading that book gives me perspective on my own and other generations.
According to that book, Gen-Xers kind of drew the short straw. They tended to be neglected as children, and will tend to be ignored and not highly valued when they are elderly. So I don’t envy you guys. (The book calls this the 13th Generation, or “13ers”, for some reason.)
The most recent historical analogue of Gen-X was the Lost Generation, who came of age around the time of World War I.
The generation coming of age now, the Millennial, could turn out to be interesting. Their most recent historical analogue was the generation that fought World War II.
Re: “That’s when things start to hit home. Parents pass, if you don’t have kids it’s too late…”
I agree with Chuck. Marriage, religion and kids all require you cherish something greater than yourself, and make you part of a community, connected.
Now imagine a person has spent his/her whole life putting him/herself first (it’s not called the “Me Generation” for nothing) – never married or now divorced, never had kids or they’ve moved away, the career he’s/she’s placed as the highest priority has either plateaued or fizzled. The old pleasures of sex and drugs have probably lost their charm after decades of indulgence. If there’s no God, then there’s no sense of purpose or that he/she is part of something bigger, no afterlife to look forward to, no reason to see life as a gift, etc.. So what’s the point in soldiering on?
Art…
The Masada myth has been completely debunked by the IDF.
They use Masada for their paratroops.
Long story — short: the Masada bodies were discovered in the late 1960s in positions that make it crystal clear that no suicide ever occurred.
EVERY Jewish male was killed at the perimeter — fighting off the Romans.
With success, the Romans then moved in and massacred all the women and children — who were cowering all together.
The crime scene was left undisturbed for centuries: no burials.
Masada, being Masada, was left as a ghost fortress in the intervening centuries.
There are three major things that keep people stable — family, community, and religion. Present day U.S. society is hard on all three.
There’s a proverb that says “A good man leaves an inheritence to his children’s children.”
The baby boomer period (notice I don’t personallize it by saying “the baby boomers”) not only left didn’t leave an inheritence (unless you call debt an inheritence) they didn’t leave children (aborting 55 million since Roe v Wade). But I think only God can properly judge. The accumulations of transgressions falls without regard to whom.
Sharpie…that really puts things in perspective. Very sad indeed.
Left unsaid: White males are massively and uniformly discriminated against by the Welfare State.
It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE for a single or married White 50+ guy to qualify for ANY kind of welfare.
All of the deciders are women. You just don’t find men in such roles.
Whereas an illegal immigrant (Tsarnaev) is automatically pushed through to get aid — with translators provided. Native born White guys get STIFFED at every turn.
One story out of the multitude: Bounced into a weepy White guy at KFC, Placerville. He’d just left the county welfare gals. Even though he’d just been handed a diagnosis of quasi-terminal cancer by his doctors — he did not qualify for Medical. Sure, he’d not held a job in years… couldn’t work. But he had no dependents. ( Translation, he was XY; somehow tragic XX in their fifties never get turned down.) Even though he’s down to his last bucks — his real estate ‘investments’ did him in. (He was sleeping in his battered old pick-up truck.) Yes, he’d Carlton Sheet’s his way to real estate ‘success.’
Except that he was underwater, couldn’t refi a dang thing, and couldn’t unload them, either.
The ‘welfare system’ imputes that any real estate on ones balance sheet is as good as free and clear — and rented, to boot.
Two years of trying to unload his dogs didn’t count for anything.
Yes, yes, he was in a suicidal mood.
Folks, this is the ONLY segment of our society that gets this treatment.
To compound the irony, tragedy and farce: only a trivial segment of White society ever owned slaves. Yet, our political mythology has al Gore as saint while a Polish-American is cast as villain. (!)
( The aristocratic Gore clan owned slaves, grew tobacco on a massive scale, just about the biggest in the state… yet now, this flunkard is poping the planet about global warming — as the nation is trying to thaw out — and as he uses more electric power for his castle than most sub-divisions. ($ 125,000/ month! The palace is huge, and, apparently, no one shuts a door or window.)
