Generation X: what was your childhood like?

[hsher]

I'm writing a book about us. I need Generation X'ers' accounts of their childhoods for chapter two, which is a description of us so the Baby Boomers will finally accurately know us - because in many ways, they don't. (However, they're curious about us and wonder if we will change America as their spiritual and political heirs. Yes. Shocker. Not their kids, Gen Y, but Boomers look to US. It's true.) If you do not mind being quoted in a nationally-published book, and give me permission to use your quote in the book (you can be anonymous), will you tell me briefly, in a paragraph or two, what you remember of your childhood?

I know what my childhood was like; what was yours like?

The rules:

1. Please be somewhat brief - not a multi-page essay (If you want to do one of those, you'll need to contact me and send it to my actual email address)

2. Please include any pop culture references: songs, TV shows, toys, you remember

3. Please be sure to mention whether it was a good childhood, or a less than good one. My opinion in the book is we generally enjoyed our childhoods. You may disagree. Feel free to. I'll include it.

That's it. Thanks for any and all postings. For info about me, and why I'm writing this, and more details on the book, what it's about etc., PLEASE PM me.

- Heather

[daleo]

1. You should probably define your terms a little more precisely

The demographer/economist David Foote calls people born between 1960 and 1966 "gen x", while some give that label to people born later than that (say 1967-75).

[dysfunctional press]

2. don't forget Generation Jones.

too young for the boomers, too old for genX.

i was born in 1961, and i definitely feel more like genX than a baby boomer. but i don't really feel like i belong in either.

[hsher]

4. I consider you Generation X

For the book's purposes, if you feel like Generation X and were born in the Sixties, you are.

[StrongbadTehAwesome]

7. wasn't aware that one had a name

though as it's my parents' age group. I myself am stuck in the cracks between X and Y.

[catzies]

10. Same here, exactly. Born in 62, never felt like a Boomer, feel more like an Xer

What are we, anyway?

[hsher]

11. X'ers

[mitchum]

51. We belong to the Blank Generation...

according to Richard Hell. And he was quite persuasive in his argument that particular dislocation (neither Boomer or Xer) was our defining characteristic. Blank. Open to invention or nihilism.
mitchum (1960)

[neebob]

24. Same here, born in 1960.

Never heard of Generation Jones - thanks for the reference. :hi:

[Iris]

72. Baby Buster n/t

[hsher]

3. Good idea (1962-1975)

Those are about my parameters for the book. There are MANY differing opinions on where we start and where we stop. In the book, I somewhat jokingly refer to Generation X as anybody who was young enough during the 1960's or 1970's for the first run of "Sesame Street" to have been age-relevant to them. In other words, if you were born in 1960, you would not have watched it when it premiered in 1969. You would have considered it a "baby show". So, not Gen X. And 1960-born folk sometimes indeed do show different cultural and social behaviors than "prototypical X'ers" do. But someone born in 1962 would have been 7 and sneaked a peek at it. So 1962 represents to my book the earliest curve for Generation X births. Anyone born after 1963 would have been targeted as a viewing demographic by "Sesame Street"'s producers. In 1976, though, the show's nature changed, and children born in that year and after it show characteristics closer to those of "Generation Y", according to American Demographics magazine.

So for my book, my parameters are "You are Generation X if you were born between 1962 and 1975".

Another good joke parameter is, you are Gen X if you are under age 45 but remember seeing Idi Amin Dada on television while he was alive. If you do not and did not, you are Generation Y.

[JHB]

8. Perhaps as part of the cynicism, I once used the "how many Kennedys" rule...

...As in "How many Kennedy Brothers were alive when you were born?"

If 4, you're a pre-Boomer
if 3, a Boomer
if 2, a post-Boomer (i.e., Generation Jones (within your definition of X)
if 1, the tail end of Jones or start of X.

Yea, it's morbid, but you're talking about a cohort that produced a band that called itself "The Dead Kennedys".

[Odin2005]

70. The date's I've read are 1961-1981

At least that's what historians Willian Strauss and Neil Howe use in thier books Generations and The Fourth Turning They use changes in the comming-of-age experience, cycles of under-protection and over-protection of kids (Xers grew up during the "Underprotection" part of the cycle and had an alienating comming-of-age experience), and other trends instread of just the demographic data.


Oh, and I prefer my generation to be called "Millenial," not a "Gen-Y."

