President-elect Barack Obama may well be one of the 79 million members of the baby boom generation. But he’s a late-wave boomer, a child of the 1970s — as are half of the two dozen people he’s selected thus far to help him lead the country.
Many of those Obama is bringing to Washington — including his Education secretary, Homeland Security chief, Treasury secretary, United Nations ambassador and Energy czar — came of age in the era of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
And their shared experiences offer insights into how they may govern: They tend to be less ideological than early boomers, more respectful of contrary opinions, more pragmatic and a lot less likely to get bogged down by the shibboleths of the 1960s, according to historians, marketers and pollsters.
Interestingly, we may end up skipping a president born in the 1950s. The first decade we skipped was the 1810’s (Lincoln born in 1809) and the last time (and I believe only other time) we skipped a birth decade was the 1930s (Carter and Bush were born in 1924; Clinton and Bush were born in 1946).
Under the criteria outlined in the article, Boomers born after 1951 are Late Boomers.
Those of us born in 1951 are just mid Boomers?
-Katie in Georgia
I am one of these later boomers. My mother was in labor almost twenty-four hours when I refused to be born on Friday the 13th. I have had a marked tendency toward lack of punctuality ever since.