10 surprising ways boomers were much more progressive than you think

Boomers get a loud stereotype: stuck in their ways, allergic to change, forever lecturing about “the good old days.”
But scratch the surface and you find something else—an entire generation that seeded a lot of the ideas younger folks now claim as their own.

Not every boomer carried a protest sign or learned yoga on a shag rug. Still, many of the trends we call “modern” started with them. Here are ten places where boomers were way more forward-thinking than the caricature suggests.

1. They made “planet-first” mainstream before it was a hashtag

Long before climate dashboards and zero-waste TikToks, boomers were marching for clean air and water, planting trees with neighbors, pushing for recycling programs, and organizing community cleanups. Earth Day? They scaled that from a scrappy teach-in to a global event. The bottle-bill idea, curbside recycling pilots, public transit advocacy—boomers helped normalize those.

I learned to sort glass and newspapers in my friend’s boomer mom’s garage; she ran the neighborhood recycling station out of milk crates. We complain about sorting plastics today. She was loading a hatchback twice a month and considered it “Tuesday.”

The progressive core: stewardship over extraction, collective action over “someone else will fix it.”

2. They mainstreamed therapy and self-work

If you’re booking therapy through an app today, you’re walking a path boomers cut—often in the face of stigma. They read pop psychology on the bus, joined encounter groups, tried meditation long before “mindfulness” hit the corporate deck, and normalized the idea that your inner life is worth tending.

As one mentor (a boomer editor who swore by her Thursday session) told me, “If you don’t process it in a chair, you’ll perform it in public.” That line took me from “I’m fine” to actually finding a therapist. The result? Less reactivity, better relationships.

The progressive core: emotional literacy, healing as maintenance—not emergency.

3. They pushed feminism into daily life, not just headlines

We talk about gender equity like it’s new. Boomers campaigned for it when it was unpopular, and then kept going quietly—opening women-run businesses, building domestic-violence shelters, demanding equal credit access, and turning “my husband helps with the kids” into “we co-parent.”

My aunt (boomer, hair like a lion’s mane) co-founded a women’s food co-op bakery in a strip mall. They offered childcare in the back, transparent pay, and rotating leadership. It wasn’t theory; it was a schedule taped to a flour-dusted wall. Plenty of us grew up thinking shared chores and equal pay were obvious because boomers fought for them until they felt obvious.

The progressive core: power-sharing at home and work, not just slogans.

4. They prototyped the sharing economy—without apps

Tool libraries, babysitting swaps, community gardens, car-pools, housing co-ops—boomers were doing peer-to-peer long before venture capital discovered it. They used bulletin boards, church halls, and kitchen tables instead of dashboards and ratings.

I once borrowed a sander from a boomer neighbor who kept a literal sign-out sheet in a folder. He said, “If we each buy one, we each use it twice a year. Or we all use mine.” That’s Airbnb logic with sawdust.

The progressive core: access > ownership, community trust > platform policing.

5. They brought global flavors—and plant-first eating—home

I write about veganism a lot, and I didn’t invent it. Boomer households were simmering lentils, tofu, and whole grains before oat milk had a marketing department. They embraced macrobiotic cookbooks, learned curries from immigrant neighbors, and popularized farmers’ markets. “Meatless Monday”? Plenty of boomer kitchens were doing it under different names for budget, ethics, or curiosity.

A boomer couple I know hosts a monthly potluck with one rule: cook a family recipe from a culture you admire. I’ve eaten Peruvian causa, Gujarati dal, and Vietnamese pickled mustard greens at their table. That’s not just food; it’s a worldview.

The progressive core: inclusive palates, ethical plates.

6. They treated work as a place to change—not a temple to worship

Boomers didn’t all chain themselves to desks. Many questioned the 9-to-5 straightjacket long before remote work had a name. They lobbied for flex time, fought for parental leave, brought Casual Friday into buttoned-up offices, and started small businesses so they could define the culture instead of suffering it.

I had a boomer boss who ended a late meeting with, “We’re smart enough to stop now.” She set boundaries, refused martyr hours, and shipped great work anyway. That is the blueprint a lot of younger managers still claim they’re looking for.

