I’m not sure that it is stupid. Not an ironclad universal metric, but there is some truth lurking in there. People express the times they grow up in, and the broad expression of this is a “generation”.
I can tell the difference between the average boomer, xer, and millennial. There is a difference in attitudes and interests based on the culture they were imbedded in during their formative years.
I am a tail end Gen-Xer, I was born in '79 from parents at the early end of the Boomers ('46-47). I managed to get lost sometime in the late '90s, so entered university at an older age than normal, in my mid-20s. I could see the difference, even when we were talking about a few scant years between me (and my fellow late blooming cohort) and " them". This isn’t a value judgment, i wasn’t better than them, they just had a different view on things, different priorities, and predilections towards different personality traits. Actually I had more hope for them than my generation. (I’m not sure of this anymore, sadly).
The costs are also highly inflated. I was in the hospital 2 years ago, and got to pay some doctor $300 just to sign my discharge paper (that is literally all he did, my main doctor left early), that is with insurance. Actually, with insurance, four days in the hospital put us on the verge of bankruptcy, with insurance, decent insurance. If we werent smart, and had decent savings and an above average income, we would have been in serious trouble… With insurance.
That experience was enough to keep me from ever going to the doctor unless my bones are poking out, or I’m seriously concerned with immanent death (like an 80% chance).
Oh sure there’s differences there. But talking about them as well defined namable groups is sort of pointless. And the definitions seem to get mushier the longer people hand wring over it. I suppose my aversion comes from falling in between the two, and having both sort of but not really applied to me and by society and my peer group. Personally its very difficult for me to see a hard line difference instead of a smooth continuum. Many of of my experiences, cultural exposures etc (particularly when I was younger) could be well defined as gen-x. Others (especially when I was older) clearly look like what’s used to define millenials. I talk to gen-xers and they tend to consider me part of their generational/peer group, those who are clearly millenials a little less so but yeah. My parents seem to fall in to a similar bridge group. By birth year, and their parent’s ages they clearly fall into the baby boom. But they hadn’t even hit their teens by the time the major defining events of that group were over and done with (Vietnam, hippies etc). In terms of anyone older they seem to lump me in with whichever group their bitching about today, which has shifted over time. Now its usually millenials. I’ve also watched as the term milleniall expanded from narrowly refering to a group that would now be aged 25ish down to the early teens into something that frequently refers to those from 35ish down to the preteens. And occasionally seems to include anyone under 45, straight down to toddlers.
The baby boom is a single, definable event. Not neccisarily tied to the concept of a generation. Its a calculable spike in birth rate following WWII. Naming other generations seems to be a follow on to that. Originally Gen-x was just an obnoxious way of refering to the boombers kids, but its fairly ill-defined. Millenial even more so, becuase depending on how you define it its often still refering to the children of baby boomers. And many of Gen-x’s kids are too young to qualify. So it isn’t even tied to the concept of “generations” in the common sense of the word. And the broader it gets, and the more negative the depiction the more clearly it becomes just an oportunity to bitch about “kids these days”.
That said I am most certainly in the same shit show ecconomic boat as the millenials. I just started struggling with that 5 to 10 years before they did. People seem to forget that the job market and ecconomy weren’t exactly roses and butterflies for young people even before 2008. There was a small ecconomic “dip” and spike in unemployment toward the end of Bush II: The Reckoning’s presidency. Got bad around 2004 or 2005 IIRC. When that sort of wrapped up what you saw was a lot of very experienced people who had lost their jobs chasing after entry level positions. So as a recent college grad at the time there was effectively nothing out there for myself or many of my friends. Either there were no jobs, or where there were jobs you couldn’t compete. The unpaid internship and experience feed back loop, the stagnant and low wages/salaries and bad bennefits, the weirdness in accademic employment and the collapse of job markets in various fields were already pretty well embedded at the time. I lost on entry level, shit pay, jobs to people with 20 years of experience at much hirely levels of the field. I had jobs created specifically to hire me at a couple of companies. Those companies ended up collapsing or “restructuring” before I got a chance to start. And this was going on before the ecconocalypse and the term/concept millenial had really become a thing.
