Gino Piroli – 12/18/06

This page was last updated on December 23, 2006.

Study might not be right; baby boomer generation isn’t so special; Gino Piroli; Beaver County Times; December 18, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject column.

“I wasn’t pleased with the story in last Monday’s Times that said ‘baby boomers look out for their parents, more than their parents did.’ The story cited a survey of 333 families by a University of South California doctoral candidate who also said that baby boomers desire to care for their parents peaks at age 51.”

[RWC] Look for the alleged quote in the article and you won’t find it because it doesn’t exist. Here are two quotes I assume Mr. Piroli intended to paraphrase.

The first is, “… a recent study that found baby boomers, the generation born in the 1950s and ‘60s, are more committed to caring for their aging parents than members of their parents’ generation were.” Note, the “boomer” generation started with those born in 1946 and ended with those born in 1964, not “the 1950s and ‘60s” as Mr. Piroli wrote.

The second quote is, “… the behavior of adult children toward their aging parents was examined in 333 families over a 15-year period, from 1985 to 2000. The younger generation responded more favorably to providing care than the older generation did.”

Mr. Piroli also misrepresented the “peak” age comment. The full quote from the article is, “… the study showed that baby boomers’ desire to care for their parents peaks at 51, when parental support is probably most needed.” As you will read below, Mr. Piroli uses that misrepresentation to bash “boomers” and forward his agenda. On the other hand, Mr. Piroli simply may not have understood what the article meant. Based on previous e-mail communications with Mr. Piroli on different subjects, either assessment is possible.

Finally, it was “University of Southern California,” not “University of South California.” As I’ve noted before, Mr. Piroli really needs to get an editor or proofreader.

“The story used an example of a 54-year-old woman who ‘keeps in touch’ with her mother who is 73 and able to go dancing and to bingo or to shop on her own.

“Let me cite you some examples of care giving for parents at no peak age.”

[RWC] As I noted above, Mr. Piroli either misrepresents the “peak age” comment in the article or didn’t understand it.

“Two of my dearest friends, husband and wife, he over 80 and she in her mid-70s, took care of her parents for many years. It’s meant disrupting their normal way of life. The wife’s father passed away two years ago at age 99, but her mother, now 100, is still in her care.

“I have relatives in their 70s who have taken their mothers in and cared for them, one until her mother passed away at age 89. The other, with her husband, cares for her mother who is 88 and provides all the necessities of life and health care, especially proper medication.

“These are not isolated cases. It’s what so many of those of my generation in Beaver County do and did while their parents were alive. We didn’t ‘keep in touch’ with them, but had them live with us until they passed away, as my sister did with my mother and my wife with her mother.

“My late friend, Guy Rubino, whose mother and mother-in-law lived with their children until their deaths, used to say that we were the ‘lost generation.’ We took care of our parents beginning at early ages - financially and physically - and then as we aged, we cared for them as well as our children and grandchildren.

“I have three baby-boomer children, the oldest 56, who say that theirs is the ‘me generation;’ not the sandwich generation, but more appropriately ‘the baloney sandwich generation’ that has contributed to the loss of values for our nation that we love so much.”

[RWC] You have to love this paragraph.

“[T]he loss of values for our nation that we love so much” began before we baby boomers even entered grade school. Let’s also remember the influences of socialism really began creeping into American society in the 1930s with the FDR administration. Baby boomers didn’t create Socialist Security or plant the seeds of our current healthcare challenges. Those things were done in the 1930s and 1940s before we baby boomers “were a twinkle in our parents’ eyes.”

That’s also the case for the so-called Great Society programs like Medicaid, Medicare, welfare, et cetera. You know, the programs that made it easier for women to be unwed mothers and easier for men to shirk their responsibilities. These programs were instituted in the mid-1960s, and at the time you had to be 21 years old to vote. As a result, the very first “boomers” (born in 1946) couldn’t vote until after the Great Society programs were in place.

What about landmark cases like “Roe v. Wade” calling abortion a right and the Madalyn Murray O’Hair (born just outside of Pittsburgh) case in which prayer in public schools was banned? Those judges were of your generation or prior, Mr. Piroli.

And what of 1960s counterculture leaders like Timothy Leary and his fellow travelers? They were of your generation, Mr. Piroli.

And who designed the revealing clothes that came into style during the late 1960s? That’s your guys too, Mr. Piroli.

And who began the trend of increasing rawness in movies and television we saw in the 1960s and early 1970s? You have one guess.

When in her 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi” Joni Mitchell wrote, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” about whom was she writing, Mr. Piroli? With the oldest baby boomer being only 24 at the time, I think it’s fair to assume we weren’t the ones paving paradise.

And who instituted the “value” of cutting and running from wars? When the U.S. ran from Korea in 1953 (the price for which we’ve been paying ever since), it wasn’t baby boomers, given the oldest of us were only seven years old at the time. When the U.S. ran from Vietnam, it wasn’t baby boomers because while we were old enough to fight, we were not the generation setting policy.

You get my point.

Finally, who were the parents of “the baloney sandwich generation?” From where did the “the baloney sandwich generation” get its values? If you believe Mr. Piroli, his generation was as pure as the driven snow, and somehow we spawn of Satan baby boomers took utopia and turned it into Sodom and Gomorrah.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not indicting all “boomers” or all their parents. My parents and those of most of my friends had their heads screwed on right and passed those values onto us.

“If those who conducted the survey wanted to find out about senior care, they should have come to our area, which has the second-oldest population in America, trailing only Dade County, Fla.

“If they want a true picture of care giving, I will find them 333 Beaver County families who have taken care of their parents until death or until it was impossible because the loved one was not able to function because of the dreaded Alzheimer disease or some other debilitating problems.”

[RWC] I don’t know if he realizes it or not, but Mr. Piroli just wrote he was going to cherry pick families so he could “prove” his point.

“Ours has no peak years; it’s an ongoing concern providing care for our loved ones when it became necessary.

“I’m not criticizing the baby boomers because in today’s lifestyles both the wife and husband have to work and many of the children live out of town, so it’s difficult to take personal care of their parents.”

[RWC] “I’m not criticizing the baby boomers?” What is “the baloney sandwich generation” comment, a compliment?

No, Mr. Piroli, “today’s lifestyles” don’t force “both the wife and husband … to work.” Both parents working is a choice.

“It’s apparent that I’m not happy with the idea that my generation didn’t care for their parents because we pride ourselves on being a close-knit, almost family-like community that looks out for and provides comfort not only for our families, but for each other.”

[RWC] I’m kidding, of course, but is English Mr. Piroli’s first language? Nowhere does the subject article assert or imply that Mr. Piroli’s “generation didn’t care for their parents.” It would have been a ridiculous assertion. The article simply said data indicates “boomers” are more committed to caring for their parents than were their parents.

While Mr. Piroli was busy reading something into the article that wasn’t there, he missed some very important points.

The article asserts various data points show we baby boomers are more dedicated to caring for our parents than previous generations. Isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t that show at least one value we baby boomers advanced? As I asked above, from where did we baby boomers get our values? If Mr. Piroli hadn’t been blinded by who knows what, his op-ed piece would have recognized the good news and he could have taken some credit by pointing out baby boomers learned from their parents.

My parents and grandparents wanted us to be better than they were. Apparently that’s not the case for Mr. Piroli. How sad.

“Contributing to that is the realism that we come from large families and, outside of military service, have lived here all of our lives.”