cohorts and generations

Daisy, 65, has always found it easier to accept being a Baby Boomer rather than a War Baby – which she strictly is – but recent aggression against the 'big generation' has caused her to re-think what being a Baby Boomer means.

"Baby boomer is a term describing a massive COHORT of children born in the immediate post-war period to parents whose family aspirations were delayed by WWII," explains Daisy. "It's a term similar to War Babies, describing a cohort of babies born between 1939-45 (so strictly speaking, anyone born in 1945, like I am, is a War Baby not a Baby Boomer, but being on the cusp of any cohort – age, weight, height, IQ or postcode – is always going to be troublesome)."

"To use cohort terminology to describe a generation is misleading because Baby Boomer men could still be fathering children in old age," laughs Daisy. "I know a man, born 1949, who married and became a dad for the first time at 56 in 2005. His wife is 24."

"So, children of Baby Boomers are still being born, forty-five years after the first lot were born in 1960 (to young mothers of 16 born 1946)," explains Daisy. "In generational terms, then, the children of the Baby Boomers – the next generation – range in age from 5 to 50. How silly is this?"

"If people use the term Baby Boomer to describe a generation, then their children would be the next generation on a family tree chart wouldn't they?" asks Daisy. "And generations are supposed to have something in common, aren't they?"

"I have trouble enough finding anything in common with my own cohort, the war babies, without trying to find something in common with children of my parent's age cohort – my generational ‘equals’ – who, when you think of Rupert Murdoch, may be the same age as my grandchildren."

"Perhaps 30 was a reasonable time span for a generation when women, without birth control, continued to produce babies up until 50," says Daisy, "and once upon a time it was probably a useful yardstick for governments to use to determine infrastructure, but when the term 'generation' is used colloquially to describe shared values it is meaningless and annoying."

"From now on, I am going to call myself a War Baby," laughs Daisy. "It is a clearly defined cohort, even if I have less in common with someone born in 1939, six years older, than I do with someone born in 1951 in the next cohort, six years younger."

"With the current perception of the Baby Boomers as a 'generation' spanning thirty years from 1946," says Daisy, "my children, born in the 1960s, are in the same 'generation' as the one I've always considered myself to belong to – and that’s ridiculous.”

"It was easier to call myself a Baby Boomer," explains Daisy, "because my parents started off with me a bit early in 1945, and 3 children later finished their family in 1949."

"I think most parents who started off families after the war, stopped having children well before 1955," says Daisy. "Most babies born from 1950 onwards came from a new cohort of parents – the Depression Babies of 1929-35."

"So, can everyone please start talking cohorts rather than generations?" pleads Daisy. “My cohort was lucky if they could afford a scooter to get them from A to B in the 60s, very different from the later Boomers who aspired to having a car in the 70s, and tail-end Boomers who were getting from A to B by flying and had forgotten what legs are for!”