The parents of Baby Boomers were raised in the Depression. The fathers of baby boomers fought in WWII.
Baby boomers were raised in a post-war economic boom by the greatest generation of Americans who have ever lived.
Now, many of them are protesting in the silly and stupid, pro-letist "no kings" rallies.
What went wrong?
The transition from the Greatest Generation—those who endured the Great Depression and fought in World War II—to the Baby Boomers, who came of age during economic prosperity and social upheaval, reflects deep psychological and cultural shifts in American life.
The Greatest Generation was shaped by hardship, scarcity, and collective purpose. They grew up with a strong sense of duty, gratitude, and sacrifice, having witnessed the fragility of both peace and prosperity. Their worldview emphasized responsibility, obedience to authority, and respect for institutions that provided stability [1].
In contrast, the Baby Boomers were born into an era of unprecedented abundance and security. The postwar economic boom fostered optimism, individualism, and new opportunities, but it also loosened traditional constraints. Raised by parents determined to give them “a better life,” Boomers were encouraged to dream, question, and express themselves freely. By the 1960s, this led to a cultural backlash—against war, rigid authority, and inequality—that took form in civil rights movements, antiwar protests, and the counterculture [4].
However, the very freedoms and material comforts their parents worked to secure contributed to a generational alienation. Without the unifying hardship or moral clarity of war and depression, many Boomers found themselves searching for meaning, leading to widespread skepticism toward institutions and traditional hierarchies. The “no kings” rallies and other anti-authoritarian movements symbolized this rejection of imposed authority and a struggle to define values independently [6].
In short, what went wrong—or perhaps simply what changed—was the loss of a shared external struggle that once bound society together. The Greatest Generation’s stability and self-sacrifice gave rise to a generation that sought autonomy and authenticity, sometimes at the cost of unity and shared purpose [3].
Sources
In addition:
Integrating Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis (TA) with Freud’s structural model of the psyche provides a powerful psychological framework for understanding the generational shift from the Greatest Generation to the Baby Boomers.
In Transactional Analysis, Berne describes three ego states within each person: the Parent, the Adult, and the Child.
- The Parent ego state contains the values, rules, and judgments learned from authority figures—essentially our internalized moral guide, shaped by early parental and cultural influences.
- The Adult ego state processes information rationally and objectively; it evaluates reality in the present moment.
- The Child ego state captures spontaneous feelings, creativity, rebellion, and early emotional experiences [1][3].
Freud’s model includes the Superego, Ego, and Id, which correspond well to Berne’s framework:
- The Superego mirrors the Parent ego state, internalizing societal norms and moral expectations.
- The Ego aligns with Berne’s Adult, balancing desires with real-world constraints.
- The Id parallels the Child, representing instinctual drives, pleasure-seeking impulses, and unfiltered emotion [2][6].
Applying these integrated ideas to the generational shift:
The Greatest Generation, molded by Depression-era scarcity and wartime unity, operated primarily from the Parent/Superego states—a collective emphasis on discipline, duty, and moral structure. Their identities were built on external authority and an internalized belief in sacrifice for the greater good [4].
The Baby Boomers, in contrast, emerged into a world of abundance and relative security. Their experience activated stronger Child/Id elements—curiosity, self-expression, and resistance to imposed authority. However, when societal expectations from the “Parent” generation clashed with their drive for autonomy, it produced internal and external conflict. Movements like “no kings” symbolized the struggle between the inherited Parent/Superego voice of conformity and the emerging Child/Id push for freedom and authenticity [5].
In healthy development, the Adult/Ego mediates between these forces—maintaining realism while integrating moral guidance and emotional vitality. The challenge for both generations, then, lies in balancing inherited moral structure with individual authenticity. The Greatest Generation risked rigidity in their strong Parent/Superego, while Boomers risked fragmentation when the Child/Id overshadowed the Adult’s integrative function [3].
From a Transactional Analysis perspective, effective intergenerational dialogue occurs when each group engages through their Adult ego state—responding to reality, not simply reenacting parental authority or childlike rebellion. In psychological terms, the Baby Boomers’ protests and value shifts mark an effort to renegotiate the dominant Parent/Superego narrative established by their predecessors—transforming inherited duty into personal choice, and obedience into conscious responsibility [1][6].
In essence, the evolution from the Greatest Generation to the Boomers represents a collective psychological process: a movement from Parent/Superego authority toward Adult/Ego awareness and Child/Id vitality—a rebalancing of structure, reason, and emotion within modern cultural identity.
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