essays

It’s A Gray Area

Here’s a headline pulled straight from the Internet --- Gray Divorce on the Rise in the U.S.

Okay, I’ll bite. I think I know where this is going, but there are so many options when you play with the minds of baby boomers, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Let’s start with the facts. Baby boomers are getting divorced at a rate three times that of their parents. No surprise there. Divorce rates have been climbing for years. Reliable statistics indicate that 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. The Census Bureau, which has tracked divorce only in recent years, reports that in 2008, one-fourth of new divorces took place in people married at least 20 years. The same year, almost 51 percent of all divorced (but not remarried) people were in the baby boom age cohort, according to the bureau.

So what is gray divorce? The official take on it is anyone getting a divorce after having made it through two decades or more of marriage. And the official reason why boomers are getting divorced so late in life/marriage? Because they can. There, that sounds just like something a baby boomer would do. There’s even a Late-Life Divorce website devoted to the phenom, of course. And plenty of books, such as Calling It Quits: Late-Life Divorce and Starting Over.

Maybe it’s a little more complicated than that, but it appears that some boomers believe that staying or going is a choice when it comes to marriage. Think about some recent high profile divorce/separations that have gone down of late. Tipper and Al Gore for one.

The conventional wisdom is that baby boomers earned the “me-generation” label because they valued self-expression over tradition. Yikes! Can it really be true? We’re getting divorced after twenty or twenty-five years because it’s time to do/have what I want. Are the gray divorcees going to remain single or get married again only to learn that they still don’t have what I want. Will it be any easier to find a companion/spouse who supports what you want after you’re divorced?

Do baby boomers always have to be the ones starting a trend? Why can’t some other generation take a turn. Really. Let’s pick on those darn Gen Xers or Milleniums. Surely they’ve done something trendy that everyone can pick to pieces. Give us a break!

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.