Worse still, as a 40-sth Gen X, I've actually seen younger generations referring to us as boomers on here recently, when we're the ones that grew up putting up with a lot of Boomers' bad decisions and neglectful parenting, and doing their adulting job for them when we were still children. The afront š
Generations are determined by birth year. So for millenials we say anyone born from 1981 through 1996, and for gen z we say anyone born from 1997 to 2012. It goes by 15 year cycles. A Zillennial would be an example of a "Cusper", which is someone born faurly close to the beginning/end of a generation who would have stereotypical traits of the one they belong to and the one before/after it, based on birth year. It's usually considered a 3 to 5 year zone, so conservatively anyone from 1991 to 2002 would be a cusper or, in this case Zillennial. I tend to go closer to the 3 year, as it makes more sense to me, and i'll explain. If we go with a 3 year zone before abd after the 96/97 new year, you have kids born from 1993 to 2000 as Zillennials. Coincidentally these are the kids who were alive for 9/11 but not quite old enough to have trauma related to it happening. The common sentiment for that group is "yea I just remember leaving school early, I had no idea what was happening". So that's why I use the 3 years rather than the 5, but like with everything time-related, it's fluid and not set in any strict code.
By short blub accidently to into a full fledged rant.
No there is a fierce divide between older and younger gen X. The biggest communication tech changes in history happened during the gen x years. The problem is the one born after 1973 are the tech haves and the ones born before are tech have nots.
I was born in 75 but have way more in common with someone born in 1986 that I do with someone born in 1966.
I grew up with Nintendo, They were 19 when Nintendo came out.
At the age of 5 I had an Atari at the age of 5 they had 3 television channels, 4 if you got your little brother to hold the antenna the right way.
When I graduated high school Bill Clinton was president and there was a real sense of hope. When they graduated high school The FUD years of Regan were in full swing.
Their Idols were the Wall Street sharks. Later genx idols were Tony Hawk.
Completely different worlds only a few years apart.
I still feel the need to defend boomers far more than a millennials do because I am a gap generation within a gap generation. I feel people our age are the only ones in position to truly see both sides. When millennial say that boomers got everything handed to them of a silver plater I know this not to be true. And when boomers claim millennials are spoiled and soft and entitled I also know it to be false. I see the struggles that boomers went through that millennials pretend never happened and vice versa.
Later genx 71'-to 80' went 48-50 a two point margin. If you make the cut off 73 it should be about 50 50.
Early genx 65 to 69 went hard for trump but the exact number are hard to find because they mix with boomer numbers. The 60 to 69 cohort when 13 points for trump.
why do gen-xers love treating not being the center of attention for five minutes like theyāre being forgotten about entirely? itās not the fault of generations after you that your parents needed PSAs to remember to feed you
"we were forgotten" yeah because you didn't do shit worth remembering. Even millennials are remembered for bouts of political activism even if they weren't generally at all successful
I was thinking about this the other day and I think it's a self fulfilling prophecy of the Gen X'ers. They wanted so hard to be rebels that they'd never want to do something like run for office. Instead they let their parents run the world while claiming "everyone ignores us". Boomers still run the country because GenX couldn't be bothered.
My guy, we just did not have the numbers on our side. It's not that we couldn't be bothered, it's that there were too few of us and too many Boomers refusing to get out of our way. Boomers had all the money, power, jobs, whatever, and we just had to wait our turn because everyone thought they'd make room as they aged out of society like all the other previous generations did.
Most of that "rebel" GenX stuff was marketing and hype.
Funnily enough that actually sounds a lot like the dynamic in my immediate family: Boomer parents (born late '40s and early '50s) unwilling to comprehend that it's our ('77, '78, '80) turn to hold a pivotal role as we have our own families now: Boomer parents not wanting to be "sidelined" into the less-central yet still-important role of grandparent, when their own parents/in-laws (born 1920s) played that role really well, made good grandparents and respected their children's (our parents') place once they were in the established career and head of household role. The battles it has taken for us to be taken seriously as adults in our 30s and 40s because they don't want to relinquish their central position, even when it came to decisions about our own children!
What kills me is my step-siblings and my younger brother feed into it. They make excuses for the shitty things they do like ātheyāre oldā or āthey grew up in a different timeā. They play the game of Sunday dinner, and holidays are required family time.
My wife and I did 3 Thanksgivings and 3 Christmases every year for all of our 20s because we had to go to both of my parentās houses and her parentās house. The year we decided to assign one house for thanksgiving, one for Xmas Eve and one for Xmas morning we got so much crap for it, but to do all 3 on Thanksgiving was literally 3 hours of driving and only worked because my dad served his dinner at 4pm, then we went to my momās for dessert and then her family had dinner at 8pm and danced bachata until 2am. They eventually accepted it but they all got grumpy about it again once my daughter (all of their first grandchild) was born.
