Thoughts about generations

[Unknown User 2051]

In trying to understand the reasons why different people are affected differently by similar traumas, I started thinking about what constitutes my generation (Gen X). Gen X is usually defined to include people born between 1965 and 1980 between Nixon and the end of Reagan's first term. To me it feels like there's a missing generation. There should be one including people born between Nixon and Carter.

This isn't about making political jibes. I think people born between 1965 and 1976 missed out on some of the hope of earlier generations and had to grow up much earlier than some later generations?

Not digging too deeply into what it all means, does anyone else feel this way? Like you're part of an unidentified or misidentified generation?

 

[OceanSpray]

I feel in between generations sometimes, but I generally chock that up to having older parents and siblings and being relatively poor most of my life so didn’t quite have the same experiences others in my generation did. Born in late 1990 and don’t feel like I fully fit into Gen X or millennial or I guess Gen Y would be that next one before Gen Z, I don’t know. I don’t feel full apart of any of them.

 

[somerandomguy]

There should be one including people born between Nixon and Carter.

So ... people born between 1974 and 1976?

This isn't about making political jibes. I think people born between 1965 and 1976 missed out on some of the hope of earlier generations and had to grow up much earlier than some later generations?

Born 1970 here, so I'm a Gen X "slacker" latchkey kid through and through. We were the first generation coping with two-parent working households and/or one-parent divorce households, so I agree with your assessment that we had to grow up earlier. The Boomers were the furthest thing from helicopter parents, to our simultaneous advantage and disadvantage. But I think all generations had similar, if different, issues.

Not digging too deeply into what it all means, does anyone else feel this way? Like you're part of an unidentified or misidentified generation?

I think we do consistently get forgotten about and I think when the Boomers bother to remember us, they still - even after all these years - tend to communicate with us by shouting at us. But I also think we, as a generation, screwed up just as hard as the Boomers did. We saw the complete failure of the Boomer way of doing things, and we just kept it all going instead of trying to change it. Now I see my peers wearing red hats and relying on a single news channel and believing weird conspiracy theories almost as much our parents do.

I'm hopeful Gen Z changes things because they actually realize they are getting a raw deal. If they do, it's not going to be pretty for us. But it looks like we and our parents are going to burn it all down before they get a chance to.

 

[scout86]

We were the first generation coping with two-parent working households

Well...... I'm squarely in the middle of the baby boom and was also a latch key kid. LOL

As far as growing up fast, in my dad's family, his oldest brother had to drop out of school in about 8th grade to go to work to help feed the family during the Depression. I think Uncle Mike grew up pretty fast, and I'd guess his siblings did too. You go back generations farther and "childhood" involved mostly work. I had a friend, of, I suppose, the "greatest generation" who used to talk about leaving home at 13 and making his way in the world totally on his own. He did fine, but I'm sure it wasn't easy.

Personally, I'm pretty tired of attributes being assigned to generations. Prior to my generation, I don't think it was such a big deal. There was an increase in births after WWII, demographers noticed it and gave it a name. It feels like the "baby boomers" have been blamed for everything bad ever since. (Not saying that's true, just that it feels that way.) When we were kids, we were told that "kids today" are all kinds of bad and going to destroy the world. Now, we're still responsible for "destroying the world" and I'm not quite sure how that's true. There truth is, although cohorts of people have a lot of the same experiences, they have a lot of differences too. People have always complained about "kids today", but this whole generation thing has really taken on a life of it's own.

AND,Joe Biden is not a member of the baby boom generation. Donald Trump, I think might make the cut by a year. Nancy Pelosi isn't a boomer either. These days, it seems like anyone old is a "boomer" and that's actually not true. The generation before us is still hanging in there.

 

[arfie]

personally, i believe that ageism is as intelligent as racism. it's all in the surface details, folks. be sure you judge your books by their cover. don't weigh yourself down with pesky details like diversity and individuality. life is so much simpler when you keep it delusional and shallow.

 

[Unknown User 2051]

That's interesting...hmm.

personally, i believe that ageism is as intelligent as racism.

My apologies, I didn't think there were any "-isms" attached to the question. If it matters, I wasn't thinking that any one generation handles things better than another. My child is GenZ, for example, and I'm consistently amazed at how well they handle their ptsd. My grandparents, on the other hand, weren't so obviously traumatized, but they were generally incapable of discussing emotion in a direct manner. To me, that isn't a matter of better or worse. It's just different.

I feel in between generations sometimes, but I generally chock that up to having older parents and siblings and being relatively poor most of my life so didn’t quite have the same experiences others in my generation did. Born in late 1990 and don’t feel like I fully fit into Gen X or millennial or I guess Gen Y would be that next one before Gen Z, I don’t know. I don’t feel full apart of any of them.

