The baby-boomers’ culture of hedonistic consumerism has left their offspring with the crumbs from their table. And 65% of them say their children’s lives will be worse than their own. But are they bothered?

Elisabeth – a 51-year-old financial analyst – has banned her four children from using the sentence “I’ll put it on my CV.” A child of the 1960s, a baby-boomer, her youth was one of freedom and fun. Now she watches in dismay as her children fret anxiously about their futures.

“My generation,” says Sally, her 20-year-old student daughter, “is faced with a huge amount of pressure to plan a career early on in life. Many of my friends at university are simply getting a degree as a stepping stone to work in the City.”


Sally asked her mother what she should do for her summer holidays that would look good on her CV. “I flipped,” says Elisabeth. The brightly coloured 1960s of her youth had given way to the grim noughties of her children’s.

Elisabeth is not alone. The boomer generation is suddenly waking up to the terrible truth that their legacy to their children is a nastier, tougher and more anxious world than the one they knew. And the young are waking up to the fact that it has happened thanks to the unthinking greed of their parents. Battle lines are visible in the sand; an inter-generational war is brewing.