A Full Thanksgiving

When I told friends and co-workers there would be 20 people at our Thanksgiving table this year, many of them grimaced or said, “Good luck.”
My reaction was the complete opposite.
I believe the more people at a holiday gathering, the better. Especially Thanksgiving.
For starters, it was comforting to know 18 other people wanted to come to my wife, Mary, and my house on the fourth Thursday of November.
The crowd at our table ranged from my 95-year-old grandmother to our 2-year-old grandniece.
It included nine members of Mary’s family as well as both our daughters, my son-in-law, my youngest daughter’s boyfriend and our grandson. The boyfriend’s parents and a friend of mine for the past 25 years also graced our home.
Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks. A time to reflect on our good fortune.
Having family and friends who live close by is one of the many things I am grateful for this season.
The holiday meal and the good spirit that comes with it is a task Baby Boomers can take on now that they are moving into the roles of matriarch and patriarch of their families.
The family circle in our society has crumbled. Divorce is shattering one of our culture’s foundations. Only 52 percent of marriages today make it to their 15th anniversary. Only 63 percent of children in the United States grow up with both biological parents. That’s the lowest rate in the Western world.
Baby Boomers have done their part to spread this social calamity. Our generation’s divorce rate hovers at 33 percent, twice as high as our parents’ generation.
It’s time to make amends and time to take the lead.
Strengthening the family can be one of our generation’s shining achievements. We can pick up the fragments of our households and carefully put them back together.
There are a number of ways to accomplish this goal.
First, if you can, live near your relatives, especially if you are fortunate enough to have family members still alive who are older than you. If you have grown children, try to live in the same region as them. Raising a family is tough these days and young adults, especially those with kids, need all the help they can get.
My family has had this blessing. My two daughters grew up surrounded by aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins who loved them. It does take a village to raise a child.
Now, I can watch my grandson experience the same full childhood. He too is surrounded by family members who praise and hug him. My grandniece is getting the same treatment.
It was in full view on that fourth Thursday of November at a full and happy Thanksgiving table.

A New Era Dawns

President John F. Kennedy said it during his inaugural address. The torch is being passed to a new generation.
Now, 48 years later, it is happening again. And it is a good thing.
President-elect Barack Obama is technically a Baby Boomer, having been born in 1961, the year President Kennedy assumed office.
However, the Democratic senator from Illinois essentially straddles the generational gap. He is part of our age group, but his appeal, demeanor and way of thinking skews toward the younger half of our country.
Yes, the torch is being passed. Slowly. But you can feel the shift. Baby Boomers are stepping into their retirement years. We will be active, but soon we will no longer be running the government, businesses, industry or our communities.
There is some disappointment here. We did not accomplish everything we set out to do. Nowhere near it.
We had two true Baby Boomers who served as presidents, both for two terms.
President Bill Clinton achieved a number of milestones and legislative victories, but his administration has a tarnish to it due to scandal and the divisiveness the country suffered under his reign.
President George W. Bush presided over an even more divided nation. His unpopularity has reached record depths. Frankly, the country is in tatters. Our generation has given our nation perhaps the least successful president in its history.
Now, our generation is sliding slowly from the spotlight, leaving those 16 years as our political mark.
But on Election Night 2008, there is something to cheer. Something to be proud of.
Baby Boomers may not have provided great leadership when it was our turn to stand at the helm. However, we produced the younger generations that helped lift President-elect Barack Obama to the highest office in the land.
We raised our children to be color blind. To reject racial stereotypes and hatred. To accept gays into society’s mainstream. To be sympathetic and understanding of people who are not like them.
We brought them up to choose hope over despair. To choose optimism over pessimism. To have an open mind instead of a narrow one. To look forward to the future instead of to fear it.
With that upbringing, the younger people of our country joined the Obama campaign early on. They walked precincts, raised money, made phone calls, cheered at rallies and went to the polls on Election Day.
They, along with the country’s African-Americans and other people of color, put Barack Obama into the White House. Now, our young people have a president to look up to, like we did when President Kennedy was in office. They have what we were denied when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.
Our country has hope again.
Baby Boomers may be leaving behind a bit of mess, but we have produced a generation quite capable of cleaning it up.
That is our legacy. And it is a good thing.