[wickerwoman]

108. I'm 1976....

much more Gen X than Gen Y. I'd say if you knew who Kurt Cobain was when he killed himself, you're Gen X.

I remember watching a lot of television and being quite isolated in suburbia. My parents never had friends over and we had to clean the whole house if we invited someone over so usually we never bothered. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do after school that was "safe" so we'd usually just watch TV and eat crap. We were latchkey kids with a three hour gap until our parents got home. They told us we couldn't watch any television except PBS after school but how were they going to enforce that? We watched G.I. Joe and the A-Team every day.

My parents both grew up in "ethnic" neighborhoods in New York and Boston and were used to being packed like sardines with everyone in everyone else's business. They said they loved living in suburbia because we almost never saw our neighbors. I kind of missed that sense of community and have lived in cities ever since.

I remember Sesame Street and then He-Man, then G.I.Joe. We watched the Cosby Show and most of St. Elsewhere but our parents sent us to bed for Cheers. I had a Cabbage Patch Kid and all my friends played with Strawberry Shortcake but those were the only fads that really stood out.

My parents had a big debate about whether to buy a Beta or VHS and then it was Mac or IBM? I was about ten when we got our first home computer and it was a really big deal.

In middle school, my brother and I played D&D and then GURPS and MERPS. Most of my friends were into Vampires. I'd also say if your first association on seeing a long haired kid in a black trenchcoat is role-playing rather than Columbine that you're Gen X. We laughed our asses off when the Christian Right said that role-playing was inspired by Satan. The only evil we saw was the jocks beating the shit out of the skinny, smaller kids.

I wouldn't say my childhood was remarkably happy or unhappy... just boring. My brother and I relate to each other largely in terms of pop culture references- "That reminds me of "Seinfeld" or "The Simpsons"" kind of thing.

I'd also say I'm Gen X because I'm not self-conscious about saying I'm a feminist or a liberal whereas I think many more Gen Y'ers were poisoned by the Rush Limbaugh/The Man Show "I'm a sexist asshole... deal with it" crap that started flooding the media post 1995. My slightly younger brother thinks it's fine to call women "bitches" and "hos" and thinks protesters are all posers.

[sniffa]

5. very, very poor

but at the same time, happy. i grew up in a project, eating mucho government cheese and no friLLs products. unLike most of the kids in my deveLopment my parents were together so i have a skewed view in comparison.

how's that for brief?

[hsher]

6. Wow, that is very brief

No more details...? :(
No songs you remember and liked, no TV shows? No memories of school...? :(

[sniffa]

57. i Loved the smurfs

and he-man, and gi-joe. those were my favorite toys at the time too.

i grew up Loving rap music, and wishing i knew how to breakdance. the first 4 aLbums i owned were, run dmc's first 3 aLbums (seLf titLed, king of rock, tougher than Leather) and the beastie's 'License to iLL' - one each xmas untiL 6th grade.

i sorta remember pong - i remember atari better. 'river raid' was the shit.

i remember getting our first coLor tv. i remember watching any of 7ish channeLs we got: 2, 4, 5, 7, 25, 38, 56, and sometimes 64 wouLd come in.
i remember getting our first version of cabLe - a Large and hideous paneLed box, with a Large switch, that when pushed on (and the teLevision pLaced on 3) wouLd show HBO.
about 5 years after that, our buiLding was hooked up for cabLe and finaLLy got to see this MTV everyone was taLking about for years.

better? :)

[hsher]

67. Way better, but...

You GOTTA know it was all about Atari Breakout. :D

[Viva_La_Revolution]

9. ok...

Happy Days and the Dukes of Hazard, oh and the Hardy boys. In black and white, unless we were watching at Grandma's house (and fighting over the remote control that 'clicked')

Spending every summer day at the town pool, and buying a soda for 25cents after.

Shawn Cassidy, Eye of the Tiger and Doctor Demento.

Baby Alive and hand-me-down plaid bell bottoms.

We were poor, but it was a good time in general.

[wildflowergardener]

12. Good childhood

Hi. I was born in 1971 - had a two parent household - and actually got along with my parents and still do, which I guess was unusual?

I remember going to see the movie Grease, ET, memorizing every line from the brady bunch, little house on the prairie, Mork and Mindy, the Cosby show, Family Ties.

