Do You Belong to a Self-Obsessed Generation?

The Pew Research Center released a report recently that described baby boomers as the gloomiest generation in the US over the last couple of decades. Opinions as to the reasons for this vary, and I'm not entirely sure myself whether baby boomers are gloomy or some of the other generations are just unreasonably optimistic! But I must say I was struck by some of the explanations I ran across, such as this one: "What else would one expect from that self-obsessed generation?"

I was struck by this because it sounds like a shorthand description of Pluto (obsessed with) in Leo (self). Whether or not baby boomers deserve the reputation of being self-obsessed, and maybe they do, they've certainly been tagged with it.  Pluto was in Leo from about 1940 to about 1957. And, as we all know, a great many babies were born in the US during that time period.

Younger boomers belong to the Pluto in Virgo generation. These are the boomers in their mid-40s to around 50 or so. Maybe not surprisingly, the researchers also break the boomer generation into two clumps, with the younger batch of boomers being described as more optimistic than the Pluto in Leo folks. I'm a Pluto in Virgo boomer, and sometimes I think there's a world of difference, at least in terms of the circumstances I encountered in my life. I wasn't really old enough to enjoy the 'age of Aquarius' or the 'summer of love,' or Woodstock or any of those iconic moments in the culture for the boomers older than me. I also didn't have to worry about the draft or about shootings at Kent State and so on.

So--did the boomers that were a bit older than I was during the 60s grow up thinking that life was an endless party? Some people seem to think so. The Pew researchers say a bit severely that the key to boomer unhappiness may be the expectations the generation grew up with. To wit: "It's also possible that the seeds of the boomers' discontent were planted long ago -- back when they were young and their generation reveled in the culture of youth."

It's kind of hard for me to believe that any youthful generation doesn't try to engage in at least some reveling in the culture of youth. It'd be a bit of a shame for any generation to completely bypass the whole having fun thing during a time when hormones are raging and falling in love is such an attractive possibility.

The real question, I suppose, is whether older boomers focused as they matured too much on Leo values like luxury, personal achievement, and self-expression at the expense of other values like savings or thrift, family, health, the environment, or spirituality? Did the Pluto in Leo generation put too much emphasis on conspicuous consumption and not enough on preparing for the future? Did these folks end up unconsciously trying so hard to impress each other in Leonine fashion that they ended up squandering their tremendous social power?

I've certainly heard boomers criticized as selfish, and maybe even ungrateful for the tremendous relative material prosperity they've enjoyed--especially by some of those other, supposedly happier generations! Did boomers truly not put enough emphasis on old-fashioned values like discipline, hard work, and delayed gratification?

For my own part, I'm inclined to think that comparatively speaking, there's some truth to the criticisms--and not just for older boomers. I have occasionally been shocked by not only the materialism of the culture around me but also by a flagrant disregard for the future at times--in favor of an amazing emphasis on adult toys instead.  It may be true that we have adopted a luxurious lifestyle that is simply not sustainable--and that boomers are unhappy precisely because they realize that when other generations don't yet!

But I'll offer another explanation for the research findings. The Pew Center study seemed to be mainly measuring financial unhappiness. And although the boomers surveyed were relatively more prosperous than other generations, they were also exhibiting a Leo trait that's not as widely noted in descriptions of this generation--generosity.

The older boomers are busy doing something that previous generations didn't face to nearly the same extent. They are supporting both a generation older than them and a generation of adult children. Many many more boomers have living parents that need care and support, including financial assistance. Many boomers have adult children of college age who also receive financial support from them.

I think that part of the task of the Pluto in Leo generation was to transform the family dynamic they inherited from the Pluto in Cancer time period. Pluto in Cancer was very harsh on families. There was a World War, a major depression, and an intense survival need for emotional repression. My father and mother came from the Pluto in Cancer generation. My father was born with the intensely rageful Uranus in Aries/Pluto in Cancer square that was typical of his times. The family trauma he experienced was not all that uncommon. It made people mad; it made some of them mean, and it made many of them unable to express themselves emotionally in their families as a matter of culture, upbringing, and circumstance.

People today may not realize to what extent the Pluto in Leo generation transformed this dynamic by placing a premium on expression. They may not be grateful for the changes in family structure that the generation wrought. There may be no collective memory of the intense darkness of the pre-war period. But the change the Boomers wrought is certainly evident in the demographic trends. Succeeding generations have been vastly more comfortable with their elders and this shows up in the number that live with their parents. On purpose or not, the boomers re-established the extended family after Pluto in Cancer nearly tore it apart.   

It may sound silly to some but I'm going to give the Me Generation a lot of credit. They may not have saved the world in the ways they originally intended. But in some important ways, they saved the family in our culture. And by caring for both the generation before them and the generation following them, they still are.

P.S. I want to recommend another astrology blog, AstroTableTalk by Dharmaruci, full of deep thoughts on various astrological, social and political topics.