Poor baby boomer women. Not only did you have to be one of the pioneers in professions like law and finance, but you had to lead the charge wearing some of the most god-awful fashion in recent history, such as suits with overgrown shoulder pads and clownish bows that mimicked men's ties. Your secretaries hated you (and maybe still do), and, despite working like a dog, few of you made it to the top.

But there's progress. Work/life balance is officially on the radar (okay, so it only exists in theory), and women are finally getting into the mentoring act. In fact, isn't a mentor a must-have for professional women today?

By most accounts, mentoring is crucial for climbing that ladder—and staying on it. In a recently released survey by LinkedIn of nearly 1,000 female professionals in the U.S., only 19 percent said they never had a mentor. That means that over 80 percent of women are getting mentored—which, to me, is a promising statistic.

But guess who's getting left out? Yup—the baby boomers. Here's the breakdown by LinkedIn:

    • More than half, 51 percent, of the Gen Y women (females between 18 and 29 years old) LinkedIn surveyed noted that they are being or have been mentored by women.

    • Forty-three percent of Gen X females (women between 30 and 44 years old) noted that they are being or have been mentored by women.

    • Only 34 percent of boomers (females between 45 and 66 years old) responded that they have been, or are being mentored, by women.

So have the boomer women been kept out of the mentoring loop? Forbes blog contributor Kerry Hannon suggests there was simply a dearth of senior women back when they entered the workforce. And the few women who were in relative positions of power, she adds, weren't the nurturing sort: "They were very protective of their much fought for status. Heels high, nails sharp."

So what can the boomer do now? And for that matter, what can anyone who's mentorless do?

Hannon offers some tips:

1. Look outside the office. Check out professional associations, friends, and even relatives.

2. Go out on a limb and ask, "Will you be my mentor?" Some 67 percent of the women in the LinkedIn survey "said they had never mentored another professional because 'no one had ever asked.'"

3. Start the conversation by asking for advice. Hanlon quotes this tip from career coach Beverly Jones of Clearways Consulting: “You might approach a senior colleague and say, “I want to get better at X, and I notice that you are great at X, so I wonder if you could give me advice about this X type challenge.”

4. Be a mentor yourself. The idea is that you learn by doing. "This will give you a better idea of how to work with a mentor yourself," writes Hanlon.

All of this reminds me that I've completely missed the mentor boat myself. Yes, I've had some good teachers who have helped me sharpened my skills, but I've never had anyone who's sat me down with a road map about how I should plot my career. So, Maureen Dowd, will you be my mentor?

Related post: When Your Mentor Isn't Into You

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Photo: Working Girl.