The first VCR, microwave oven (we had microwave popcorn on the train for the first time before we had one and thought it was wonderful).

I think CD's came out while I was growing up as well. My first computer was a commodore 64 - where you had to have all of your software on one floppy disk.

Meg

[TlalocW]

13. Born 1972

Grew up in a small farming community in Kansas. Less than 2000 people. Back yard butted up against a wheat field which we could fly kites in when the crop had been cut. I can give you my earliest memory and work in my favorite toy(s) - I was in my crib playing with a Mego Superman figure, taking off the S symbol (it was a sticker) and putting it on other things. I tended to play more with the Mego Batman and Robin figures more (went through quite a bit - their shoulder and leg sockets weren't too sturdy). I was a Batman nut so I watched a lot of the 1960s Batman show, Superfriends, etc. Scooby-Doo was another popular Saturday Morning tradition. As I got older, I tended towards comedies - Mork and MIndy, Bosom Buddies, Cosby Show, Night Court, etc. Dukes of Hazzard and Knight Rider worked their way in as well.

Childhood was basically a happy one although I never fit into the town as I never cared about athletics and got into computers earlier than most and then started picking up weird hobbies the older I got - juggling and unicycling (man, the chicks love a unicyclist). Was on Little League a few years because Dad wanted me to. Popular song that I remember was, "Centerfold," by the J. Geils Band, because we would do the "Na-na-nananana" part of the chorus when we were in the dugout. We had no idea what the song was really about. Mom and Dad were pretty lax with the rules because I was never a trouble-maker, and I was the last of four kids, and she had me when she was 40. They trusted me to baby-sit myself after Kindergarten, and like most kids, I could ride my bike all over town just so long as I was back by nightfall.

Fairly normal childhood I would say. Pretty happy for the most part too.

TlalocW

[CharmCity]

14. Rust Belt Gen Xer

I had a decent childhood (b. 1965), but my childhood memories of my childhood in the 70s are grim:
1. The economy was horrible. There was no such thing as a career in my hometown (not Charm City, by the way), and there were virtually NO jobs. My parents were rare w/ college degrees. They were teachers, but my mom never was successful getting a job in her field and lived much of her adult life professionally frustrated.
2. Looking back, my parents didn't make much money by 2006 standards (dad probably has a salary of about $45K when he retired in the early 90s), but we were always the rich folks in my neighborhood. This was a white blue collar area.
2. Most of my friends' parents split up (mine did not) -- and that was a disaster for most of the mothers, who were raised to have babies, period. My hypothesis was that a disasterous economy devastated men who lost their jobs (and many did). When they couldn't take care of their families, they got depressed, became bums, and left.
3. We had three tv channels; there wasn't much to watch until I was about 11 or 12. Loved Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Minday.
4. My parents smoked like chimneys. Everybody did.

[Babette]

15. I grew up in military housing....

Father was in the Navy. The Cold War had a great effect on my life. Dad would work long hours, even Sundays. We were terrified of being nuked, but told how "Duck and Cover" was nonsense. We told to pray to die quickly. All the phones in my Dad's office had stickers on them that read "Ivan is listening". After the fall of the Berlin wall, things got a little lighter. Early 80s were tough though.

One of my first conscious memories is of John Lennon's death. I was about 6. I remember coming into the living room to find my mom on the floor, sobbing, in front of the tv. I had no idea why. She said that someone very important had died. Years later I realized who it was who had died.

Mom liked to listen to Supertramp, Allan Parsons and Weird Al. For fourth grade I was bussed to a predominantly black school across town and first heard of Michael Jackson from my friends. They all had purses and jackets with his picture on it. I remember the Pepsi fiasco, and girls in my class sobbing hysterically.

Being sent to a school on the other side of town was tough. It was a long long ride. There was a lot of hostility, on both sides. There were fights all the time. I was given an award for being the only person on my bus to NOT get into a fight! I still have the certificate. I was one of two white girls (and a couple of boys) in my fourth grade class. Somehow I was voted by the class to play Harriet Tubman in a class play. The black children in my class chose white students for all the slave roles, and put themselves in roles as slavemasters and wealthy white people. I remember the teacher deciding that it was a bad idea when a girl playing a slave was shoved to the ground and spit on. There's a whole psychological study waiting for someone there!

