Before you go and accuse boomers of lacking a sense of humor, nothing could be farther from the truth. The boomers I know who are thriving at midlife and beyond (and there are plenty of us) love to poke fun at ourselves. We sing about it at “Menopause the Musical”, we send it via email cartoons about aging to everybody in our address books, we even gross out about it together, as witnessed by Sacha Baron Cohen’s Golden Globe acceptance speech and his vivid description of his tussle with a fellow-actor’s wrinkly boomer nether portions while filming Borat.

But Cranky? No laughing matter. For one thing, cranky is for our parents’ generation—seriously old people—who are upset with the quality of food at their assisted living center, their noisy roommate and the fact that you don’t call enough. And that’s just for starters.

Cranky is one of those words—like eccentric, marginalized, invisible—that disempowers. Say “cranky” to a boomer, and you will inadvertently start a subconscious protest rally. Why? It’s one of the stereotypes, leftover from the years following World War II. During the war years, the young men went off to battlefields around the world, leaving older folks, women and that double-whammy combo, older women, to run the country. Did just fine. In fact, Rosy the Riveter was none too quick to lay down her tools at war’s end.

Thus was launched one of the most effective PR campaigns of all time. If you were old, a woman or especially an old woman, and you didn’t step aside to make room for the boys, you were labeled as eccentric and yes, cranky. It was, in fact, your patriotic duty to step out of the mainstream and into the shadows of marginalization. You had, in fact, but three kosher choices: you could either have a slow, sad decline into old age, you could become serene or you could be cranky. In any case, you could not have power.

To call someone “cranky” is to say that they’re opinions, critiques, perspective, rights no longer matter. The food in the assisted living center may truly be terrible—but call the plaintiff “cranky” and you don’t need to do anything about it.

So pick up that phone—call your mother or father—but please, don’t ask us to laugh along with this one. Cranky R Not Us.

Carol Orsborn