Edit:
I know this is already over long but this has just occured to me. A generation as we typically speak about it is usually taken to refer to a group born in a roughly 25 year block. Which fits well with the baby boom as a group 1945-1970 is exactly 25 years. Gen-x is usually held to be those born after 1970. But from what I understand millenial as it was coined was intended to refer to only those born in the 1980s. Meaning generation x is a “generation” that only lasted 10 years. As the press was commonly reporting on the concept in the aughts it seemed more to refer to kids born in the 90’s. If gen-x really refered to a propper generational group, those born to baby boomers over about a 25 year span. Then everyone born 1970-1995 is technically a gen-xer. If millenial is valid then it would just be those born after 1995. But it doesn’t seem to work that way, there seems to have been a push to rename “kids these days” in 10 year blocks (millenial wasn’t the only attempt to brand my age group, nor has it been the only recent attempt to brand those younger than me) rather than any attempt to actually examine legit generational blocks. See what I mean about it getting mushy? And as the oldest and youngest people commonly included seems to expand or contract daily its an increasingly weird concept that doesn’t even allow us to examine broad cultural trends in anything like an accurate or useful way.
Also these names are stupid. Everyone born from 1970-1995 is now “Generation Dinosaur”, Those born from 1995-2020 will be “Generation Lazer” and those from 2020-2045 will be “Generation Great White Shark”. PROBLEM SOLVED.
Obviously generations aren’t really a thing, and at best are only loose generalizations, and at worse an excuse for cultural elitism. But I still think there is some broad truth in them, in that cultural norms, trends, and attitudes change, which would lead to a general difference between people raised within these different values.
A child of the Cold War, Reagan, etc… would grow up to have different experiences than one of Clinton and techno-optimism, or one of Bush II and rah-rah conformist with-us-or-against us groupthink. Sticking an arbitrary date, or time frame on it is a bit silly. But there are broad cultural trends. Banally, I have more in common with my age cohort, than with the Millennials or the Boomers.
I think the time blocks are shrinking because culture is accelerating. I have an easier time relating to someone born in 1970, than I do someone born in 1995.
I was one of those kids that got praised constantly. Right up until I graduated highschool I got told how awesome and smart and wonderful I was, except I saw it as empty since nobody really wanted to listen when I said I had no idea what to do next and I was scared out of my mind. So I just kinda caved in on myself and stopped talking.
Failed college. Kinda puttered around best I could. So yea. I’m the guy they point at when they say your generation screwed up. I blew my college scholarships, somehow managed to only have a couple thousand in debt, it I’ve made nothing of myself other than being tyhst guy family can rely on to do shit in the background so they can do their own things.
All of you. Everyone of you that can drive. Be grateful for that. I can’t. This makes finding work or even simply getting around a pain in the freaking neck. Bad enough to listen to how I’m some kind of screwup that needs constant praise when I’m mostly looking for criticism that isn’t backhanded attempts at tearing me down. I have t depend on those people for basic transportation.
So anyway ya. My fellow Gen-Xers. I’m sorry for being the asshole that people point at when they caww st how broken you are.
Edit: Personally, unless my situation changes best I can muster in way of reasons to keep trying is to make sure my nephew doesn’t end up falling into the same traps I did and doesn’t feel as isolated from everything and everyone that interests him.
But that’s sort of my point. The concept of generations is pretty much an arbitrary after the fact catagorization. And it largely comes from genological and historical researches. When you look at family trees or like rolls of kings and such, there’s on average 25 years between generations, so we get that number as a broad rule of thumb. You can then use that to roughtly caclulate the dates, or time difference between events that are dates by generation or line of decent. In the 5th year of the reign of king fancy pants, son of lord big hair, son of duke short sleeves etc. Depending on when you decide to start counting, and at modern points we pretty arbitrarily start post world war 2, you end up with different brackets covering different events and cultural topics. The baby boom is better defined because its an easily identifiably increase in the birth rate. Its a statistical fact that happens to line up with broad cultural changes, and a nice fairly well defined division with the previous cultural block and age group. But there’s a massive, massive difference in the life of some one born in 1945 and some one born in 1969, but they’re both still baby boomers. And that doesnt even get into the fact that these things are very culture bound. Boomers are really only a thing in a handful of countries. Personally I have an easier time realating to some one born in 1970 than some one born in 1995 too. And I was born closer to 1995 than 1970. And I’m often times rolled into 1995’s age group.
