The Baby Boomer Generation's Long Road To retirement.

Older 'Boomers" are suddenly turning 65, that is, those who were born in 1946. The rest? Well many are using the la, la la, theory to drown out the inevitable life choice that is the "R' word. Or, as insurance companies, financial planners and funeral funds put it, " the wonderful road to retirement

Retirement, once considered the reward for a long slog at the coalface and, when done, the bowling greens, golf courses or driving a bus like vehicle around  the worlds largest continents beckoned like a seductive sirens from the sea.

Not any more baby!

As a generation we were the privileged ones, the 'special' generation. We reveled in free education, subsidized housing, coupled with a healthy intake of marijuana, free love, defiant attitudes and inventive minds which gave many of us that which we craved, ...affluence!

Boomers today are the healthiest, wealthiest and greediest generation ever and they now confront the last frontier.... ageing.

Terms such as "shockwave" and " pig in a python' are now being used by demographers, city planners and governments to categorize the huge demographic bulge now confronting the R stage of life.

Baby Boomers is a broad Western demographic term.  I am under no illusion that not many of our Russian. African and Chinese cousins in the 60's and 70’s lived the privileged, free loving status we so enjoyed.  They were trudging on Mao's glorious Long March or working towards the glorious Soviet Utopia. Or, in Africa, where entire populations struggled though terrible droughts and famine. Ditto for many other countries around the globe.

However the time is nigh when the spoilt generation of the west will give us a glance of how they behave in their twilight years as this living, breathing tsunami of a generation takes a rest before checking out.

The "R" word to many boomers is abhorrent; redolent, not unlike the smell of old incense in a church, best left to be dealt with another day.

Perhaps then, as a generation should we use this "leisure' time to put right what we have wronged?

It probably is time, but unfortunately this generation still loves a party (even if these days it's only a political one) and aging disgracefully will perhaps require a new descriptive term.

We will continue to trash the planet like brats at the end of a party they don't want to leave? Will we leave behind a promised land or a wasteland?

 Surely greed doesn't last all our lives?

You see for us it hasn't been that bad, in fact it hasn’t been bad at all!

'Hardship' was something we read about in Dickens novels. Combat meant testing your skills on a Sony PlayStation. (Apologies for any Vietnam Vets reading this piece) Money magically appeared from machines housed in a wall, and, if you were ambitious and clever enough, you could switch jobs when and where you wanted.

We invented, we consumed and we in the west got very, very wealthy, and quite frankly... fat!  We were not inclined to share much as our pursuit of money and status became a demanding mistress and we followed mammon blindly wherever it led.

Discussions at boomer barbecues today revolve around pension plans, health issues, property prices and the state of governments and its affect on our future financial well - being. All a bit sad really meaning at this age, no matter from which generation you sprang, fear of poverty in old age is still the norm.

Boomers will, or already have become orphans, parentless and suddenly grand parenting will arrive, how could this be? 

Time was always on our side.

Was Mick lying?

We have enjoyed the finest of everything, from free thought, travel and great drugs, to also being the richest generation ever.

We blindly worshiped at the temple of selfishness prostrating ourselves before the icon of Me.  One wonders whether these sentiments have been passed on to the next generation?  Will our children follow the same or similar doctrines the boomers did?

I don’t think so or indeed I hope not.

The party generation that controlled the planet for the last thirty years has unfortunately left behind a bit of a mess, and we were never really that good at cleaning up, after all, what were parents for?)

Our offspring will face mountains of debt, soaring prices, an ever increasing population and a fiercely competitive environment. But, they are children of the baby boomers, and they will be clever!! They will be compelled to work out a ' clean up' strategy even while the perpetrators; the boomers are drinking martinis in retirement homes from Toronto to Tokyo.

Boomers in the west ... placed a huge emphasis on education for themselves and they passed this on to their children. Education, the shining beacon; the gift of knowledge, this is what hopefully will be the legacy of the boomer generation.

If this results in a glut of PhD’s.... so be it.   It is my belief that they will survive and make this world a better place by hopefully avoiding the sins of the fathers.

Paul v Walters is a novelist whose novels are sold across the globe. When not cocooned in sloth and procrastination in his house in Bali he scribbles for several vox pop and travel journals. His latest novel, Scimitar, was released in August 2016.