For the gentleman above, suicide looks mighty practical. Cancer is a brutal way to go and he’s being stiffed by the nanny state.
Like Boxer, the state will have its last from him.
Near as I can tell, he needed to mail the keys to the banks. That would take a leap of despair, though.
“Dr. Arias noted that the higher suicide rates might be due to a series of life and financial circumstances that are unique to the baby boomer generation. Men and women in that age group are often coping with the stress of caring for aging parents while still providing financial and emotional support to adult children. ”
While taking care of grown, lazy children is obviously not enjoyable, this should be the kind of situation that gives someone a purpose in life. Previous generations took care of family members like this under much worse material circumstances.
This is psychological, and neo’s right in that expectations make all the difference. Perceptions of responsibility, credit, self-worth, particularly for men, all come into play.
It’s disgusting to say this today, but I’m going to: either men are the authority figures tasked with taking care of a family and given credit for doing it, or men are valueless to society. It’s responsibility or death. No hedonistic care-for-them-like-children welfare philosophy is going to work. Men need respect.
SGT Catz…
White men are not committing suicide over respect issues.
The issue is personal poverty at a time when the body gives out.
The nanny state took it all away.
— Kind of like Peabody Coal Company.
}}} heck… type misandry your spell correction does not know it but it does know misogyny
I’m not necessarily in sync with you on everything, Art, but on this, I noticed it over two decades ago. It casually occurred to me what the “gender inverted” flipside of misogyny was, and, though I searched TWO large dictionaries through all the “mis-” entries, I could not find any gender-inverted term (misantropy is not the GI of misogyny — it refers to all humanity, regardless of gender — I eventually figured out the term had to be “misandry” by the roots of “polygamy” and “polyandry”).
Note that, as of 1990ish, the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY — which is supposed to have virtually EVERY non-specialist word in the entire English language (it has, as Robert Heinlein enjoyed pointing out, “floccinaucinihilipilificator” and “-trix”) — This massive 8 volume tome did not have “misandry” in it.
I believe Neo can affirm that we are a verbal species — we think generally by having internal dialogues with ourselves, and, if we lack a term for something it makes it difficult for us to work with it (one reason specialist terminology develops, in order to facilitate not only communicating on a topic but to actually THINK in terms of the needed concepts).
This was part of Orwell’s notion of “Doublespeak” — the goal was to not increase words, or even simplify usage, but decrease words thus eliminate thinking about certain ideas.
By reducing the vocabulary it aimed to remove nuance, as well as such *ideas* as “revolt”, “insurrection”, and “uprising”. The idea was to make it so people had a hard time even thinking about fighting the government.
So, given that — what does the absence of a word for “women who hate men”, thereby suggest?
The word has crept into dictionaries since then, but it literally was missing prior to that. I’m serious. Check any dictionary printed before 1990 — I’ll bet it doesn’t contain the word “misandry” … I certainly never found one, and I checked dozens (I’m curious if it was removed or if it just never got added… part of me suspects the former — be interesting to dig up a range of dictionaries from the 1800s to the 1920s and see if “misandry” appears in them)
}}} I’m not offended by some of the comments I’ve seen in this thread.
BTW, in case it wasn’t clear, I’ll make it so:
There are clearly exceptions, but Boomers are the worst pox that ever hit humankind.
Anyone here who is a Boomer is probably in that “exceptions” class.
Y’all should know exactly who and what I’m writing about there, and most anyone who comments here probably does not qualify under those auspices as a “pox on humanity”.
I’m not railing against anyone born in that time frame. I’m railing against anyone born in that time frame who has wholeheartedly embraced the socially cancerous meme of Postmodern Liberalism… which, c’mon, is MOST of that generation.
😉
wow! I am kind of shocked at the hate expressed here in these comments against a group of folks. As if all boomers (or whatever group) are the same and worthy of such hateful comments.
personally, I think such expressions are more a reflection of the speaker than anything or anyone else. And certainly such expressions are outside the norm for commenters here at Neo’s place.
