Today, I read a WSJ report on the twenty-first century epidemic of Boomer generation singletons (1946-1964). The reporter submitted a rigorous argument as to why elder isolation is no joke.
Is loneliness different for the Boomers? — or is it just another expression of their privileged malaise?
I’m at the tail end of the new “Lonelies.” I was born in 1958, and fit their description like a lid.
Doctors and social workers cite the sad reasons for the current tsunami of at-risk singletons: their smaller families, ubiquitous divorces, fewer children. There are vague pointers toward unfettered capitalism— you're useless if you ain’t making money for somebody.
My mind wandered further.
Our generation lost a lot of “family" early on, despite our material gains. We were the kids of epic assassinations— our earliest memories are of JFK, Malcolm, Martin, RFK. It is the first memory I have of my mother, her tears.
We subsequently lost our brothers and cousins to endless wars—in our youth, to Vietnam. The draft was a death sentence in the wings.
Next, not even a decade later, AIDS wiped out entire kindred families. —Gone, in a matter of weeks, months.
Finally, how can we forget? —the travesty of the criminalized heroin and meth scene, wiped out yet another arm and a leg. I can’t forget their baby faces.
I’m 60. There’s at least 200 people I expected to grow old with, people I was close to.
The WSJ article barely whispers on the topic of family estrangement. I would like to put it in bold: FAMILY ESTRANGEMENT. Many of the boomer loners have living children, siblings, or exes— yet few of them are speaking to each other.
When the cops or the mailman find an elder face-down on their kitchen floor, the inevitable discovery is that the deceased... has estranged living relatives. They’ve been giving each other the silent treatment for years.
You may think my next words will be: “For shame!”
That’s not how I see it.
If you ask people, of all ages, why they are estranged from their blood family, they offer potent arguments. They explain their family members are toxic, narcissistic, insensitive, abusive shits. They take all the oxygen out of the room.
The marker of the estrangement explanations is that they’re ubiquitous, a banality— every aggrieved rant is cathartically identical.
Boomers delivered this edict to their parents... when they cut the cord many decades ago. They remember their heartbreak and desperation as they vowed radio silence only as a last resort. It never seemed like a light decision.
Yet to Boomer dismay, 40 years later, their own children and siblings are doing the cutting, issuing the same damnations. It’s brutal to be on the other side of the estrangement table.
Boomers thought they were the "cool ones,” the ones who learned their lessons. They would be educated parents who wouldn’t beat their kids with coat hangers, who would support them, listen to their problems, celebrate their differences.
Turns out they’re not cool, and they didn’t learn fuck-all; they’re just alone with their regrets and bitters. Their kids are not impressed.
I do contemplate communities where family members are dependent on one another, just to get by-- where there is no room for estrangement. Blood ties are the lifeboat, that gets you to the new land.
A close-knit family, forced into close association by circumstance, may be struggling and frustrated, but not... lonely. You never get quietly lonely when you’re sleeping three to a bed.There is no “out” to turn to, when you are family-dependent.
The American Dream is not waiting there with an open door. Until, or “if," one gets that starry break, there’s no agency to strike out on one's own. You can’t afford to tell your family off, and walk out the door. It is literally inconceivable. That kind of loyalty can linger a whole generation forward.
Not mine. The family-dependent era for my immigrant tree ended after WWII. That’s when the bold departures began.
Estrangement is an independence perk. It’s your reward, once you get the tiniest ticket to the lowest rung of the middle class. — A college education, a job your parents never had, a shot at the brass ring, a seed bag. I look at my parents’ early journals and see the freedom coursing through their veins.
Nowadays, of course, all the lower rungs are being cut off. Class mobility is the new T-Rex.
Yet for the Boomers who lived it, that initial agency was a rush. What a chance, to reinvent oneself apart from those who raised you. It’s thrilling when you’re young, healthy, and have means.
Where do I sit, with my own imminent entré to the Loneliest Generation? Another chorus of “Eleanor Rigby”?
I’m sharply aware of my family estrangement. It eats at me. I would give anything to undo the past. I graft chosen family ties; I cherish relationships that by some miracle haven’t deteriorated— with far more empathy than I would’ve imagined even a decade ago. I get the medical alerts about my aging ornery heart, and I can hear its message... tick tock. Tick Tock.
Good intentions, blow me. It’s hard. Retreat seems easier most days.
On a single day, I may see a friend, or hear a song, and am overjoyed to have encountered them both. So it was worth it! I'm in awe of my surprise.
You never know, when the light is going to flicker. It’s so slender, that flicker. Estrangement is our child-rehearsal. —A fool’s pantomime, a gentle reenactment, in retrospect. You don’t know when the shadow of the widening gyre is upon you; and how could you? Impossible. That ceremony of wild innocence, was our first call to get it right. I can see now, I missed it, on both ends. The very model of my generation.
Illustration: Charles Shultz
