Chlöe Swartbrick, a 25-year-old New Zealand lawmaker, recently gave a speech in which she proposed that her government take urgent action to reduce the damaging effects of climate change. While she spoke, an older colleague heckled her mercilessly. Undaunted, without even looking at her tormentor, she raised a hand indicating a stop sign and interjected, “Okay, Boomer,” and kept on talking.
Her response has become an internet meme and a mild clapback against my generation, the Baby Boomers. Her reaction speaks directly to a generational divide that should surprise no one.
I remember well my headband and tie-dye shirt days, and I also remember my cohort’s rallying cry back then: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”* When I was in my early twenties, I believed the truth of that platitude. That was then. Now Chlöe and her generation are saying approximately the same thing, “Okay, Boomer.” And while blameworthy for some of the mess my generation has shuffled off to Generation X, the Millennials, and Gen Z, we must accept that each subsequent generation edits and revises the work of the generation that precedes it. That is the way it has always been. So I am not insulted, not crying ageism, and not requesting a rebuttal for my fellow Boomers.
Even considering all the accomplishments and highwater marks* credited to my generation, we Boomers have, let’s face it, left a mess for the young ones to clean up. And I believe the pleasant rejoinder, “Okay, Boomer,” is a kindhearted rebuke more than an insult because Generation X, the Millennials and Gen Z could easily point to damaging climate change, an increase of kill power for our war machines, growing scarcity of water and food for the 7.75 billion people in the world, and the rise of tyrannical governments across the globe as the true legacies they have inherited from us. There you go. You drive for a while.
Sorry, kids. May you make the world a much better place than what we leave you.
**Including the literal highwater marks that come from melting glaciers and global warming.