Fellow Boomers, do you ever get the feeling that we're scaring the poop out of the young whippersnappers of the world?

I've been reading this feature from the Washington Post, "Brave New Boomers: Area Officials Plan for a Generation That Won't Call Itself Old And Opts to Stay Put Far From Transit and Health Services" about steps in the DC area being taken to prepare for an onslaught of geezers, and detect just a note of panic.

Calling us the "silver tsunami", the thought of 80 million of us coming up toward retirement has many in the generations behind us doubting the ability of the world ... or their world, more accurately ... to stay afloat, and trying to figure out how to make things easier for all of us, maybe.

I can't help but think it's more than just our numbers that causes concern, and I suspect there might be something in our attitude that's putting the inkling of a wrinkle in some smooth young brows.

A supervisor in a neighboring DC county has us pegged as "basically being dragged kicking and screaming into senior citizen status". We're taking offense at the very term "seniors" and have no intention of spending our leisure time at "senior centers". (Is that we're slow or stubborn that has so many of us still hearing the word "senior" and thinking automatically in terms of freshmen and sophomores rather than discounts on laxatives?)

As part of the push to figure out ways to make money off us once our Social Security payments start pinching young workers, one new place that's hoping to be a hangout for Boomers is being called a "Center for Active Adults", and I think even that is pushing the semantics a bit closer to the bone than some geezers will like, especially those of us still in the market for items advertised as being geared to "active toddlers".

"Baby boomers are the most optimistic, the most stubborn and the most in denial of any age group. . . . They're convinced, 'I'm never going to grow old. . . . I'm going to be as active at 75 as I was at 45.' That's the boomer attitude," said Leon Harper, a former housing specialist for AARP who now consults on universal design.

And why the heck not? It seems there's little future in assuming the position that old has to look like it did for our grandparents. After all, our middle age doesn't resemble that of generations before us that bought a ticket on the frumpy bus, stayed on until it took a left a dowdy and parked permanently in just plain old old, so why must our senectitude look like anyone else's?

Not only are we at the top of the game in music, literature, art and adventure, we're moms and dads to little ones in our 40s and 50s, often with kids younger than those of parents twenty years our junior.

If I could give just one suggestion to the folks now trying to design how we'll be living in the near future ... the 55-and-older communities, 'active adult centers' and other hopeful meccas meant to drag us and our wallets toward a lifestyle that will be good for us, but not look too much like fogey-ville ... two words: child care.



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