Oh yeah......

Today, a very good friend of mine helped me re-focus on this blog. While explaining the meanings of some of the words in my other blogs, I remembered why it was I started this thing in the first place.

As I explained to her, the title "busted boomer" refers to many things. Obviously, I am a baby boomer. The description of "busted" has to do with some of my feelings about being part of the best (and worst) generation of Americans yet. Sometimes I feel really "busted" -- both monetarily and mentally bankrupt.

Don't get me wrong, I am extremely proud of some of the accomplishments of the boomers: more equal rights, much more production and technology, not to mention the "freedom" movement of the 60's (and oh yeah, that music!). Unfortunately, we are also known as the "me" generation--a reputation we've truly earned. It seems (not necessarily is) that we cared mostly about advancing our standard of living. Many of us did so in the name of our children. We wanted to give them more and more and more.

Too bad we gave them so many things, and so little real direction. Of course, we spent time with them--helping them achieve. But, as my daughter once told me, she would have preferred to have lived in less of a house, and be allowed to stay in one place longer. It would have meant I never took that last promotion, but would that have been so wrong? Maybe sometimes, it's really more about not advancing, and simply taking care of what you have.

I truly wished I'd given her (and my sons) more instruction and guidance in living their lives, instead of so many things. I wanted so much to let them be individuals, that I sometimes forgot to provide the proper direction. My children are more a product of what I gave them, when they might really be better off being a product of what I had not given them.

Now, they just have to learn it the hard way--and I wish it weren't so.