Boomers took the pill, had legal abortions, and gave birth not as a social duty, but when they wanted children. Privileged boomers delayed childbirth and chose to nurture fewer children, and to do so in new ways - and sometimes not at all. We changed the expectations of and stories about families. Boomer mothers worked, much against the pundits' received wisdom, and boomer dads shared parenting with boomer moms to an unprecedented extent. Boomer families pushed cooperation rather than individualism. We valued group dynamics and applauded cooperation. Boomer narcissists became, in terms of children and family, a generation of "reciprocitists." Moreover, families were no longer only dads and moms - there were stepdads, stepmoms, gay dads, gay moms. The boomers' children imbibed a freedom and diversity that played out in both home and school.

Let's accept that boomer expertise hasn't been in leadership. Instead, let's recognize that, despite the startling irony, the narcissistic boomers' children are the first-generation products of truly expert parenting. Today's 20-somethings are smart, energized, less racist than previous generations, cooler in every respect, broadly creative and inventive, extraordinarily versatile and possessed of a remarkable mixture of optimistic hope and absolutely clear-eyed realism.