Baby Boomers are much maligned, but what Millennials mightn't know is how much their parents' generation pushed boundaries for social change. Insight speaks to trailblazing Boomers who broke taboos - from religion to gender and sex - and we ask, how much have things changed? Watch Thanks Boomers on .
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Thanks, Boomers
episode • Insight • Current Affairs • 51m
episode • Insight • Current Affairs • 51m
Mem Harris and Tricia Harper are from the Baby Boomer generation — often blamed for key issues such as climate change and housing affordability. However, experts say those born between 1946 and 1964 played a crucial role in fighting for social change and breaking taboos.
Harris says her lack of respect for social and religious customs started after her mother was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Her still-married father, unable to divorce at the time, moved his girlfriend into the family home after her mother left.
"Catholic women whose husbands wanted to get rid of them in the 1960s and 70s couldn't divorce them because that was unheard of. It was taboo." Harris told Insight.
When she was 13, Harris recalls coming home from school to her mother being interviewed by a psychiatrist, who told her that he was there to assess her mother's mental state.
She also recalls her father, a practicing Catholic, saying her mother was mentally unstable and needed to leave the family home.
Mem Harris and her mother. Source: SBS
Four years later, Harris' mother died in her sleep.
Once she was an adult, Harris says she broke many of the social norms in the 1970s in protest against her father’s behaviour.
"I started breaking the rules. I didn't shave my legs, I didn't shave my armpits, I didn't behave myself," she said.
When Harris became pregnant with her daughter she was unmarried and living with her boyfriend, much to her father's disapproval.
"I moved in with my boyfriend, I wasn’t going to marry him. I didn't want to marry because marriage was what my father did and you don’t want to go down there."
Mem Harris and her daughter Nat. Source: SBS
OK, Boomer
Online trends such as 'Boomer bashing' and the hashtag 'OK, Boomer' are popularised by younger generations vocalising their frustrations over the influence Boomers have had on society, resenting their perceived inaction on climate policy and their hold on property and economic prosperity.
But generational researcher and demographer Mark McCrindle says Boomers deserve credit for ushering in massive social change in the 60s and 70s.
By rejecting the conservative attitudes of their parents' generation, Boomers transformed society by pushing back against social attitudes and norms and breaking taboos.
"You know, there's that phrase, 'OK, Boomer', which sort of implies 'you wouldn't understand'. But this is the generation that brought around the social trends that created the platforms in which young people today continue to innovate and adapt," McCrindle told Insight.
"Often that term is used of anyone of any age, even towards young people if they can't quite manage a technology or they're stuffing up. But the irony is, it's the Baby Boomers who ushered in the technology.
"They were at the helm of the technological transformation in the 1970s. So the Baby Boomers actually steered through more technology, adapted to more technological and social change than any other generation."
McCrindle says younger generations, may not realise how much Boomers paved the way for social change by fighting for women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights and social equality.
Tricia and the Council for Single Mothers and Children in 1976. Source: SBS
How Boomers fought against the stigma of single motherhood
When Tricia Harper returned to Australia from London in 1969 as a single mother with her baby daughter, she opened Melbourne's The Age newspaper and read an article that stated the bottom groups on the social ladder, which included derelict men and unmarried mothers.
"It was very prominently featured," Harper told Insight.
"I was single with a child and often attracted the label 'unmarried mother' ... there was still a lot of stigma, labelling and discrimination against women who had become pregnant and decided to keep their child."
Harper had been living independently and working as a teacher when she decided to resist the intense societal pressure at the time to give her baby up for adoption. She kept her daughter Ruth despite family and friends voicing their disapproval.
Tricia Harper and her daughter Ruth in 1969. Source: SBS
"We wanted to abolish the illegitimacy ... we wanted to change the Family Law Act, and get better child support payments. They were some of our key goals, as well as moving to eliminate stigma, get rid of labels," Tricia said.
Tricia Harper (pictured far left) helped found the Victorian Council for the Single Mother and her Child (CSMC). Source: SBS
She believes the stigma around being a single mother is now gone thanks to the advocacy and changes the members pushed for.
This article was updated on 5 April 2024.
And for more stories head to – a new podcast series from SBS, hosted by Kumi Taguchi. From sex and relationships to health, wealth, and grief Insightful offers deeper dives into the lives and first person stories of former guests from the acclaimed TV show, Insight.
