being a baby boomer, i have grown used to my every passage being chronicled on the cover of time and newsweek. in the early days, when the stories were about our long hair and torn jeans, our mini skirts and our loud music, i thought it was cool. it was another way to drive our parents crazy. not only were we breaking all the rules, we were getting lots of attention for doing so.
as the years passed, the news media continued covering our life styles and choices but it no longer felt so cool. i didn't need time magazine to add their two cents when i was trying to convince my parents that not being a virgin or smoking pot was not the end of the world. every move, i made whether it was dropping out of school or moving in with a boyfriend, had some sort of poll in print, either for or against. by the time i got married the debate of whether or not to keep my maiden name had already been discussed and covered by every magazine on the stand on the corner of my parent's block.
having a baby was another cover story and to work or not to work - forget about it - that warranted a t.v. special. stay at home moms versus working moms is still being played out today on oprah. in all my years as a cover girl i don't remember anything quite as big as when my generation hit menopause. you could not pick up a book, magazine or turn on the t.v. or radio without the endless discussion of hormones and mood swings. what once was a subject rarely, if at all discussed, and then only in the privacy of your bedroom or doctor's office, suddenly strange men at dinner parties were asking me how i was coping with hot flashes and what was my stand on hormone replacement therapy.
i thought i had seen the worst of the attention and now that i was old the focus would move on to generation x or whatever they call themselves. i had hoped that what with lindsay and nicole and paris all serving hard time, they would finally get tired of covering us aging boomers and move on to greener pastures. i was wrong.
it seems that, according to the new york times and time magazine (can newsweek be far behind?), there is a new baby boomer issue to be discussed ad nauseum. to dye or not to dye - that is the question. of all my friends, acquaintances, and associates i only know two women who are grey. i am lucky - at my advanced age i still only have a few grey hairs but i know i will not be this lucky forever. so what's a woman to do. it seems, according to the polls, in person, men will gravitate toward the non- grey haired woman but on line - nine out of ten times they choose the grey haired one. since i usually don't meet people on line, that one statistic holds little meaning for me. what does resonate, though, is the fact that once again, what i do is a matter of public discussion. they say that a woman who chooses to go grey is making a statement. i would think it were just the opposite - that the woman who dyes is the one making a statement. in either case, who cares? why can't they just leave us alone - we are old and let's face it, not that many people are looking at us anyway. when we have brittany shaving her head and leaving her house without her panties, i hardly think that what color hair the grandmothers of the world are sporting should matter all that much. do you?
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