But, Charles, as I stated in a comment above, I hate my generation. Maybe I am even more jaded as I work with the worst of the bunch in academia. But then I also look at what this generation has done, or better, not done.
On the “done” side: as has been pointed out, the total embrace of the PC, postmodernism culture. The total hypocrisy of in our youth spouting freedom for everyone, and then becoming totalitarian in thinking when someone disagrees as we aged.
Not done side: Still living off our parents like a horde of parasites. We have created no new wealth, and instead have sucked the system dry that our parents built up. Other than the computer industry, BB’s have just used up the older industries to make themselves rich. The bills are coming due.
Further, look at the lack of vision in the generation. From a personal perspective a great disappointment has been the space program. Our parents set things up to launch us to the planets. Instead the BB’s did nothing to advance the issue. For example: using a spacecraft(built and designed by our parents again!) that was supposed to be a stop gap measure for over 30 years, and costing several crews lives. Now, in typical boomer fashion, the space program is about Muslim outreach.
My mother (86 years old and still as sharp as when she was 40) was asking me the other day what her generation did wrong to raise such a horrible bunch of kids. I had no answer to such a heart breaking question.
blert- a reference to the John Prine classic, or the demise of coal mining?
Anyway I agree with you. The support system for the middle age white male is the middle age white male.
I was born in 58 and haven’t collected unemployment or relied on anyone ever, but I was raised hearing a version of “nobody owes you a(n): insert what nobody owes me HERE”. But that was my parent’s version of boomer parenting. And they were, right – as it turns out, it’s me who owes large segments of our society an education, health care, their own home, a phone, a computer, food, and most of all, an apology for the crimes of white men who died before I was born.
It’s not a stretch to think poverty, combined with a society’s collective indifference would contribute to suicide in our demographic.
Physicsguy…”We have created no new wealth, and instead have sucked the system dry that our parents built up. Other than the computer industry, BB’s have just used up the older industries to make themselves rich.”
That last statement is sort of like saying “Other than steam-related stuff, Thomas Newcomen and James Watt didn’t really accomplish very much.” Just as the steam engine enabled vast productivity improvements in the early 1800s, the computer industry has enabled vast productivity improvements today, often by being embedded in things that don’t look like computers at all, such as CNC machine tools and aircraft autopilots.
Over recent decades there has been considerable innovation and wealth-creation outside the computer industry per se, including: the revival of the American freight-rail industry…the spread of Lean methods in manufacturing…continuous-casting methods in steel production…hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for oil and gas production…3-D printing (“additive manufacturing”) methods for fabrication.
I second Old Texan’s thoughts.
10 yrs ago, I gradually discovered the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer. I am now in my early 70s, know that none of us will get out of this life alive, see stuff happening to me (essential tremor) that I never expected but have to cope with, and can truly say I now have “The serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
VDH: that man has a tone.
Just the right tone of scholastic prowress mixed with a poetic prose. Ergo, the following:
In this regard, the Tsarnaev monsters were valuable symptoms of the present age, or perhaps pseudo-Romanized tribesmen right out of Caesar’s Gallic Wars: The endangered “refugees” freely revisiting the supposed deadly environment they escaped; the shop-lifting mother damning the country that took her in and cheaply resonating jihadist themes; the “domestic abuse” charge lodged against the “beautiful” boxer Tamerlan; the abject failure of the repeatedly warned FBI; the self-righteous Mirandizing to stop inquiry about other possible threats; the immediate liberal effort to blame the U.S. (e.g., as if the liberal Boston world of our first Native-American senator and up-from-the-bootstraps Secretary of State John Kerry must be an especially harsh, cruel society, where help is rarely afforded the needy and redneck prejudice is ubiquitous).