I honestly wonder whether or not there is a correlation between CPTSD and feeling like you don't quite fit into the "generational paradigm," for lack of a better phrase. CPTSD and social anomie seem to go hand-in-hand even if they aren't causally related.

So ... people born between 1974 and 1976?

Ha! Thanks, there is something fuzzy in my mental math. Was thinking something more like the end of Johnson's term through the end of either Carter's term. Something closer to 1968-1980 as a ballpark. Timed to miss the JFK/LBJ, but just early enough to witness the Reagan years and whatever that entailed.

Born 1970 here, so I'm a Gen X "slacker" latchkey kid through and through. We were the first generation coping with two-parent working households and/or one-parent divorce households, so I agree with your assessment that we had to grow up earlier. The Boomers were the furthest thing from helicopter parents, to our simultaneous advantage and disadvantage. But I think all generations had similar, if different, issues.

It sounds like we may have similar experience and perspective on the time period. I wonder if the generations that followed X don't regard us with a sort of benign disdain, like we screwed up but the younger generations have an idea what it was like and don't hold it too hard against us.

I think we do consistently get forgotten about and I think when the Boomers bother to remember us, they still - even after all these years - tend to communicate with us by shouting at us. But I also think we, as a generation, screwed up just as hard as the Boomers did. We saw the complete failure of the Boomer way of doing things, and we just kept it all going instead of trying to change it. Now I see my peers wearing red hats and relying on a single news channel and believing weird conspiracy theories almost as much our parents do.

I'm hopeful Gen Z changes things because they actually realize they are getting a raw deal. If they do, it's not going to be pretty for us. But it looks like we and our parents are going to burn it all down before they get a chance to.

Yeah, that sounds really familiar. There's plenty of responsibility to go around. I hope the younger generations can find a way to cut us some slack. *fingers crossed*

Well...... I'm squarely in the middle of the baby boom and was also a latch key kid. LOL

As far as growing up fast, in my dad's family, his oldest brother had to drop out of school in about 8th grade to go to work to help feed the family during the Depression. I think Uncle Mike grew up pretty fast, and I'd guess his siblings did too. You go back generations farther and "childhood" involved mostly work. I had a friend, of, I suppose, the "greatest generation" who used to talk about leaving home at 13 and making his way in the world totally on his own. He did fine, but I'm sure it wasn't easy.

Personally, I'm pretty tired of attributes being assigned to generations. Prior to my generation, I don't think it was such a big deal. There was an increase in births after WWII, demographers noticed it and gave it a name. It feels like the "baby boomers" have been blamed for everything bad ever since. (Not saying that's true, just that it feels that way.) When we were kids, we were told that "kids today" are all kinds of bad and going to destroy the world. Now, we're still responsible for "destroying the world" and I'm not quite sure how that's true. There truth is, although cohorts of people have a lot of the same experiences, they have a lot of differences too. People have always complained about "kids today", but this whole generation thing has really taken on a life of it's own.

<snip politics>These days, it seems like anyone old is a "boomer" and that's actually not true. The generation before us is still hanging in there.

Have to run here shortly, but this is really interesting. Thank you for sharing. Trying to figure things out in terms of generations seems a little pointless. We get a lot of messages about who we're supposed to be and how we're supposed to live. Generational designations seems to be one way through which those societal messages are conveyed. It's interesting (to a point) trying to dissect those influences. Casting blame doesn't help anyone. Finding common threads helps, I think? Blaming our selves for everything doesn't do anyone any good. And, as you suggest, blaming other generations doesn't do much better. Think I need to stop with the hope that age doesn't create a permanent barrier to communication.

 

[whiteraven]

Personally, I'm pretty tired of attributes being assigned to generations.

This. All it does is create greater divide. And generalizations about a generation--which are clear even in this short thread--are unfair, since not everyone is the same.

We were the first generation coping with two-parent working households and/or one-parent divorce households, so I agree with your assessment that we had to grow up earlier

I was born in 1961, and both of my parents worked. I think most of those in my circle had to grow up really fast, and we did it all without the support of advanced technology.

 

[Friday]

Personally, I'm pretty tired of attributes being assigned to generations.

In ancient Egypt (old kingdom, so more than 5,000 years ago) there have been ostraca (clay tablets, largely unfired, that people used to write messages to each other on a casual basis) discovered where a very COMMON message/gripe has found to be?

“Kids these days.”

&

Further gripes about the “noise they call music”, & having it easy, & bitch/moan/whine/complain about all the same durn things that people are still whinging about today, assigning to various generations.

<grin>

It makes me happy.

And totally roll my eyes at all the similar “modern” complaints.

People? Are people.

 

[Weemie]

I remember 9/11, so I'm a millennial. I think our generation really tapped into the technocratic capitalist hellscape biz and that's why Gen Z is the way they are. They inherited a dying Earth, what can we expect from them, while the people killing it are still actively making things bad?