Reflections On Aging Hippies, Flower Children & Sociology Majors

Today is a day I get to reflect on the Baby Boomer hippies, flower children, and sociology majors of old. It is a day of thinking back to a simpler time, and wondering where some of these landmarks from my youth finally landed. It is a day of imagining where and how they might once again rise into conscious thought, as we age ever onward.

Join us on this short journey. Who knows? You might just see yourself where you least expect you to appear.

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Whatever happened to all the hippies, flower children, and sociology majors of my youth? They seem to have disappeared into the mist.

Or maybe they were just sucked up into culture drab like many of the rest of us who figured it was easier to fight “The MAN” from the inside-out than from the outside looking in.

Of course, that was before we became “The MAN” and put the idealistic old times out of our misery once and for all . . sort of. 

(Who was The MAN, by the way? And why were we they pushing so hard against what he stood for? You DO remember that, don’t you?)

Then again . .

Maybe those idealistic young counter-culturalists just grew up and stopped fighting.

It’s been said that youth has a way of turning itself into something more rational with the passing of time. Maybe reality stepped in and locked their idealistic dreams into big steel boxes wrapped in chains.

After all, there were families to be raised and corporations to be run. Maybe those seemingly radical Boomers simply went back home and became their parents. Maybe they’re the ones running the country.

Maybe not. I don’t remember hearing much idealism coming through in the policies and annual reports of the last 30 years. Do you?

Then again . .

Maybe all the yearning for change they used to direct toward demonstrating, creating new movements, and saving the world magically turned itself inside out. Maybe old passions mellowed down to become more realistic targets of focus for important socio-political causes like ending hunger, teaching, fixing broken people, day-trading and such.

Then again . .

Maybe their ongoing frustration eventually sucked up all that child-like positive energy, drained it off and scattered it across a swamp somewhere – never again to be concentrated in the hands of what were once such youthful idealists.

I do miss some of that energy, sometimes. Mostly, I miss it in myself.

My Own Semi-Flower Child Memories

When I went off to college, it was a toss-up to imagine what parents feared most for their precious little darlings like us: Viet Nam, or Hippie-dom. One could kill them. The other . . and one or the other parent would have to disown or shoot them. Neither was a great option.

And as much as they dreaded both extremes for their children, I’m betting they feared for themselves and the fate of their own values just as much. After all, kids are reflections – however dim – of their parents. Just imagine how much they had to lose.

.   .   .   .   .

I have to kind of smile when I think of that time. A number of my now middle-aged old high school friends would swear to this day that I became one of those weed-smoking hippie-type Boomer flower children. I therefore speak on this subject as an outsider-proclaimed insider.

The fact is: I was never a hippie. I never smoked a joint. Nor was I ever a flower child . . not even sort of. And to this day it fascinates me how many people who thought they knew me assumed differently.

But, I couldn’t be or do those things. I was raised with my parents’ values. Such radical possibilities never even crossed my mind.

Let me qualify: I didn’t have time for such things, though you’d never have guessed it had you met me back then.

I stretched the limits just a bit, but never beyond the point of my parents being able to recognize some part of themselves in me. It might have been a very thin line that they recognized, but there was never a doubt we were connected.

I went through a phase of vegetarianism, wearing long dresses, not shaving my legs, and doing yoga at 4 in the morning . . but I never pushed my ‘revolutionary’ tendencies beyond the soft.

When all was said and done, I may have been a bit eccentric, but I wasn’t about to stop being  a “good girl”. Besides, I was too afraid of disappointing someone to ever take those tendencies into the hard and end up having to pay the price.

All  the things I tried – as I’m sure you can imagine – were total horror in the minds of middle-aged, conservative parents like my own. Yet, my attempts to spread my wings and establish new boundaries were fairly bland compared to everything else I might have been doing.

Maybe that’s why my parents did their best to let them slide. There was always hope for my growing out of it.

Mostly, what I was going through back then was a long phase of trying to figure out who I was and where I belonged in the world. Perfectly normal stuff . . that I took to a bit of an extreme.

(Yep, I know. I never quite got past that phase. That just means I like having options. Moving right along . .)

.   .   .   .   .

So, hippie-like flower child tendencies . . Is that all there was?

Well, I did try a stint as a Sociology major. (A lot of perfectly ‘normal’ people did, and survived. Some even graduated.) But then, I tried stints as numerous majors. None of them seemed to stick all that well. Eventually I jumped into another totally non-marketable social science, and rushed to graduate.

Let’s just say I figure I at least qualify as a former closet flower child. And I think that’s enough for me to take a peek at some of the old idealism – and the kids who wrapped themselves in it – and whether it still has a place today.

I like to hope that all those young people grew up and found a place to apply their ideals. Then again, I know they didn’t all. Some just faded away.

They were someone’s kids, too. It’s kind of sad, but it happens.

What Has Become Of The Ideals?

And what of the dreams and ideals they carried? Are they gone as well? Or were they transformed . . reconfigured to somehow fit within the system and its greatest needs?

Maybe some were carefully put aside, to wait for another idealistic generation to once again give them life – a better life.

Maybe Gen Y is just that generation . . dreamers who are perfectly happy staying inside the system. Maybe they will move the ball forward.

Or not.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

But then, waiting has never been a strength for us, has it?

Maybe, then, we shouldn’t wait.

Maybe our gift – our older, wiser gift – will be to bring all the maturity we’ve been accumulating (possibly in spite of ourselves) over these last 30+ years, to guide this new generation of tech-savvy dreamers in discovering new ways to give the old ideals life.

Maybe that’s what it was all about from the start: Learning how to patiently nurture and shape the ideals, and then pass them on to new minds and hands.

After all, what better way could a bunch of former hippie-like Boomer flower child sociology majors make a name for themselves!

It sounds pretty good to me. Then again, that’s just a semi-out-sider’s perspective.

You might be closer to the source, and have a better idea.

If so, please share. I’d certainly love to hear your thoughts.

Keep growing my friend,

Gail

Tagged as: Aging, Baby Boomer, Boomer, flower children, Gen Y, hippies, ideals, maturity, middle-aged, Old, older, sociology majors, wiser