Being too young to have lived through the fabled Baby Boom of my parents’ era, I, of course, have no idea how it seemed to those young, newly married couples just starting their families. These days, more than ever, I wonder if they realized that they were helping to spur on the “Baby Boom,” making history. I wonder if they had any idea that, as my peers and I are stuck with the nickname of “Generation X” (whatever that’s supposed to mean), they will, until the end of time as we know it, be known as the “Baby Boomers.”
I’ve never done any research into the deeper reasons (or the shallower ones, for that matter) for the apparently-sudden increase in population, nor do I intend to. None of that interests me in the slightest. My only curiosity lies in the presence or absence of awareness among the many parents of the day. In reality, even that curiosity—the little bit I have right now—will probably be short lived. In the meantime, though, I wonder…. Did those young and older couples have any idea that doing the normal, newly-married, ready-to-be-parents thing was making history? Maybe it’s a goofy question, but this is the way my mind works.
It seems as though there are a whole lot of babies being born, these days. It’s not just people my age, either. Granted, many of my peers are starting and expanding their families, but there are even more children being born to parents younger than I, or so it seems to me, and with the advances in birth control, there are plenty of people older than I who are just getting started, too. In considering the many babies being announced all around me, I’m stuck considering this question: Are we in the middle of another baby boom? It could be merely that I just never paid so much attention to the quantity of babies.
After all, up until three years ago, I was an unattached, single gal trying to decide if I really wanted to move away from SUVs and if I could afford a Cooper Mini. The only babies that really caught my attention were my nephews, and there are only two of them. Now, though, having relatively enjoyed nine months of pregnancy and survived twenty-two hours of back labor and eventual delivery, I’m a whole lot more aware of babies (and their mothers, especially), and I’m noticing that there are a lot of them to notice.
It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, but I’m just curious—do people making history realize that they’re making history? Sure, the presidents and generals probably do (or at least suspect so), but what about the rest of us commoners? The general public is just as much a part of history, even if our daily actions are rarely recorded in the history books. So, who knows? Maybe all of us who are in the midst of building families are also making history (like Adam and Eve, Noah and his wife, Abraham and Sarah, the Baby Boomers…)!