Baby Boomers had plenty to gripe about

Re Smile, Ontario: Exclusive poll shows we’re a very happy, hopeful bunch, Jan. 1

In the midst of an otherwise interesting article about how happy Ontarians are, Jim Coyle expresses the all-too-common attitude about Baby Boomers who “haven’t had a ton to be unhappy about in their lifetimes.” I’m tired of being characterized this way.

When I went to the faculty of education in 1971 my class was told that at least half of us would not get jobs in the tight education market. Many of those who did get jobs went away to places like Red Lake just as many grads today need to move away to find employment.

I managed to get a job in a town where I knew no one, but was “surplus to school” or to the board for four of the five first years I taught. And my student loans were as high as my first-year teacher’s salary. Sound familiar?

Then I married and moved to the Toronto area and had to work in an alternate field for six years before I found another teaching position. I loved teaching secondary school, but it wasn’t all sweetness and light.

Coyle also states that after job loss, the “downers” are divorce and separation, chronic pain, depression and sleep disorders. From my anecdotal experience I would say that these are all things that Baby Boomers have suffered from. In fact, they probably have more experience of them than millennials do.

I would hope that we all become happier as we age — we find our place in the world and become reconciled to the fact that we will not achieve all our childhood dreams, but are satisfied with the dreams we do achieve and the direction our lives take. Millennials will probably end up there as well, no matter how improbable that seems now. Sandra Hennessey, Oakville