Judith you must come down from the past of your Robert Menzies era of 50 years ago and come up to the present and banish your wrinkles.
Why do you wage war on the young when it is the wages of the young who will look after you in the not too disant future and into your 80s.
Why must there be a war between mother and daughter and father and son.
The sons and daughters will look after you and others with alzhiemers and shingles and high blood pressure.
Have faith in the younger generation. If there is a wider generation gap, just who caused it.
Was it the young was it? How can it be the young when we are just starting out and the older people own the world. Who reads the Financial Review, the young but who has the money to do something, the old and elderly. The Fisrt Home Buyers Scheme is for the young not the elderly.
Stop your old thinking Judith as we will be there when the bucket is kicked and your too frail hand is too frail to hold that pen.
Judith I remember my grandparents. Don't forget you baby boomers had a lot in common with your own parents from World War I. I can remember when I was a baby and I sat on my grandparents knee. Did you look after your parents when they were alive?

Judith,

Thank you for your article. I think that perhaps you're right that there isn't the overt cultural clash between generations between Y and Boomer that there has been in the past.

I think it's also fair to say that there WILL be a bun-fight of some description about "who pays" for the cost of supporting the biggest generation still alive. The Boomer generation WILL cause economic issues for those coming behind, despite their best efforts to be financially self-sufficient.

Boomers are constantly being warned that there will not be a pension, hence the focus (particularly in the last 15 years) on super. But this is a statement made by government which claims regularly that the economy cannot be predicted. How can we know what the government will (or won't) be able to afford in 20 years?

Secondly, in contrast to your article, one of the problems facing the Boomer generation, particularly women, is that while the recent rhetoric of self-funded retirement through superannuation has been effective, it ignores the fact that a big percentage of Boomer women have been absent from this equation, either through the raising of children (during which time they did not earn super) or because, as in the 60's and 70's, women had to give up super when they got married. For women who have subsequently separated from their partners (and please, please, this isn't an argument about child support), the financial future looks bleak.

As an X-er with Boomer parents, I would like to believe that we are not so selfish as to condemn a large number of people into poverty, simply because we refuse to take a shared responsibility for those who are less fortunate than we are.

Interesting article Judith. I think Glenwriter is being a little harsh, from the photo you look like you might be in you mid 20s. Who knows, maybe your parents are still well and truly alive and capable of looking after themselves.
Generational labels can be useful in alerting us to the distinctive nature of Gen Y. However I think caution is needed as labelling all young people requires broad-brush strokes. Depending on whom you read, the depiction of what characterises Gen Y can be polar opposites. Some popular depictions represent Gen Y as being intensely driven by the need to be independent, and to carve their own path in life, yet others depict them as the most over-parented, over indulged, over-educated and welfare dependent generation ever. There are as many differences as similarities within as well as between generations. I think the important thing is that generational differences are not just the property of the individuals in those categorises, but point to social change. For example, with more young people taking up post compulsory education, delayed entry to full time work, delaying marriage, all in the context of a boom in housing prices, I think it is surprising that the number of 20 somethings living with their parents has only increased 9 percent in the past 30 years.

DW, Isn't there anyone is this world yonger than 20.
20 is old to some younger than 20, DW. There is a generation gap between adolescents and 20-year-olds. 20 year olds are ready for marriage while we are at the party.
That is a point Judith can attack as she is indeed attack mode.
Judith wrote that there is a generation gap. There are lots of generation gaps and she writes too narrow because she wants to open up these gaps when it would be better to give love to each other and close the gaps and not get the family divorced.
All Judith will do is increase the divorce rate when she emphasises the generation gap.
DW, the age of 30 is the mid-life crisis for women while for men is more like 45.
At 30 the first wrinkle is about to appear.
Maybe Judith is approaching 30, or am I opening another generation gap?

A fascinating article Judith but as a "boomer" with a good memory I must point out your erroneous reading of history. Even the title of your piece is inaccurate. "Free love and free education". The dawning of the age of so called "free love" was the sixties. "Free education" was the seventies after Whitlam. I did not experience much of either as the "free love" myth was just that and I couldn't afford to go to a university, by the time of Whitlam I was back from National Service and in the work force.
"Boomers" protested the American war on Vietnam for ten years did they? yes a few did but most didn't care less...just like now with the Y generation and the American war on Iraq. Comparing generations is a waste of time as we are all captives to the immediate past. I was post WWII and it influenced my life and caused the backlash of the sixties. The "communist" threat of the cold war is now the "terrorist" threat of today. Boomer, X or Y there is not really much difference . Only age and the level of fear.

As a "GenerationY" young man, it seems to me to be obvious that my peers would be less radical/socialist in their outlook.

40 years ago, the defining image of the world was the wall - the wall of berlin, the iron curtain, the split between east and west.

Today, the defining image of the world is the web - the always connected wireless internet, the ipod, etc. the class wars of the 60s and the past is over - freedom, democratic, liberal capitalism is the way forward.

we have seen:
a) the collapse of the berlin wall
b) the mass murders perpetrated by the communists of Cambodia, the oppression by the communists of China, the environmental and social disasters of the soviet union, and their collapse
c) the successful use of western military force to liberate various bits of yugoslavia, kuwait, afghanistan and now iraq
d) a massive fall in worldwide poverty as a result of worldwide trade liberalisation
e) massive increases in living standards as a result of tax cuts and deregulation
f) massive price falls (along with quality increases) as a result of privatisation

why would we be anything other than supportive of freedom and western liberal democracies? it's only the extremist nutters who oppose this, funded until last friday by high, compulsory, up-front and unfair student union fees.