Baby Boomers, it turns out, don't really want to retire. They talk about it, they tell their kids they want to hang up their corporate hat for good, but they're sticking around the C-suites and in some cases being hired back, and collecting big salaries to do so. Some 42% of CEOs for America's big companies are over 60, which is higher than past averages for age ranges in those positions. It turns out they don't really want to move on.
The same is true in the political class. There was no reason for Diane Feinstein to die in office. There's no reason now for Mitch McConnell to lounge in a hospital bed rather than serve his Kentucky constituency in the Senate. Joe Biden was a dotty old man leading the free world. Even Trump is pretty much past his sell-by date. What are we doing as a nation when we allow a generation to elevate their own interests and legacy ahead of the actual future of the nation. Whitney Houston said "children are our future," but she appears to have been the rare Boomer who believed that.
I was struck by an article in the New York Post on this topic, showing that "a major chunk of white-collar Boomers are grappling with what experts call an 'identity crisis'—reluctant to leave for traditional retirement." Boeing, Verizon and Cracker Barrel are just a few of the companies that have been hiring back Boomers in leadership roles.
Is it that Gen Xers and Millennials aren't up to the task? Both generations were primarily spawned by Boomers. Hell, in my family I, the oldest, and the rest of my five half-siblings all have Boomer parents, spanning both Gen X—me and my Xennial sister—and Millennials, born in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Boomers have had a long and steady run, and they have retained adult status since the 1970s while relegating to rest of us as kids. What's interesting too is how differently the same Boomer parents raised their Gen X kids v. their Millennial kids.
We Gen Xers were on our own in many ways, latchkey kids, alone at home after school, wandering the neighborhood until the street lamps came on, drinking from the proverbial hoses, we were generation nothing. Millennials were the generation that got participation trophies while I remember waiting at school for hours for my parents to remember to pick me up after after-school events and things. Millennials' parents glorified their every accomplishment no matter how small while I remember, instead, every defect being noticed and any achievement being simply de rigueur.
What happens when these Boomers can no longer hold on to the reigns of power? When they are just too old and need to hand it off? Will there be anyone to take their place?
"You know when someone passes away and there is zero will and you don't know where anything is and now everyone is left to pick up the pieces? That is exactly what is happening across corporate America right now," the Post quotes Shawn Cole, an apparent expert on the matter. The prediction was that there would be a "Silver Tsunami" as the big bosses "age out" and all leave en masse for their second homes on coasts of golf courses somewhere, but instead the labor force participation rate for the over 65 set is nearly 20% which is higher that it was in the 1980s or at the turn of millennium for which so many of their offspring were named.
It's true that the Boomers are spry, they're out there living longer, traveling the world, smoking weed and shacking up as much if not more now than they were back in the 20th century. And for sure so many of them have made career and fortune, not family or faith, the center of their lives, so giving up on work might make them feel like they've got no meaning in their lives.
But what about the rest of us? We who were raised by these essentially narcissistic folks who have prioritized their own happiness across the several decades of their lives see before us a closed door. The roles in which we may have seen ourselves promoted into are filled by our parents' generation. The homes we could have seen ourselves buying are occupied or have been priced so high out of our range that we're left moving away from where we grew up or staying perpetual renters.
The Post notes that "when Boomers finally leave these cushy jobs, Generation X—those born between 1965 and 1980—could get passed over altogether as they near retirement age themselves." They say Millennials will get the big chair, but since they've been relegated to the high chair all this time, it could be a "trial by fire," and we all know the participation trophy generation doesn't stand up well under pressure. The kids should be mentored now and given a chance to claim the seats of power before the Boomer leaders just die in them.
This article was originally published in Libby Emmons' newsletter. You can subscribe here.
Graphic made with AI.