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/why-read-old-books/?singlepage=true
It’s not all bad out there. And the baby boomers inherited the ironic challenges of material abundance. Who of those following can claim they would have done better. As VDH expert opinion reminds us, it’s all been done before.
I’m glad Neo drew attention to the aspect of job loss in the comments to the NYT articles. Those looking for jobs in this age group — supposedly not subject to age or sex discrimination — are faced with written job requirements that are highly skewed to those at most a few years out of school and up on very particular technologies. Metaphorically, “we want someone who has driven a blue Chevy Impala no older than 4 years while delivering pizza.”
It annoys the heck out of me to see virtually all the pundits discussing immigration say we should let in all the STEM (science, technical, engineering, and math) students or practitioners who want to come here, as if this would be obviously good for the country.
I realize that the definition of what birth years are included in the “boomer” are based on a baby boom that lasted from after the war until the early 60’s. However, it has always mildly irked me to be included within that definitional group — and be part of the stereotyped image of the Viet Nam war vet/protester/hippy/LSD Woodstock crowd.
I was born in 1958. H.S. class of ’76. College ’76-80. The high school years for the classes from ’73 through ’80, and the resulting college years, were NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING like the late 60’s. When the 14 year old future bra burner free love girls were screaming at the Beatles — we were toddlers, for pete’s sake. JFK assassination as some sort of generational “defining moment?” Sorry, no recollection — I was 4. During the love-ins, LSD fests, flag burning, Woodstock festival, peace signs on the VW bus, Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell, peacenik activities…….we were in elementary school. Riding our sting ray bikes, watching Bugs Bunny -Road Runner hour on Saturday mornings, and at night shows like Gilligans Island and Batman.
I was ten when RFK was shot. I don’t even remember anything about the Tet Offensive — I never watched Walter Cronkite at that age. There was no draft by the time we hit age 18.
When my son asked me what it was like for me to live in those tumultuous and wild and crazy 60’s, I told him – “go watch a Wonder Years re-run from its first season. I was that kid on the sting ray bike, with the butthead older brother.” When he says – but what about the college years — you know, hippies and protests and love-ins, and sit-ins and stuff – it must have been cool.” I told him – you want to know what it was kind of like for me? Watch Saturday Night Fever. Ignore the disco aspect of the plot. Just the guys roaming around wondering what the hell to do with their lives. Pot was something to smoke to escape from life from — it was no longer anything close to being a “rebellious statement” against “the man.”
As for the political leanings of the people from my “subgroup” of boomers……I would bet money that white males between the ages of 50 and 58 (1955-1963) – “boomers” all — voted OVERWHELMINGLY for McCain/Palin and Romney – — Just as huge numbers of us voted for Reagan as college students and then as “yuppies” after college. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Romney margin was well in excess of 60%. Even higher (I’d bet 70%) for married regular church attenders, in that group.
So to those who want to lazily lump us all together in with the limited number of people who came from the hippy culture of entitled moral relativists, who came of age just in time to burn their draft cards, their bras, and the campus administration building (while my friends and I were playing board games, with Lost in Space on in the background) — and therefore long for our early demise, I’ll use an expression the older boomers used — Up Yours.
One more thought when discussing the issue of suicide is that we need to remember that these are deaths of unique individual people and most of them will be missed and mourned by family and friends. Suicide has always been with us and in our culture it has typically not been viewed as a good way to leave this world.
I made comments above about things that might be missing from the boomers that cause a rise in the rate of suicide but I have know a few people who died this way over the years, including a sister-in-law and they were all born before WWII.
It is often so hard for those left behind to understand what the process was that caused a particular person to take that final step and I urge caution for people dealing with a person who might be heading in that direction no matter what age group that individual might fall in.
John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee remarked that suicide is a uniquely selfish act.
But there are degrees. Suppose an older boomer is divorced or widowed. His kids are on their own and doing okay. His parents are gone or suffering some kind of living hell in a nursing home.
