I'm confused Judy...just which age group are you talking about? My understanding is that those born before 1946 are commonly referred to as 'mature age' and those after 1946 'baby boomers'. Certainly in my experience life in Australia between 1946 and 1960 wasn't all that easy for most. This talk about baby boomers being greedy is a whole lot of nonsense; they had nothing to start with, educated themselves and forged careers, and provided their children with a great deal more than they had when they were growing up.

Australia, indeed the world, has changed - get over it! My generation vs your generation should be confined to the celebrity pages of broadsheet newspapers - just for a bit of a laugh.

I tend to go along with what The Alchemist has to say here...unless you lived and grew up in Australia in the 50's you really can't know what it was like. My father used to talk about the depression and how he tried to support a widowed Mother with four boys. As children we had no idea what life in the depression was like and I think we listened to humour him.

Enjoy your retirement you mature agers and baby boomers - you have well and truly earnt it!..and as for putting back something into society haven't you already being doing that most of your life?

Phil Bramley

Well I have to add that I appear to differ from most respondees in that having been born in 1953 I can fully relate to everything Judy says. Yes I am spoilt. No I dont like it. Nor do I like getting older.
In fact I DEMAND someone finds a way PDQ for me to live to be 150.When of course someone would have found a way to live forever.
Travelling around Australia, renovating the house etc..are obviously things we do to fill our lifes experiences and not to NOT do them before we go.
My trouble is I dont want to wait till retirement to do them. I want to do them now (IM 53)whilst I am still able.I want to walk and swim and get as fit as I can whilst I can. I hate work it gets in the way of everything.What can I do.?

Judy,
I must admit I agree and disagree with you at the same time. I agree that Baby Boomers grew up in a relatively sheltered environment. I agree that now due to successes in medical since and improvements in general knowledge in health and wellbeing fields, the 60 year old baby boomers are actually only 40, if we compare them to the previous generations.
I disagree that we are the BBB. We are the same as any other generation approaching the autumn of our life. We face the same problems, if we are pushed out of a job due to our age: loss of identity (we humans define ourselves through work, position or profession), friends from work , etc. Transition from working life into active or passive retirement is a painful process. In our website www.babyboomerscentral.com.au we actually trying to help Baby Boomers in this transition in order to remain active.
I am sure Generations X and Y will face the same problems when their time comes to face the question: “ What am I going to do for the rest of my life”.
Baby Boomer and proud of it.