[hsher]

16. Re: the Tubman play - *W.O.W*....

That's an amazing and somewhat disturbing story. You're not kidding that's a waiting study! I have the same memory about the death of Lennon. Everyone was crying and I didn't understand at first. I had just turned eleven, and I knew who the Beatles were, but I didn't understand assassination fully. Later I really felt what had happened, and was very crushed. (Still am.)

I also remember people being very upset at the suicide of comedian Freddy Prinze. Do you remember that one?

[Babette]

22. I don't remember Freddie Prinze...

In the early 80s my family got involved with a fundie cult and cut off a lot of contact with reality. TV was very restrictive, holidays were looked down on.

[momophile]

53. I cried so much when John Lennon died

I guess I was eight? I also cried when Reagan was shot.

[catzies]

17. Ok. Here goes.

I was born in '62 and am a total Beatles Baby. Hearing them is maybe my first memory. My mom says I danced to them but I don't remember watching them on Ed Sullivan. I was too little to stay up that late I guess.

My mom was one of the earliest hippies. For Halloween we weren't allowed to get candy without also taking the orange UNICEF boxes to get change collected. I didn't understand for a long time what that was all about. She took us (my brother, born in '64) and me to anti-Vietnam war rallies.

Speaking of the Beatles, my early childhood exactly mirrored (for lack of a better word) their early career. When my parents were still married, it was the beginning of Beatlemania and all was fun, fresh-faced wonder. My parents split up in '65, right when the Beatles stopped touring and became a studio band, experimenting with new sounds and new substances. My mom experimented with new friends and new substances too. I still only like the early Beatles (their pop stuff) because Sgt. Pepper and afterwards brings back flashbacks with me comforting my younger brother about the strange smells and sights of the crazy grownups doing weird stuff in the living room. I HATE THE WHITE ALBUM because the grownups got stoned & played it endlessly. But, the Beatles breaking up was more devastating than my parents' divorce and more like the end of my childhood.

Having a hippie mom also meant eating a lot of what was called "health food" & no soda, candy or cool cereal was allowed, ever. My brother resented that deeply, that and he wanted a GI Joe but my mom wouldn't let him play with "war toys."

We also went to Woodstock. We went in a Volkswagen bus filled with hippies. I was 7, my brother 5, and I had to watch him while my mom was off somewhere tripping. We're some of the dirty, naked kids in the movie. I swear to God.

Okay all that is too much information and back to your request: I remember being scared at the opening credits of Get Smart, when Don Adams falls down the phone booth. My brother really really really wanted PF Flyers & I remember the day he got them, just standing there wearing them & waiting for them to make him "fly."

We never went to church but I was taught to know astrology. I remember when the two most important things you could ask a person was, "What's your sign?" and "Who's your favorite Beatle?"

I'm a Leo & my favorite Beatle is in my sig:

[vogonity]

18. A few random references

Born 1968

Saturday morning cartoons. McDonaldland commercials. CBS "In The News." Schoolhouse Rock. Star Wars. KISS. Silly Putty. Slime. Three TV Networks. The Fonz. Bubble Yum. Bell Bottoms. Roller Skating. Farrah Fawcett-Majors. Alice Cooper.

Viet Nam (I thought Saigon literally fell, as in toppled over.) Watergate. I remember "IMPEACH" signs. I remember the "big boys" next door spray painting Peace Signs on a fence.

I lived in suburbia and never once worried we wouldn't have enough money. I never once worried that my dad would lose his job. I remember the commercials on TV for the "RIF" (Reading Is Fundamental) van and wondered why the RIF van never came to my neighborhood. It never once occurred to me that the RIF van featured kids from neighborhoods that were not as nice as mine.

I remember lots of "message" kids TV shows where there were not very subtle underlying messages of anti-racism and tolerance. I remember that smoking was everywhere, in offices on planes, in cars, elevators, in stores.

My childhood was mostly happy, at least until my teen years.

Just a few random thoughts, I may PM something longer.

[hsher]

20. OMFG, the RIF van LOL

I remember that!

[gollygee]

19. I was born in 1969

I assume when you say "childhood" you don't mean teen years. So I'm going for the 70s here.

We lived down the street from a fire station and from an elementary school. We used to wander around on our own all the time, as young as 5 or 6. The firemen would buy us pop from their little (very old fashioned style) pop machine.

We watched Charlie's Angels, Dukes of Hazzard, and Wonder Woman.