The idea that “culture is accelerating” is kind of meaningless. How? In what ways? Are youth cultures spawning off at a higher rate? Is music changing faster? Fashion? What? I’d say no to all of those. There seem to be fewer youth subcultures in the conventional sense then their used to be, in large part because they’re all blending together and including more than just the youth. Though the particulars of whats appropriate where, and variations in form have changed fashion basically looks the same as it has since post WWII if not the depression. And there really haven’t been any major changes there for like 100 years. Our media are largely refinements of norms instituted in the 70’s. The one big change seems to be the internets.
But there isn’t really a compelling reason to go naming generations, or broad cultural groups/phenomenons every 5 or ten years. Nothing like the baby boom. If your talking pre and post internet then your either talking about gen-x forward being one consistent group OR gen-x getting rolled into the baby boom and those of us who came after being something else. It very much seems driven by media commentary. An easy way to label who ever’s young, often negatively. With the definition of “young” being driven ever upward by the shear number and influence of aging boomers. I’ve heard people in the restaraunt I work at refer to people in their 40’s with college age kids as being “young” “just kids” and include them in with their discussions and criticisms of teenagers and twenty somethings. These people are in their 50’s and 60’s. Its very weird.
Neither my partner nor I can drive. I’ve wondered what this might say about how much we have in common below the surface, since for our generation, it’s still very unusual to be unable to drive. I understand it’s increasingly common for millenials, however. Public schools no longer have driver training courses, mandatory or otherwise, and many millenials have no expectation of being able to afford a car.
Possibly a lot I suppose if you strip out place names and go by generalities. Smart enough to basically kick school’s ass, but not focused enough to really know ‘what next’, but without the experience to articulate that problem well enough to keep from getting pushed into college. Then when that blew up people just sprta stopped expecting anything. Never any sitdown ‘you fucked up’ talks though. Either guilt or knowing that if they keep it to snide comments or insinuations holding this cloud over your head they can get away with saying ‘you’re the only one blaming yourself.’
My two paths are either find a way to move to somewhere with a dense enough population where mass transit is a thing, or just keep scraping by here middle of nowhere and try being the guy the next generation can lean on for moral support.
There is far more going on, but little of it is suited to a public forum. The main thrust is I was promised the world, then backhanded by reality and before I could properly get my bearings I kinda saw everything go up in smoke to the point where it’s a path I hate but feel some obligation on, or another of extreme risk with no gurentees… But it’s finally me doing something to break my rut.
That’s my story too! Up to the driving thing. I officially learned at 26. I don’t know what your specific circumstances are, but if there’s nothing specific standing in the way, you can do it. It’s not super uncommon outside the United States for people to learn to drive much later in life (my aunt learned in her thirties), and I encourage you to learn. A side benefit to learning later is your insurance rates start off pretty low too.
If I can recommend an esoteric book that helped me gain some focus in life, there is one that comes immediately to mind. It’s oddly not a self-help book, or anything similar. It’s literally just a funny, non-fiction book that helped me put things in perspective. It’s called Complete & Utter Failure by Neil Steinberg. It’s hard to find, but worth it. I honestly don’t know why this book hasn’t had more of a following. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but the author knows where you are coming from.
First, I would like to say, as a (late) Boomer (without kids): I’m sorry my peers and politicians have been such idiots as to have virtually doomed the planet. There’s no excuse for it.
However, regarding the economy, jobs, etc., I think blaming Boomers is misdirected. The middle class is disappearing in the US (including middle class jobs) because the money is going to the top, the 1%, and that’s because they own Congress. Instead of Oedipal rage, look toward electing better leaders…