He’s lost his job and isn’t going to be any good to anyone who needs money, and if he’s not close with his grandkids, there’s nobody to be really, really impacted by his death. So why not suicide? Presuming things are so bad that there’s no sense going on, the loss felt by other people, it may be thought, is minimal. Thus, it’s not as selfish as soem other suicides.
Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and occasional Liaison Dangereuse Says:
May 4th, 2013 at 7:07 am
You realize that many of the “changers” who comment here did in fact embrace Postmodern Liberalism at least for a while, right?
My first vote was for Carter in 1976. I never did vote for Reagan. It was only much later that I came to appreciate what a great President he was. I certainly didn’t feel that way at the time.
So yes, I have done my share in helping to fuck things up. Guilty as charged. 😉
Gets rather lonely in one’s old age without a stable marriage, grand children, or a personal legacy.
All that free love and Leftist liberalization/slave indoctrination, has deleterious effects in the long term on social vibrancy.
When life is cheap, life is cheap.
You abort 50m babies; you Gosnell an entire culture….you’re going to have a lot of bad stuff like suicides going on.
The law that you reap what you sow is proven once again to be 100% correct 100% of the time…mostly.
@ Indigo Red ;May 3rd, 2013 at 6:46 pm
“there’s no time to recoup or their skills no longer match the market”
It used to be that when a man fell on hard times, he could go join a work crew doing carpentry, painting, mowing lawns etc: the work load would depend on his physical capacity; but, today those opportunities are removed due to the PTB’s program of democide of the native population: one cannot drop down to labor work because the imported labor now fills those positions.
Baby Boomer Women Are Committing Suicide..Why?
October 28, 2008 on 12:39 pm | In Depression, Feminism, Marriage, Motherhood, Women Email This Post Email This Post
I was at first stunned — then not — to read that research from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health points toward white, middle aged women as being particularly prone to depression leading to suicides. I’m a middle aged, white, female baby-boomer, so this caught my attention, especially since the researchers seemed clueless as to what would be behind this spike.
Having talked to women for over thirty years on the radio, I think I know. We middle-aged, white females from the sixties were sold a bill of goods by the originally well-meaning women’s movement. The bits about equal pay for equal experience and competence were kind of a no-brainer. The bits about men, marriage, sex, babies, and home-making being negatives in our lives — because, of course, they were oppressive and demeaning — also seemed obvious at the time. So, with the introduction of consciousness raising (that is, learning to mistrust, not need, and even loathe men) and women’s studies programs (which conceived of elevating women by making them perpetually angry victims), we were on our way to a collision course to today: depression and suicide.
http://www.drlaurablog.com/2008/10/28/baby-boomer-women-are-committing-suicidewhy/
artfldgr: in my opinion, anyone who bought all (or even most) that the feminist movement promised (including all those things that went against common sense, tradition, logic, or observations of life and people and the differences between the sexes) was a fool, then and now.
It was always absurd to think men some sort of enemy and women wonderful. It was always absurd (stupid, narcissistic, unrealistic, gullible) to think anyone—men or women—could have it all and do it all well.
I never bought it. What’s more, most of the women I knew didn’t buy it either. Some did, but they were in the minority. I’m not sure what made the differences, but most of that latter group ended up disillusioned.
However, most of that latter group seems to have gone into academia and/or political activity and influenced the next generations of women mightily. The young people I know seem to have more common sense than that, but from what I read it may be they ( the more skeptical ones with common sense, that is) who are in the minority now.
I just came across this post while doing some research, and while it’s from mid 2013, I appreciated the perspective. These statistics are pretty astounding (and since it’s from mid-2013, the stats are still very relevant). While it’s true that ‘the great recession’ stemmed from the 2008 Wall Street Etc. economic shenanigans, the 1999-2010 timeframe also saw the dot-com crash, the whole Enron etc. thing (and disappearing retirement accounts), etc. It’s likely that some of this may have had an effect, along with some of the other considerations, like loss of identity, etc.
Thanks for the post!
Sincerely,
Jamie