I remember learning to dance The Hustle in 4th grade. And we used to all sing "Freak Out! Le Freak, C'est Chic!"

One Christmas my older sister and cousins went to watch Grease but I wasn't allowed to go because it was considered too racy.

It was overall a pretty good childhood. Nothing terribly traumatic happened to me. My parents both worked full time and we had some pretty bad day care experiences though. One sitter had two older sons who were way too rough with us, and another sitter's husband hit my little brother with a belt. And one used to keep me locked in my room from the time I got out of kindergarten till my mom or dad got home every day. But my parents weren't in a position where one could stay home, and there weren't very many childcare options available back then. The switched from child care to child care but I don't think we ever had a very good one.

[bluedogyellowdog]

21. The definitions vary

The Douglas Copeland book was about the generation born in the early 1960s, what has since been called Generation Jones. The corporate marketers of the 1990s made Gen X a marketing demographic of those born in the 1970s, but not the 1960s, typified by grunge music, "slacker" culture, apathy, etc. This was ridiculous but was the basis of the media portrayal of Gen X during the 90s. Then there are William Strauss and Neil Howe who put anyone born between about 1962 and 1982 as part of Gen X.


Anyhow, if being born in the late 60s counts, childhood memories run something like this:

The early 1970s: Vague memories of the Apollo missions and Nixon resigning. Schoolhouse Rock first appeared sometime around this time.

The mid and late 1970s: A golden era as far as I'm concerned. Looking at those hideous haircuts in the old photos and listening to music from the era (i.e. disco), there was some embarassing stuff going on. But that's not what I remember. The mid and late 70s were more like the movie "Dazed & Confused". I also remember it as a time when we still had a society where a good blue collar job meant a middle class lifestyle, globalization wasn't yet an issue, excessive legal and illegal immigration wasn't yet an issue, unions still represented maybe 25-30% of workers, and job security was a given. All this would disappear by the time I entered the job market in the mid 1980s.

The turn of the decade: 1979-81. Also a golden era but the cracks were starting to show. The Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas were the top rated shows. Disco was dying out, hard rock and country rock both making a comeback, but the most exciting thing going on in music was new wave. I also remember double digit inflation, gas lines, gold and silver hitting record prices, and the Iran hostage crisis.

The early 1980s: The Reagan recession hits hard. In parts of my state unemployment hit 35%, which is 1930s Great Depression levels. Things would recover enough by 1984 for Reagan to win my state, but things would never be the same. Somebody had moved the goalposts without our permission. The rules of the game we had assumed in the 1970s were no longer valid. Kids who would have gone into a union apprenticeship program with the high wages and job security that went with it, were instead shunted into college prep courses and pressured into majoring in computer science, which was supposedly where the future was. This would lead to minimum wage jobs in tech support call centers or as clerks at Kinko's for much of the 1990s, until the late 1990s tech boom finally brought prosperity and better jobs for my age group. I also bitterly remember the early 1980s as a time of increasing puritanism rearing its head: just as we were about to reach that magic age of 18, somebody moved the goalposts without our permission and raised the drinking age to 21. 1982 and 83 had a lot of angst about the nuclear arms race. Not so much from 1984 on. I think the TV movies from 83 had a lot to do with that. Popular culture stopped celebrating working class culture and mores, and went completely yuppie on us. Teen movies were affected as much as anything: Ferris Bueller's Day Off for example.

edit: and they've been moving the goalposts without our permission ever since. The laws passed during George W. Shrubmonkey's regime being a particularly apt case in point.

[scarletwoman]

23. Is it okay for a parent of a gen Xer to reply?

My oldest son was born in 1975, so I think he might fit your parameters -- but he'll never be a DUer. While he mostly shares my political views -- and in some ways is even more radical -- he rarely goes online for anything.

I'll just mention a few things -- he was conceived out of wedlock, his dad was a rock'n'roll musician, but we married and tried to carry out a family life for 8 years. He grew up in a home without a TV, but with lots of live music around and big birthday parties with organic carrot cakes and lots of beer and old hippies smoking pot.

His first music preferences were Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Led Zeppelin. I had nothing to do with that, somehow he got into those on his own -- lots of "oldies rock" radio stations available locally back then.

He had every Star Wars toy and action figure ever made, massive quantities of Legos, and constellations made up of glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars on the ceiling of his room. I worked as a cook in a worker-owned organic vegetarian cafe throughout most of his childhood, while his dad worked (sometimes) as a musician.

