The speaker is Doug McAdam, professor of sociology at Stanford University and an expert on the 1950s and and1960s. I interviewed him in 1999 for my TV series on the 1960s (Making Sense Of The Sixties) which included a show on how largely middle-class white families in the 1950s (some would say) “spoiled” their children and why they did so. I grew up at that time and I wasn’t spoiled. Many of the viewers on this clip have commented that they did not come from parent to spoil them. Most of them were not raised in the suburban middle-class.

Although I lived in Levittown Long Island which was a suburban middle-class community, my parents were below the middle class and I had to work to get my Boy Scout uniform and my first bicycle. Many of my fellow students in school in the 1950s were middle-class and by today’s standards, many would say their lifestyle was exceptionally comfortable and exceptionally easy. I’m not sure about spoiled.

Prof. McAdam paints a clear picture of the parents of the baby boomers, some of whom had grown up in the depression. Most of whom had lived through World War II. They were told by the government, the church, and social leaders of the time, that the 1950s would be a calm time, a time of increasing wealth, a time of family life and family values. And for many, that is just what it was.

So how did the 1960s come from the 1950s if the 1950s was so great? Well, it wasn’t great for everyone for sure, and about 40% of the baby boomers say that they participated in the rebellious events of the 1960s, some small percent in the political movements such as antiwar protests, and a much larger percent in the social protests, longhair, rock ‘n’ roll, marijuana, freer sex, etc.

McAdam also points out how many of the rebellious movements of the 1960s including the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, Native American protests and so many others, were influenced by the civil rights movement and the way that black students largely in the South, conducted themselves during nonviolent protests on behalf of civil rights.

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