Growing Pains At 40

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Perhaps, after the tumult of the '60s and the restless hard times of the '70s, the Baby Boomers will be more realistic, more tolerant, more wary but less dogmatic than they were in their headstrong youth. There is among the survivors of the Viet Nam War, both those who fought and those who protested at home, a large body of "wounded healers," says John Wheeler, president of the Project on the Viet Nam Generation. Though scarred, they have been strengthened and made wiser by their ordeal, he believes.

The Baby Boomers always wanted choices. Now they are a generation that can choose America's future. The decisions, like so many faced by Baby Boomers, will be hard. But as they dreamily insert the video of The Big Chill into their VCRs at night, they may once again find inspiration from the Rolling Stones tune that serves as the movie's anthem. As the song says, they can't always get what they want. But if they try, they just might find, they get what they -- and those who depend on them -- need.

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