My Mother Wore Boxing Gloves

My mother, 53 years old in 2004, told me in a long-distance phone call that she had joined a boxing class. This was not simply Tae Bo, this was boxing class with gloves, punching bags, and—apparently, speed skipping.

I was aghast—shocked, really, not because she was boxing, but because she had taken on this ultimate carb-workout and I couldn’t even be bothered to haul my (then) 26-year-old self onto the elliptical trainer we had in our home.

Reminded of my un-renewed Balley’s membership and my subsequent weight-gain, I had, of course, resorted to sarcasm. “Do you run into freezers and beat the living daylights out of slabs of meat, as well?” which was wholly undeserved on my mother’s part.

Naturally, she was unconcerned by my petty insecurities and continued to regale the benefits of eating and living healthy. In later phone conversations, she would move on to tell me about rock climbing, yoga, facial treatments, hair and nail salons, and the inevitable wardrobe update to show off her perfectly toned arms. All this, she did, while running the family business, which was to apply the finishes on buildings, homes, and offices--as if being physically fit and beautiful at 54 weren’t impressive enough, she capped all of it off with a hard-hat when she walked through construction sites. Now at 57, she hasn’t come close to mentioning the word “retirement.” I suspect she never will, whether or not she decides to remove her hard-hat permanently.

As bionic as my mother seems, I’ve found that this is not a virtue attributed exclusively to her. Though she is special in her own way, she, like many baby boomers in America and across the globe, had chosen to break the pre-conceived notions their parents and their parent’s parents (and their parent’s parent’s parents) seemed to have established for them—that being 50 was the beginning of the end.

Baby boomers knew, long before Hollywood made it trendy—even while Hollywood called it a “crisis” in midlife--, that 50 was the beginning of a new phase in life, where they can begin to look forward to the possibilities that their hard-earned financial freedom had in store for them.

A “baby boomer” or “boomer” is a term used to describe a person born post-World War II, between the years 1946 and the 1965. Following World War II, countries experienced an unusual spike in birth rates, a phenomenon commonly referred to as the “baby boom.” The term “boomer” is also used in countries with demographics that did not necessarily mirror the sustained growth in American families over the same interval.

During the years of the baby boom, 76 million Americans were born—17 million more than the average birth rate. The sheer probability of at least half this number asking questions, and wanting answers in some form or another—books, radio, television, print media, the internet—is, as the newly official word goes, ginormous.

The thriving boomer community online should be proof enough. Boomer sites like Eons.com, LifeTwo.com, ReZoom.com, and Wowowow.com are constantly updated with articles ranging from headlines to health, activities and aging, money and media. Boomers are interested in the same things kids in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are, except that they’re interested in a way that only their generation could describe. They address needs that their parents dared not address before above the decibel of a whisper—sex, sex in marriage, sex out of marriage, making marriage work, acknowledging failed marriages, wrinkles, white hair, wardrobe malfunctions, health, cosmetic surgery…botox—is suddenly open to mature, occasionally hilarious, discussion.

Boomer books, which happens to comprise most Springboard Press titles—The Marriage Benefit, Smart Women Don’t Retire, How Not to Look Old, Beyond Botox, The Sex Lives of Wives, among others—delve even deeper into relevant issues of men and women seeking practical answers to questions that should have been answered—so to speak—eons ago.

Being a boomer is all about pioneering and there are enough notable boomers to prove it: Michael Jordan (Feb. 2, 1963), Steve Jobs (Feb. 24, 1955), Stephen King (Sept. 21, 1847), Hillary Clinton (Oct. 26, 2947), Bruce Springsteen (Sept. 23, 1949), John McEnroe (Feb. 16, 1959)—even Ted Bundy (Nov. 24, 1946)—few among many famous boomers who showed the world that the boomer generation never do anything half-way.

Is it any wonder that the world and media has taken notice and acknowledged the impact boomers have on every facet of today’s society? Boomers are an entire generation of men and women who went ahead and figuratively—in my mother’s case literally—donned those boxing gloves and had the work-out of their lives.