Boomers and X-ers: Musings

[Taverner]

Boomers and X-ers may not have a whole lot in common. Our experiences were different, the numbers were way different and even our definitions of Liberalism are different (X-ers practice a much more anarchist Liberalism, whereas the Boomers practice more of the New Deal Classic Liberalism in my opinion.)

But one area we both share is the fact that both groups stand back and ask - What happened?

The boomers were poised to make great changes. As the Doors line went "They got the guns but we got the numbers" spelled it all out - the Boomers had the numbers to sway elections, put together candidates, and even stop a war. Come the early 70's, all of that had fizzled out and many were standing back wondering, in the wake of Altamont and the dark spot of Vietnam - where did it all go?

We X-ers share the same dissolution of our hopes and dreams. The 90's started off with real positive change. We were the swing vote that put a Democrat back in the White House, college campuses in the early 90's were centers of major debate and revolt and the early internet was empowering us in ways unseen in history. The tech "Boom" and bust came in and wiped all that out, taking our most talented and selling their souls for a bunch of worthless stock options in a Dot Com that doesn't exist anymore.

On top of it, I've noticed a lot of us in this age bracket are having issues with marriages - something we used to chide the boomers for but now we are in the same boats. One could easily chalk it up to "all people go through that" but I'd be willing to bet that Boomers and X'ers share the same numbers in divorce, and other generations do not.

[bubblesby2002]

1. As a boomer...

I've asked myself the same question many times. I wish I had an answer that was succinct and intelligent, but I do not. Was it money? Was it family? Responsibility? Don't know. But as a cohesive group we still have the numbers and surely the will to change things. Or am I being idealistic?

[tigereye]

2. well don't we boomers "run" pretty much everything now?

or is that the problem? :) I don't know that any generation has all the answers. Maybe the boom generation expected to, and ran smack into reality. As far as marriage goes, that is pretty complex as well, and no generation has a monopoly on it; also the Xers may have found out that is isn't as easy as it appeared.

[Unperson 309]

11. A Lot Of Us Sold Out!

Seriously. We did.

As a kid, I remember hearing the old jazz and big band hits my parents loved used as commercial jingles. Didn't mean that much to me at the time. Now I hear such counter-cultural icons as Bob Dylan and Steven Tyler hawking products and I cringe!

Some of the Boomers have kept their political stances or used their youthful liberalism to fuel their later careers. Such folks include Wavy Gravy, Ben and Jerry, the late Jerry Garcia, Bill Clinton, et al.

But too many didn't. Also, while they captured the news broadcasts, the hippies WEREN'T as numerous, per capita, as people thought. What Nixon called "The Silent Majority" included many Boomers as well as the older generations.

When the Seventies came, we exploded in a burst of freedom, the "last hurrah" of the Sixties... but we were beginning to wear out, to get sick (AIDS) to begin to raise families, to hit the4 realities of life.

Accustomed to a better lifestyle than our parents had (as they told us over and over and over!) we were struck by the twin cudgels of a shrinking dollar (buying power) and the fuel crisis... and many of us were starting our families.

Needing more, we went after more... and became yuppies! To get what we needed, we sold out in droves. Now, when our liberalism is desperately needed, many of us are looking back at what we had, what we were, what we lost... and beginning to shake off the lethargy.

Or not...

Many of us, subconsciously ashamed, are sinking into apathy and lethargy because it's simply... easier NOT to face what we let slip through our numbed fingers.

But some of us are getting mad! ANGRY that we've been hated and accused and blamed for EVERYTHING from crumbling morals to the heartbreak of psoriasis! Hated by earlier generations, hated by our parents' generation, hated by our own generation, hated by later generations, hated by ALL conservatives, relentlessly, endlessly...

Will we wake up in time?

I simply don't know.

309

[tigereye]

14. I never "sold out"

although I am at the tail end of the boomers, and think of myself more of the punk generation, on some level. I do have a house, kid, non- profit type -career, and cars, but I think growth is so complex, that no one could have totally lived up to all of the ideals that were common in the 60s - people always grow and change and their needs change. I think everyone has to honor their values the best way that they can and, in small ways, people of this generation continue to make a difference.

[Kitka]

3. One opinion...

Here's the only thing from this article that makes some sense. The rest will just piss you off.

Because we know what it’s like to come home to an empty house, Gen Xers are increasingly leading a trend back to family values, where we’re making a point to spend more time with our own children. Many of today’s young women are rejecting the myth that we define ourselves solely through our professions, and when possible, are choosing to be stay-at-home moms instead of sending kids off to commercialized day care

Of course, the author wants all women at home barefoot and pregnant but I know it's common among my 30 something friends to return to having a stay at home parent.

[Taverner]

4. I'm seeing that too

But at the same time, the ones who do are just as lost in anomie as the housewives of the 1950's. And marriages are falling apart at the same rate.

[ForrestGump]

5. I don't know about this part:

"college campuses in the early 90's were centers of major debate and revolt..."

