Why did we decide not to grow up?

I blame it on Pepsi.

Not seriously, but there has to be some reason that so many of us in the Baby Boom generation -- myself included, to some extent -- resisted so strongly against becoming an adult.

I was reading a new thriller -- Brad Thor's "The Last Patriot" -- about the clash between America and radical Islam, and very early in the book the author posited one of the problems we have in this battle.

"Up until the 1950s, American children yearned for adulthood. When their time came to be adults they stepped into the role proudly, leaving childhood behind and taking up the mantles of responsibility, honor and dignity. They embraced and championed the ideals of those who came before them while valiantly tackling new ideas and problems that their families, communities and nation faced. Those days were long gone.

"Americans now shunned adulthood, preferring to remain in a state of perpetual adolescence. By failing to move forward with grace and dignity, they left a gaping hole in American society.. They treated relationships like disposable lighters, tossing marriages away when they ran out of gas.. Children were left without families, and even worse, they were left without adults who could be role models of responsible behavior.

"With this lack of willingness to step forward and embrace adulthood, the nation had lost sight of its core values and ideals. In its place had morphed an 'every man and woman for himself' mentality in which materialism was placed before spirituality and submission to God."

Now there will certainly be some people who will rail at those last four words. They'll say we're a secular society and God has nothing to do with it, but that's precisely the problem. I'm not saying we should all be fundamentalists or even Christians, but when we get to thinking of ourself as the center of the universe, the apotheosis of creation, something is very wrong.

My first wife wasn't religious. She said she believed in God, but it was really more of a "Mother Nature" figure she visualized, and she didn't worship at all. If she had a philosophy of life, it was that she would do whatever she wanted as long as it didn't hurt anyone else.

We all know people like that.

They're the ones who never grow up, the "Pepsi Generation" of the '60s. To some extent, they're the Bill Clintons among us, who lead very productive lives but have little or no control over their impulses and appetites.

There's a phrase I remember from the '60s -- "Don't lay your guilt trip on me."

But when there's no guilt trip, is there really even a society?

We've gone a long way down that road. I hope we can find our way back.