SECOND DECADE manifesto - U.S. unprepared for 21st Century baby boom

Before Miley Cyrus and her alter-ego Hannah Montana smashed chart records held by both Elvis Presley and The Beatles, I dubbed this generation of Tweens the Zack and Cody Generation.

When I saw the Disney show, I thought it would strike a chord with U.S. Tweens. I was right. At least for a year until Hannah Montana came along.

Marketing Sociologist impact: today’s toddlers are coming from the year of the greatest number of births ever in the U.S. According to authorities, whoever they may be, 2007 saw “more than” 4.3-million births, reportedly the greatest in history.

Today’s Tween has a spending power greater than $300-billion a year. Today’s toddler will topple that, easily.

I have again coined a name for today’s toddlers, for when they get to Tween and teen status – SECOND DECADE. They will grow during the second decade of the 21st Century, a period of great prosperity until the end of the decade, when things will get wobbly from an economic perspective.

Remember how schools had to be built to accommodate baby boomers of 1946 to 1957 and old-age homes needed to be erected as they grew old (oops, ahead of myself in history here)?

The next decade will see social institutions unprepared for the number of children coming of age in the next 20 years. You’re going to see schools groaning for teachers, a lack of doctors and dentists to serve these youths.

The U.S. is too concerned with Swine Flu to worry about how a large number of births will affect society. Not even President Barack Obama sees this coming.

Marketers are unprepared, too. Think of it. Miley Cyrus will be to this generation as Madonna is to today’s Tweens

A marketing prediction – the SECOND DECADE generation will be one of our nation’s most illiterate generations ever. The quality of education has significantly fallen over the past 50 years and there are quite a few illiterate people teaching in schools today. I saw this coming 40 years ago.

There’s a saying, and there’s a reason it’s a saying, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” I saw that cycle in my own college’s school of education. The less bright flocked to education, and they became the college professors – now retiring – of the teachers who are now teaching teens. It is a downward cycle that will have a profound effect on SECOND DECADE students.

Mainstream media is not addressing this issue of poor quality of education and a large number of births.

SECOND DECADE will have an even shorter attention span than today’s youth. Maladies like Attention Deficit Disorder will abound in SECOND DECADE youth.

For more information, contact mediatelationsexpert@yahoo.com