THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS

"The Baby Bust"

by William Dunn

American Demographics, $39.95

Reviewed by Jackson Crum,

pastor of small groups,

Lakeland Community Church,

Holland, Michigan.

In April, Kurt Cobain, 27-year-old lead singer of the alternative-rock group Nirvana, pressed a shotgun to his head and tragically ended his life. Some called Cobain "the John Lennon of the MTV generation." His music, life, and even his death symbolized the angst of a generation without dads, jobs, and hope.

Kurt Cobain's generation--those born after 1964--has been dubbed the "baby busters." That, actually, is one of their more flattering titles. They've also been called the "doofus generation" and the "nowhere generation" (mostly by snobbish baby-boomer journalists and sociologists). The buster label stuck because their numbers are smaller than the almost 80 million baby boomers who preceded them. "Generation X" and the "13ers" (the 13th generation since the Revolutionary War) are their two other popular names.

According ...