Commentary : Closing the Door on Never-Never Land : Economy: Layoff notice shatters family’s life and a basic baby-boomer tenet--that education and hard work guarantee a golden future, immune from others’ economic woes.
It was not the kind of news that baby-boomers are supposed to receive. After all, we complacently believe that the world will treat us kindly as we work to earn all the good things in life. We were nurtured on the promise that strong educations would guarantee our roads to success, that gathering graduate-degree initials behind our names would be frosting on our cakes. Little could we know our own vulnerability, or that a recessive economy might someday affect us, just like everybody else.
The bad news was that my husband Tom and I were the baby-boomers soon to be affected. The worse news was that Tom would be laid off from his job with just a month’s notice. The worst news was that his last day of work would be his 40th birthday.
It is not an easy thing for a baby-boomer to become a middle-aged, not-so-young-anymore yuppie. It is even harder to do so without a job.
Tom and I have been happily married for 20 years. We met as college freshmen, married as sophomores and continued on to earn our master’s degrees at San Diego State University. Tom chose an MBA with an emphasis in information systems, while I pursued a master’s in elementary curriculum and instruction. Together we held our passkeys and faced our golden futures, confident in the security of our white-collar training.
After graduation, I became a primary grade teacher in the Chula Vista Elementary School District. I’ve been there for 17 years, and I will probably die there. It is fortunate that I love what I do, for I am a rut-runner. I do not like change, nor do I want anyone to rock my boat. Just leave me alone in my predictable little groove, and let me make it deeper.
Tom, on the other hand, is one who seeks out change. As a computer systems analyst/consultant, he is thrilled by the dynamic whirlwinds of his kinetic field. Once he aligns a company’s needs with the wizardry of technology, his wanderlust leads him off to find another challenge. Several years and several firms later, he has cheerfully avoided the grooves I would have sought.
Despite earlier recessions and meanderings of the economy, we have never feared that we could lose our jobs. For me, teaching has provided the equilibrium I need, while the meteoric growth of the computer industry has inured Tom to any unemployment inkling. He has traveled the yellow brick road of professional success, acquiring senior positions along the way.
Our baby-boomer delusion of lifetime immunity has always served us well. Until now.
Maybe we were too busy picking up the petals of our good fortunes to have seen the writing on the wall. Baby-boomers have been topping out in companies at younger ages than previous generations. With too many boomers sitting at the top, even exemplary performance is not enough to guarantee our place in the sun.
Enter the added factors of the recent war in the Middle East and a stagnant national economy, and jittery companies are choosing not to carry young big-ticket salaries to retirement. Instead, such companies are down-sizing, replacing upper-level sparkle with less expensive worker bees.
The music had already stopped, but we were still dancing.
I am not sure how things would have differed had we realized the situation earlier. Yuppie baby-boomers tend to earmark troubling economic news for the blue-collar masses. We do not foresee ourselves as possible victims of an employment meltdown, or as dominoes in a line that has to fall.
It is not elitism, however, that has led us astray in our reality. Rather, the decade of the ‘50s couched us boomers in opulent abundance. We knew the comfort of possessions without the worry of how they got there. Our traditional families seemed carefree from the issues of money or employment, and urged us on towards similar pots of gold at the rainbow’s end.
We soaked up propagandist television hours watching cozy sitcom families within enormous houses. The Ward Cleaver-type fathers were hearty breadwinners, unruffled with suits and briefcases as they walked through the doors each day. Such white-collar paradigms were never sullied with employment woes. We grew up thinking we would not be, either.
Tom and I no longer see ourselves as employment-proof indispensables. With the ‘90s shattering our boomer tooth-fairy myth, we are eating our share of humble pie.
The struggle now is with our emotions as well as our family economics. Unable to find comparable employment readily only aggravated the initial depression Tom experienced with the layoff. What had been a challenge in his 30s is a nightmare in his 40s. For the first time ever, he longed for a groove.
I am battling a kaleidoscope of emotions, some of which I am not proud. The vertigo that now characterizes our home routines frustrates me as a rut-runner, as we grapple to establish a new balance. Our previous expectations of personal space and roles have been altered, now that Tom is home every day. There is an empathy for my husband, who fell with the caprice of our time. A 40-year-old ego is not easy to put together again.
While I am certain of his resilience, I worry about the interim, and the changes that may be needed. I can see his baby-boomer pride will have to heal before he might consider climbing down the up-staircase. I hope it will not be necessary for him to do so.
There is my embarrassment, even though I realize Tom’s layoff was an automatic response to an unstable economy. It was two weeks before I could mention our situation to a few close friends, and even then I felt I had to qualify it. I am not comfortable with their unspoken relief that they were not the victims. At really selfish moments, I wish they were.
It has been a time for introspection, a reevaluation of our priorities as we lose our baby-boomer innocence. We’re 40-year-old Peter Pans, closing the door on never-never land.
