Hi, Ann. Maybe our optimism has to do with our youthful desire to change the world. All that experimentation in school, the anti-war demonstrations, and being part of the women's and sexual revolutions have had a profound impact. We may have crow's feet and laugh lines, but inside, we're still young.

As for the number of cars in our households, I believe that's a product of necessity. I left a Canadian city with an amazing transit system to a city in the US west with an inadequate one, and now we have four cars in a family of four. It kills me that we contribute so much to pollution, but without them, we can't easily get around.

"Relevant" to this audience because most of the authors here are boomers? (HA! Just kidding, but I couldn't resist.)

XOXOXO,

A Gen X'er

Mack Collier asked me earlier in disbelief, "Wait a sec... you're a Boomer?!" As I told him, yeah -- but just *barely* -- I'm on the very tail end. I could have included that in the post, but it made me sound defensive. Like, you know, I am now. lol....

Anyway -- NOOoooo, Mr. Smarty-Pants-Gen-Xer, "relevant" because I assume alot of our *customers* are Boomers. Or clients. Or client's customers.

As a group, those Boomers have a lot of cash.. and they aren't afraid to spend it!

Whenever I read these generational research studies, I have to wonder whether it's generation-specific or age-specific.
In other words, aren't people in their 50s prone to own more cars because they're wealthier, more established and likely to be in a situation where they have older children (who can drive) living at home.
Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the Baby Boom.

@Ann: If it makes you feel better, William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their seminal work on GenX, "13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Fail" define Gen X as starting in 1961 - their theory was that anyone too young to remember the Kennedy assassination was too young to be a Boomer. Doug Coupland, who came up with the term "Generation X" also originally intended it to refer to those born in the early 1960s.