The progressive core: humane productivity, work with a life—not instead of one.

7. They embraced tech early—and insisted on open, not just shiny

Picture the early internet: message boards, BBSs, email lists, Usenet—none of it designed for clout, all of it designed to share. A lot of those spaces were built or moderated by boomers (and older Gen X). The ethos was collaboration: write documentation, fix a bug, answer a newbie’s question. “Open source” isn’t just code; it’s culture.

I learned HTML from a boomer who ran a free Saturday class at the library. He’d say, “Post what you know. The world gets better when you leave breadcrumbs.” That sentence is the opposite of hoarding information behind a paywall.

The progressive core: open knowledge, community teaching.

8. They experimented with how we live, not just where

Cohousing, communes, back-to-the-land homesteads, multi-generational households, intentional communities: boomers prototyped them all. Not every experiment worked. That’s the point—experiments don’t have to. But those trials gave us today’s micro-homes, ADUs, eco-villages, vanlife minimalism, and neighborhood mutual aid with a playbook that already exists.

I toured a boomer-built cohousing community where the mailroom doubled as the gossip hub, kids roamed safely, and two apartments shared a laundry to save water. The vibe was “small town inside a city,” engineered on purpose.

The progressive core: design for belonging, not isolation.

9. They normalized saying “no” to harmful norms

Draft resistance. Anti-war marches. Consumer safety campaigns. Environmental lawsuits. Boycotts that worked. Boomers built playbooks for principled refusal and taught the rest of us to walk out, write letters, and vote with our feet and wallets. “As John Lewis urged, make ‘good trouble.’” Plenty of boomers did, then went home and finished their homework or their shift. Courage wasn’t a costume; it was a repeated action.

The first protest I ever attended was led by a mostly boomer crowd—quiet, organized, effective. They had de-escalation teams, snacks, legal numbers written on wrists, and an exit plan. That’s progressive wisdom you can’t fake.

The progressive core: ethical resistance with logistics, not just rhetoric.

10. They kept culture curious—and weird—in the best ways

Zines. Indie radio. Community theaters. DIY art spaces. Record swaps. Public-access TV. Boomers nurtured niches long before algorithms did. They taught us that you don’t wait for permission to make a scene—you gather ten people in a basement and start one.

I learned photography in a darkroom a boomer ran in the back of a community center. He charged five bucks and accepted baked goods. On the wall he’d posted a line from Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” Corny? A little. But the idea—that tools in everybody’s hands make a better world—still feels wild and useful.

The progressive core: democratize tools, amplify the margins.

A few honest caveats

Not every boomer did these things. Some built the systems others pushed against. Some evolved; some didn’t. That’s true for every generation. But the punchline here is simple: if you enjoy open-source knowledge, flexible work, farmers’ markets, therapy speak, accessible art, and climate action as normal—and not rebellious—you’re living on trails boomers cleared.

I’ve mentioned this before but progress rarely shows up as a Big New Thing. It shows up as a stack of unglamorous habits, maintained for years, that eventually look obvious. Boomers carried a lot of those habits before they were cool and kept them going when nobody clapped.

How to borrow the best of it (no matter your age)

• Pick a public good and show up weekly. Park cleanup, food pantry, bike coalition. Don’t tweet—turn up.

• Teach one thing you know for free. A community class, a guide, an open doc. Leave breadcrumbs.

• Host a tiny, recurring thing. Soup night, vinyl club, neighborhood walk. Culture is cadence.

• Practice humane work. Boundaries + craft. End meetings when they stop helping.

• Swap ownership for access where it makes sense. Tools, cars, books, skills. Trust travels.

Progress isn’t young by default. It’s maintained by whoever keeps pushing the wheel a quarter-turn at a time.

If you’ve written boomers off as “the problem,” try this: ask the older person in your orbit what they fought for that you now take for granted. You’ll hear stories that sound familiar. Then you’ll realize the future you like living in has a longer lineage than your feed suggested.