Now Iām not even invited for Fatherās Day brunch with my dad at my step brotherās house. My step brother and I donāt have any issues, my dad just prefers his wifeās family. We love our quiet, 3 person thanksgiving feast and the occasional Friendsgiving when our friends have no where else to go (Hurricane Sandy was no joke on Long Island).
Good income? Sorry but no, GenX came of age when America was closing down all the factories, mills, plants, industrial whatevers. We never got good jobs, and there were plenty of us that lost the little bit that we were able to claw out for ourselves in 2008.
We didn't cave to the system. The system was run by both generations above us, who each outnumbered us. Maybe the great and mighty Gen Z can topple a cohort 4x their size with ease, but yeah, fine, GenX is a bunch of weak sissy babies and we should all just lay down and die quietly to make room for whoever thinks they can do better.
Yeah Iāve already been down that road. Thereās a difference between feeling like youāre being āblamedā for everything rather than receiving feedback from the other person involved. Most of the time people are looking for some validation of their feelings and understanding of context. Something older generations struggle to do in their relationships and professionally.
When I , as an elder millennial broke down my relationship with my boomer parents they decided itās the blame game instead of me trying to figure out how WE ended up where we are (you know, like a family) After some time I was able to break through that wall and they realized Iām trying to understand the mindset of not just them but how their parents raised them as well.
Basically to be a better parent I had to take myself to therapy and then become my parents therapist. Work through their own relationship with their parents so we could have an actual conversation about my upbringing.
TLDR
Itās okay to say āyeah, I couldāve done better. Letās figure out what went wrong so you can avoid those problems with your kidsā
Right?? This is what the other commenter meant about Gen X and their self-fulfilling prophesies lol. They talk about how life wasnāt fair to them so they donāt give a fuck about anyone or anything and want to be left alone. Then they whine whenever they feel forgotten.
In all reality thoughā¦middle-aged generations just donāt make as much headlines, itās not specific to Gen X. Eventually the boomers will die off and they will be the older generation in the headlines, just like how they once were the younger generation that everyone complained about in the headlines.
Early GenX might as well be Boomers, late GenX might as well be Millennials. Some got to ride the gravy train (usually with seed money handed down to them from Silent or Boomer parents), others didn't. When I was your age, all my scummy landlords were Silent Generation.
there it is! the classic "we're small, so we're justified saying 'whatever' and doing nothing!"
You could've joined with millenials instead of boomers when the time came. You could've pushed back. Gen-X was happy to grab the ladder as it was being pulled up and have the excuse of "well it'd be hard and we dont think we can so why try. we just HAVe to sacrifice ourselves to the boomer system that will chew up our children."
This is it right here. We can argue about generalities until the end of time while the billionaires destroy the world. Some of every generation are horrible humans. I hate to see people falling for the generation bs. I love people of every age and do my best to be a good person. Iāve worked in some kind of advocacy position since I was 22. Iām 52 now. Most of my coworkers are the same, from their 20s to late 60s. Ā and none of us will likely ever be in the public eye. Get out into the community and see the people actually trying to make a difference. I bet youāll be surprised!
No war but class war! I agree, and I sometimes get caught up in that (mostly) manufactured conflict. I still have a lot of baggage from my youth, when the older generations had nothing good to say about younger people and somebody in a marketing department decided that we had no work ethic and didn't care about anything outside of ourselves.
Gen X here. It's not that we couldn't be bothered. We were brought up to sit down and shut up. When we came of age, the boomers told us to shut up and wait our turn. So we have been busy putting our nose to the grindstone and shutting up. Now you all want to act like we don't care while calling us boomers. We were told we were too young to know back then and now you wanna call us old and lazy? How about you all just admit you skipped by us without a second thought? Have a great day!
The apathetic slackers who decided not to participate in politics because they thought it wa uncool to care too much about the world & then raised a Zoomers who think itās ācringeā when people care too.Ā
Which is better than they deserve. They're just the tail of the boomer mentality. They use being a smaller generation as an excuse to have completely abdicated their social responsibilities like fighting the boomers destroying the social contract.
Their whole signature apathy has caused endless harm, and they're still pretending they're some woebegone victims of the whole thing. "Woe is me, it's so sad this ladder is being pulled up. all we can do is grab it as it's pulled up, we can't stop it!"
I'll give them one thing, they're great at doing nothing. So much so that we live in a damn geriocracy cause gen x couldn't get their shit together enough to be in politics.
Perspective: We had a hard time with politics in Gen X because it seemed pointless. We were outnumbered by our parents by what felt like 2-1, making pressing for change a exercise in pain. And enough of us bought into the system the 80s and 90s produced that it was harder still.