Granted, I was a graduate student in the early '90s, but if I had to pick a single word to describe what I saw in the general undergrad student body at that time it'd be "apathetic" (about everything, learning included, with the exception of partying) or maybe even "conservative." It seems to me that that's the way it's been since at least the mid '80s, whetehr because of some social backlash, a recoil from the Vietnam era, or the '80s obsession with 'me me me' and the gulf between have and have not and resultant desire to very much be a 'have.' I don't know what caused it, but I do know that I was disgusted with the attitudes of a lot of the undergrads I met. When I actually met one who wanted to learn, and was otherwise a good student, it was cause for great happiness...the thing is that this happy state of affairs should have been the norm, not the exception.

My experience is not the be all and end all of it, of course (for one thing, students at large research universities and students at small, teaching-focused colleges tend to not only have vastly different tertiary experiences but be of a different level of preparation and interest), but from what I've seen at my own institutions and away, undergrads of the '80s and '90s were overwhelmingly conservative and way too many were pretty much wasting space at university that could be given to someone more deserving. University was just a rite of passage, a place to be, and that's not the way it should be and it's not how it is in otrher countries (thusly does the US manage the paradoxically high ranking in per-capita university attendance and low ranking in actually having learned anything).

Anyway, in my own (too long) experience, most of the debate and revolt going on in America's campuses was being contributed by faculty, most of whom were among the first wave of the Baby Boom. They're the '60s progressives who, for better or worse (and, yes, often very much for the worst), never grew out of it.

[Taverner]

8. I guess it depends on which school

At Oregon State (where I went) it was not a center of major debate, but the school down the road (University of Oregon) was. So were some of the smaller, liberal arts colleges in the area.

Obviously, most of the students there were there to get job training. And partying has been a part of most school's culture (kids away from home for the first time, etc.)

The "political correctness" wave was a big influence in communication, and affected us even at Oregon State. Curricula were being modified to use gender neutral words if possible, and much of this came from prodding from the student body.

[PragMantisT]

6. Is your avatar the cover of the live album by Traffic?

Looks like it.

I was born in 1963 and feel like neither a Boomer nor an Xer. I guess I'm a 13er (http://www.wordspy.com/words/13thgeneration.asp), and I wonder what went wrong.

as you said, the sixties showed a lot of promise, but then the tide ebbed. The same with the nineties. If you look at the protesters bussed in to fight the Florida recount, they were all twentysomethings interning in governmental offices.

I write it off to greed and hedonism. Money and sex can make a person do anything. If that doesn't work, fear of death will get the job done. It's very Freudian in it's simplicity.

Actually, I see it less as a generational thing than as a lack of coordination between like minded individuals. Some boomers thought Vietnam was a great idea. They mostly stayed stateside. I'm sure many of the Florida protesters are firmly and securely ensconced on these shores. They make the wars; they don't fight them.

With the advent of the computer age, perhaps coordination is at hand. We certainly do not lack direction.

Keep the faith.

[theivoryqueen]

7. Ha!!! Finally a same year model as me!

I knew there were more out there. As I understand it the "X" is meant to symbolize the generation - as in tenth generation since the ARev. That's make us IX - wait, that doesn't sound too good phonetically. Hmmm Okay - I'll stick with your 13ers.

[PragMantisT]

12. I always thought it was X as in "unknown". n/t

[Taverner]

9. Yes - On the Road was an amazing album wasn't it?

[PragMantisT]

13. Traffic is one of the lost treasures of the sixties.

Many good albums. "John Barleycorn Must Die" is one of my desert island disks.

[SarahB]

10. I never fit into a demographic.

I have no clue. I was raised by people who were relatively passionate politically and are boomers (first wave boomers born in '46 and '49), but we lived in the midwest, so things weren't so wild and intense out there growing up.

I did things very differently than most people I was friends with before college and spent my college years for the most part as a married person, so my experience was just focused on the work itself. I don't feel as though I missed anything by missing the social aspect of the college scene. The whole "kegger" scene was old by the time I was done with high school. I probably would have ended up moving in with one of my professors knowing me. I never had any stock options, so that doesn't apply.

As for marriages and all that business, I'm one of those stick it out until I'm miserable people. Well, I got miserable enough long enough. I find some people (my parents included-twice) bailed without reason. I think marriage is of value enough that you have to stick it out until hope of being happy with the other person (or even being yourself) is no more.

[Loonman]

15. Usually X-ers are apolitical

I was until Bush got in there.

After the Reagan years and the petty attacks on Clinton, most of us decided politics is a fool's game.

Some X-ers(not me, at any rate), resent the boomer hippies for the cheapening of sexual issues and some liberal causes.

[sundog]

16. a little off topic, but

the beginning & end of "gen x" is a very gray area, if you look it up on the net, no one seems to agree on when the generation begins & ends...

[johnnie]

17. I was born in 1964

I never really thought of myself as a boomer nor an Xer. I think we had a little of both, but neither one ever really applied to me or my peers.

[Connie_Corleone]

18. I always thought

it started in 1965 and ended in 1985. But, I've been hearing people calling these teenagers coming up now as generation X. I think they're generation Y.

I used to say my generation(X)is the "We don't get to have any fun cuz the boomers ruined it." generation.

I've since changed my position on that. I got older.