Boomtastrophe

The second group could be called Helicopter Parents, to borrow a phrase from generational expert William Strauss. Mom and Dad hovered over Missy like Blackhawk choppers, videotaping every single moment of her first five years, starting with conception. Parents and child remained best friends as Missy grew up, thanks to Mom and Dad's willingness to sink into debt to indulge her with money and high-tech gifts. Missy belongs to the Millennial Generation, the 75 million Americans born between 1982 and 2000, the pioneers of YouTube nation.

The split represents a classic Boomer disparity: too little or too much of a good thing, with mixed results either way. Its oldest members in their early 40s, Gen X tends to maintain an ironic distance from life, its expectations tempered by a conviction that, sooner or later, everyone disappoints. Its oldest members in their mid-20s, the Millennial Generation acts as if everyone owes them, its expectations raised beyond reason from hearing Mom and Dad's constant refrain, "You're special."

Yet with Gen Xers older and disinclined to engage, social critics pin their hopes on the Millennials for redeeming their parents in the Baby Boom generation. "There's a lot of potential for them," says author Neil Howe, who has written several books with Strauss about the differences within and between generations. "Gen Xers took a pretty tough situation and did the best they could, but it's the Millennials who really look promising."

The forecast sounds even better to Boomer parents than "Free Bird." As Orsborn quips, "We did something right."

Or perhaps not. Personality surveys characterize Millennials as tolerant, industrious, and law-abiding. But with their parents putting the mother in smother, telling them they could do anything and deserved everything, Millennials carry egos the size of, well, Baby Boomers. The Me Generation has begat Generation Me.

"It's almost like (Millennials) had three pillows strapped to them so they wouldn't get hurt if they fell down," says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of Generation Me. "It's like they had three pillows protecting their self-esteem."

Twenge describes Millennials as "the most self-absorbed generation we've had." Her book and a study she released earlier this year relied on analysis of responses by college students to the Narcissistic Personality Index. Combing the surveys of some 16,500 students between 1982 and 2006, she saw a steady rise in scores, with young adults growing ever more optimistic about their prospects.

That's fine so far as it goes. The risk lies in self-confidence mutating into narcissism, Twenge contends, a trait that tends to lead to higher rates of infidelity, less empathy for others, and an inability to cope with rejection. Last year, almost 90 percent of the 140 violent attacks on homeless people across the country were committed by young men age 25 and under. The New York Times reported last month that rising incivility in public discourse among young people arcs back to how they were raised. As one psychologist told the paper, "The Baby Boomers were self-centered and had self-centered children because they thought, "Everything is for me and my child.' Now these under-30s have grown up and just assume what was cute for their parents is now cute to everybody else."

Twenge echoes the appraisal. Told throughout childhood that they were unique, handed a trophy just for showing up to a ballgame, given grades that reflected parental hectoring of teachers more than the work's quality — Millennials are ego incarnate. They are Boomers redux, with hip-huggers and flip-flops instead of bell bottoms and clogs.

Boomers confess to their excessive doting, with one consistent caveat, Twenge says. "They always say, 'My kid isn't narcissistic.'" But for a generation forever in denial, a reap-what-you-sow moment may arrive within the next quarter-century.

As Millennials age and move into the halls of political influence, they will confront the debt load bestowed by their parents, who refused to trim entitlement benefits after the turn of the 21st century. The new powerbrokers may recall that their parents spent themselves into near bankruptcy to mollify the must-have impulses of their children. On the other hand, faced with an unpleasant political choice between the welfare of their children and their elders, Millennials may decide to put the kids first — unlike their parents did.

"There could be a major slapdown of Boomers [by Millennials] at some point," Strauss says, "and if that happens, Boomers will know why."

The Boomer Century: 1946-2046, the PBS program that aired a few weeks ago, produced a companion book. Its subtitle, How America's Most Influential Generation Changed Everything, invites a rejoinder: And Not for the Better.

More than other generations, Boomers feel compelled to inflate their legacy, a collective chest-thumping that belies their insecurity about what they wrought. They want to believe that without their daring to light up, get laid, and pass out, America would still wallow in the benighted '50s. The Age of Aquarius transformed history and transcended time ... in their own mind.

But as Males says, "A lot of this celebrating of the past seems like more than nostalgia. It's like trying to turn the past into some super-morally conscious era, and using that to condemn subsequent generations."