THE SIXTIES ARE OFTEN REGARDED AS A STORM THAT CAME and passed, a cyclone that blew through, its damage long repaired. But among the era's more enduring legacies was establishing a style of youth, of being young, that's been passed on for thirty years now by example in an endless chain of kids. Whether it's matters of speech – using the word 'like' as an article, or the omnipresent 'man' – or the torn jeans, the shoulder-length hair like Spanish moss, or the hazards of sex, drugs, and rock 'n 'roll, we developed rites of passage of a surprisingly enduring nature. Listening to my daughter, I often feel a little like the American natives who puzzled as Columbus told them he'd discovered a New World. Which only goes to augment the fundamental Boomer dilemma. Unable to reform the world, many of us decided to have families in hopes of creating a more perfect order at home. We didn't want children so much as allies. Thus, the sixties became the nineties tied together by the motif of child worship. And as a result there can be no generation more thoroughly unprepared for the inevitable discovery that we've become our parents.
– MICHAEL FRAIN ' The Survivor's Guide,' May 16, 1900