‘Baby Boomers’ Next Step’ Elicits Mixed Responses

View informs me that the baby boom generation is indeed mortal, as some of the women are facing the prospect of menopause (“Baby Boomers’ Next Step,” Dec. 5).

As I was about 20 when these postwar babies started appearing on the scene, it seems that every rite of passage has been unduly chronicled along the way.

We who had often been frustrated heard from Dr. Spock that these children should never be frustrated. If they danced on the coffee table wearing tap shoes, by all means, do not frustrate them.

The great majority of them have never even known temporary privation (no really big depressions). While there was a long, bitter war in Vietnam, many found ways to stay out of it (smart kids). By contrast, some of us were double trippers (World War II and Korea).

Later some of them bought Beamers and Brie and became yuppies. With so many of them, the demographers gave them special attention, and, as day follows night, the advertisers started to focus on them. As this was rich soil to plow, newspapers started to be edited by and for baby boomers in order to attract the targeted readership that would buy the advertisers’ goods and services.

So we can look forward to articles on “How Baby Boomers Face the Prospect of Retirement,” “How Active Baby Boomers Cope with Retirement,” “How Baby Boomers Adjust to Nursing Homes” and “How Baby Boomers Adjust to the Last Scene of All. . . .” After that, what will the media cover?

FLOYD A. OLIVER

Los Angeles