Of all the challenges baby boomers face, none is more daunting….than answering the challenges our children pose! Laurey Boyd found out firsthand, when suddenly her boob tube wasn’t nearly big enough!

There has been a strange phenomenon in our otherwise low key little bungalow. We have gone from television sets that are teeny, to only tiny, to friggin’ huge. I was the last holdout in this transition. The aesthetics of the living room are my domain, and I’ve held to a Frazier-like eschewment of anything gaudy. Not only the monstrously humongous TV but the apparatus you put it in. I wasn’t game for a double-D-cup wall unit in my face every time I entered the living room. It took our youngest teenage son to move me past my passé philosophy.

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Popularity: 49% [?]

Juliet Stevenson is one of Britain’s most popular and prolific actors, starring in films, television productions and on the stage. One of her best-known films was “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” a motion picture that helped to define the baby boomer generation in the same way as “The Big Chill.” On the debut of her latest film, the romantic comedy “A Previous Engagement,” she spoke from England with BoomerCafé publisher David Henderson about her work, life, balancing career with raising two children and challenges at this point in her middle-aged life.

[Listen to the interview with Juliet Stevenson online - click here]

David: Juliet, how are you handling middle-age? You are phenomenally talented. I’ve noticed that you are very busy and have done something like 20 films in the last eight years. How do you do it?

Juliet: Have I? I haven’t counted. Yes, I have worked a lot. I spend my whole life juggling … my children and my work and my partner, Hugh (Brody), and other things besides. I just consider myself like anybody else who is doing that … and most women I know are doing that. I think it is kind of crazy and there are times when I think that I’ve bitten off a little more than I can chew.
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Popularity: 49% [?]

We always like it at BoomerCafé when boomers make life seem easier, and productivity last longer. That’s what Nancy Whitney-Reiter has done with her new book, “Unplugged: How to Disconnect From the Rat Race, Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment.” With the erosion of ideals from our parents’ generation, this is for boomers caught in the vacuum. Here is an excerpt from a chapter entitled, “Unplugging with a Safety Net.”

If you are fortunate enough to work for a forward-thinking company, you may have the option of a corporate sponsored sabbatical. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the percentage of companies offering some type of sabbatical is growing, both for paid and unpaid leave.

Begin with the End in Mind
Before you even set foot out the door, you need to have a re-entry strategy. The most difficult thing about going on a corporate sabbatical is the shock of coming back. That said, if you are allowed eight weeks, be sure you return home no later than day one of week seven. You will need some adjustment time to catch up on bills and correspondence and confront personal landmines before you will able to handle professional challenges. Read the full story

Popularity: 56% [?]

Who said vigorous exercise doesn’t matter, especially among baby boomers?! When we get old enough for a few gray hairs, exercise becomes even more important. For BoomerCafé co-founder and executive editor Greg Dobbs, regular and demanding rides on his bicycle have actually saved his life.

There are century bike rides each summer in Colorado. “Century” means, a hundred … as in, a hundred miles. But by the time you’re anywhere near the hundred mile mark, especially on century rides in a state where the altitude of mountain roads rises into the quintuple digits, you’re counting not just every mile but every single foot, which is why I’ll go to pains to point out, the total mileage usually comes out to more like 102, 103 … I remember one that ended up at 108 miles.
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Popularity: 70% [?]

There are some who say, our generation of boomers is the last generation to really understand ethics. But others say, we’re the ones who corrupted them. Author William Charland has a story for BoomerCafé about ethics in the workplace — and how they pay off in ways you may not expect.

Survival skills.

Make a list of what it takes to succeed in business these days, and you might not think of ethics. As corporations merge and jobs are purged, a sense of values now sounds like a luxury. But ethics can be plenty practical. Consider the case of baby boomer Packard Brown.

Brown, 47, was a human resource manager at Pace Warehouse until last September, when he resigned over a matter of principle. Brown left the company just two weeks before it was sold to Wal-Mart and 700 jobs, including his, were eliminated. By leaving the way he did, Brown doubled the size of his severance package. Here’s his story.
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Popularity: 39% [?]