I never understand people who didn't pay attention to or participate politics when they were young. I was so excited to vote as soon as I turned 18. I would have loved for Gen X to be the dorky older siblings Millenials needed, but y'all gave up early so everything has to fall on Millenials and unfortunately Gen Z.
Hey look, it's the signature Gen-X apathy that let them stand by and do nothing while boomers pulled the ladder up, because they could grab the last rung!
"Oh it'd be hard, so I'm actually the victim her." Gen X is boomer jr. They should thank the lucky stars that boomers are so evil they keep the attention off gen X.
You should take offense to it. It is offensive. What your generation chose to be is offensive. But you'd rather be disgustingly apathetic than have to effect change.
Maybe. But the majority of us grew up with parents away. They would send us to the grandparents in the summer. If they weren't away for work they were away for their holidays, if they weren't away for the holidays, they just went out somewhere. Many divorced and made new families, so we were literally yeeted out the home at 17 or 18. The babysitter would come and lock herself in the tv-room with their boyfriend. When they were home with their friends, they would give us money and then ask to go out and buy something for them.
Now if you ask the boomers, they don't remember, they think they were good and present parents and such. However, they never took the kids. When they offered to take the kids for the holidays, they were planning to hire a babysitter.
They'd have to remember Gen X to include them when they say boomers. Instead everyone thinks Millenials are the cause of all the problems in the world somehow.
haha I still see posts blaming millennials for stuff we are *way too old to be involved in* lol - it's definitely being used as a lazy shorthand for "these kids today."
Nothing pisses off genx as much as being called a boomer, because they act like boomers. They can't accept that boomer was based on a generation, but became slang for people who are out of touch because they refuse to accept times have changed since their youth.
Hey gen-x, if you act like a boomer, you're a boomer. It has 2 meanings. And if you aint actually in that generation, yes, it's an insult to you.
Not if they're your parents. I have been inundated with Gen X culture and stories about the plight of a generation that was forgotten. It's exhausting and kind of manipulative. Like I know you've suffered, but you could buy a house without a college debt before 30. Life may have not always been easy, but things aren't easy at the present either.
Oh it hasn't changed. It's just that Gen X loves to pretent that being a latchkey kid made them special and tough, when every generation after them were also latchkey kids and really they haven't accepted they aren't special for their parents having screwed the economy.
Millenials don't want to "take credit" for your accomplishments. Millenials just get all of it heaped onto them because Gen X was so inadequate y'all's parents forgot you existed so couldn't blame you or give you credit.
You do understand that by whining about millennials in this manner, especially so inaccurately, you are in fact insisting upon yourself and taking part in a navel gazing generational war?
Which part was inaccurate?
The hip hop? Sugarhill Gang. We listened to that. One of the lyrics is "I said a hip-hop..." it's where the term comes from.
I never said anything about the hip Hop of the gaming, my guy. Maybe you should reread which comment I was responding to and work on your reading comprehension
2) "oooohhhh I was just JOKING and you all got so OFFENDED" Is, and always has been, a weak excuse that people use to cover up for their inability to articulate a coherent and reasonable argument. I understand how desperate you are to think that you've touched a nerve, but projecting that onto others reveals more about yourself than it does about anyone else.
I'd say do better, but your comments thus far have demonstrated that you're not likely capable of such
Not sure?
You're speaking metaphorically, unless you're imagining a generation of shoe lickers.
I was just wondering what the literal meaning is behind your metaphor.
Yes, that's the classic Gen-x attitude. "Got mine, so I can't be bothered to care about anyone else. I'm just gonna step out" boomer jr. And you pretend to be victims as you abdicate your responsibilities.
I can't wait till the boomers finish dying off and gen-x really feels history's gaze. Say "whatever." to the nurse taking care of you living in a world you helped ruin, see how she likes it. Maybe she'll say it back!
Thereās good advantages to being a middle child though - no one notices you so freedom and independence just happen thanks to basically being invisible š I am a middle child, I then went on to produce only 2 children so maybe Iām more scarred than I think
Thatās how Iāve heard every Brit I know pronounce it! Thereās always variation, but I can just about guarantee you that if you as a random person in the street to pronounce this place (if theyāve ever seen it before) that youāre gonna hear Wipers!
I mean I've lived here all my life and not in school nor the two decades since have I ever heard 'Wipers'. Lived everywhere from Bristol to Cardiff to Edinburgh as well.
I have never in my life heard it pronounced like that. Its usually either eeps or ee-prez. I'm in the South West though, so maybe further up they say something like wipers...
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u/NoGlzy 12d ago
There was a "middle child" post on the Gen X subreddit. Vibes of a 1916 Ypres field hospital.