Generation X
Ok, boomer was a popular saying in my house for a while. My kids didn’t care that I wasn’t actually a Baby Boomer. Their mistake is common. Take this 2018 CBS graphic describing generations:
Not only did this graphic mislabel Post-Millennials (they’re commonly called Gen Z and end around 2010), in a Thanos-like move they eliminated the millions of people born 1965-1980 - Generation X.
While defining generations is arbitrary, it’s a useful and interesting way to characterize people who grew up around the same time with the same cultural influences. Advertisers, economists, political scientists and human resources use these generational definitions for all different purposes.
Born in 1974 smack in the middle of Gen X, I wanted to write about what has been rightfully called the forgotten generation.
We’re the latchkey kids, born at a time when the divorce rate grew and more mothers went to work than ever before. Because of that, Gen X’ers are known for our self-reliance.
We’re the last generation to grow up in a mostly analog society. I graduated high school having only used the phone nailed to our wall. I graduated college still using what was essentially a typewriter and had never searched the internet. Yet today I’ve lived through multiple generations of cell phones and I’m learning to embrace Artificial Intelligence.
Gen X has lived through more technological leaps than any other generation. Because of that we’re highly adaptable.
Compared to Boomers, Gen X’ers are much more cynical. The boomers grew up in the post war boom of the 50’s and 60’s when the middle class expanded and kids watched Leave it to Beaver. Raised by the so-called Greatest Generation, they were incubated under the unquestioning guise of American Exceptionalism. That was shattered for Boomers with the Vietnam War, Watergate and the crap 1970’s economy, but Gen X’ers were born into that mess. We knew it was a house of cards from the start.
When I turned 17, Magic Johnson got AIDS. The free love of the 60’s had been replaced with the fear of death. The most representative movie of the 1990’s is Reality Bites. Again, we’re a tad cyncial.
Gen X is often ignored because Baby Boomers were a huge demographic. There were over 75 million people born in the US between 1946-1964. When the WWII generation stopped having so many kids and before boomers started reproducing en masse, there was a gap when the birth rate was lower in the US. Gen X had the lowest total number of births of any of the defined generations:
On average about 500,000 less people were born per year in Gen X than in the generations before and after.
There were advantages to being a rare gem. There were plenty of open lockers in the high school I attended that was built for boomers. My friends and I all got into the colleges we wanted. One was accepted to Boston College and on a scale of 1-10 his level of effort in high school was about a 2 - a true slacker. That doesn’t happen today.
Following Gen Xer’s are the Millennials. Younger, more tech savvy and born into the internet age, they’re coveted by advertisers who presumably lump Gen X’ers in with old-timey Boomers.
Gen X could be called the Sandwich Generation, stuck in the middle of two larger demographics. I like to think of us the Chameleon Generation, adapting to live in the past, present or future as it suits us.
Boomers have been reluctant to let go of their political power, especially at the national level. We’ve all watched our “leaders” having real-time strokes and flat-out psychosis when we need lucid problem solvers. Everyone knows we’re long overdue for young blood. There’s just no way Boomers can make the drastic changes our society needs, especially on the environment.
One Boomer told me she wouldn’t get solar panels on her house because at her age, the ROI wasn’t there. Maybe she believes in “clean coal” like some boomer leaders have tried to sell the huddled masses.
While there is a loud cry for a new generation, it seems people want blood younger than Gen X:
Once again a pundit has skipped the undervalued Generation X. We’ve been dubbed the Slacker Generation because we watched music videos and presumably were like the boneheads from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure or Beavis and Butthead.
It’s a mistake to skip Generation X.
Our analog backgrounds means were Ok with delayed gratification, a prerequisite for working on complex solutions. Gen X’ers have worked under Boomers for years and more lately alongside younger generations whose larger numbers allowed them to challenge the status quo more than we could. We’re adept at cooperation.
Given the widening fault lines in the country right now, collaboration skills are a huge asset.
In 2023 Gen X’ers range in age from 43-59, the prime ages for experience, wisdom and sustainable vigor. That’s true for any generation, and right now Gen X is in that sweet spot.
But I don’t think it’s going to happen. Many Gen Xers are also trying to take care of both their parents and their kids just when everything has skyrocketed in price. Simultaneously were trying to figure out how we’re going to retire. Certainly plenty of X’ers have done well financially, but how many of those people want to spend their golden years in politics?
As pointed out at the Boston Globe Summit recently, Gen Z leaders, people now in their twenties, are trying to fill the vacuum the Boomers are leaving. I applaud their enthusiasm and would rather see young people in leadership positions than the decaying fossils we have today.
But they would be wise to find some Gen X allies. We watched the prior generations let corporations control everything. We watched as Boomers led us into the Iraq War under a false pretense that could easily be dubbed Vietnam 2: Electric Boogaloo. We watched as the plastics that were so heralded as the future in the 1967 move Mrs. Robinson have poisoned our water and food supply.
Gen X knows. We’ve been watching our whole lives, and we have a lot to offer.
But I don’t think we’ll be called. A younger generation will take the lead, and Generation X will be ignored yet again.
Whatever.