After his dad and I broke up our marriage (mostly due to his dad's increasing alcoholism), I hauled him around with me as I moved from the San Juan Islands (in Washington state) to Southern Oregon to California (Bolinas) and eventually to Alaska -- where he graduated from high school.

He left Alaska after high school, moved to Oregon, then back to Minnesota (where he grew up), then back to Alaska where he married an old classmate and has settled there for good.

I cannot, of course, speak for him -- but I can tell you about the circumstances of his childhood. Probably not what you're looking for, but I just felt like chiming in anyway...

If you think that any of this might be useful, feel free to pm me. It's possible that I might be able to interest my son in making his own contribution.

sw

[seabeyond]

25. since i am 61 boomer and hubby 65 gen X

description of us so the Baby Boomers will finally accurately know us

i think it is funny

[hsher]

27. Is 61-65 boomer?

My parents are 65 and 64 and consider themselves "Silent Generation"... hmm... ok...

[seabeyond]

29. you just said above 62-75 is gen x. i dont know what

silent generation is

[hsher]

31. OH LORD I AM STUPID - YOU MEANT YEARS

Sorry :blush:

But to consider 1961-1965 Boomer is making my head explode. We would have been 7 or 8 at Woodstock. I... dunno about that one.

[seabeyond]

34. i was soooooo confused.

i thought they considered to '63 boomers. which would include me. i think it is funny including me as a bummer. then that would make hubby who is '65 a gen X. then that one little sentence talking about boomers understanding gen x made me gggle since hubby and i are so close in age but considered different generations AND.... it is ALL so not a big deal. i was just gigglin.

sorry i was confusing nad missed up your thread a tad, wink

[seabeyond]

35. dont you hate when they throw you into lounge. but..... in having one

of my threads come in here the other day, i met some really nice people

[hsher]

37. Yeah, I get tossed in the lounge a lot

I guess I'm a Lounge Lizard :7

[Odin2005]

73. The Silent generation are the people who were born between 1926 and 1942

People born during and after 1926 were generally too young to fight in WW2, people born in 1943 and later had little or no memories of the war years and so grew up as Boomers even though they weren't part of the Baby Boom demographically.

[hsher]

96. My 'rents are Silent Generation - 41 and 42

Both spankers, both abusers, both ultra-religious, both bigoted (mom's coming out of it)... and "Whatever the man on the tower with the megaphone says is right, honey." (Obey authority - blindly)

[Nikki Stone1]

26. Hey Heather, what do GenXers have in common--besides the years of birth?

THe boomers all seem to have been part of a great cultural revolution, but that less caused by them than an effect on them, I think.

The Xers seem to have even less.

[hsher]

30. Uh oh... you may be opening a rant! :)

Like I said, I'm writing a wee book on this! If you really want me to answer, I can post what I feel so far... let me see if I can condense this... hmm... (and be aware, every Gen X'er on this board will disagree! That's one of our characteristics!)

Some of this may be hard to take, but...

1. Tend to be very good readers, writers and spellers
2. Analytical, critical thinkers
3. Sometimes too critical, especially self-critical
4. Cautious, sexually pragmatic (even if AIDS had not occurred, we'd be just as prim)
5. Often had punitive, patriarchal, sometimes extremist parents
6. A lot of moving around during childhood
7. Often lonely
8. BIG ONE - EXTREMELY ENAMORED OF NOSTALGIA
9. Independent to a fault - resist working "for The Man"
10. Despise corporate America/corporatism
11. Despise conformity
12. Not often materialist, avoids conspicious consumption, embarrassed by it
13. Likes and purchases "small, cute things" - scooter, cappuccino maker
14. Prefer small groups of close friends over large mobs of many acquaintances, runnin' buddies
15. Fearful of risk
16. Fearful of commitment
17. Easily detaches from human connection, can terminate friendships quickly, passionlessly
18. Protective of and fond of "our stuff", even though it is modest
19. Sharply critical of others
20. Enamored of perfection and think it is possible for nations, ideas, people to be perfect
21. Shared feeling "all the good stuff has been said and done, so why try"

I could definitely go on!

[catzies]

36. OMG your list NAILS it

:wow:

Please do go on.

[hsher]

39. Well, there is also...

22. A deep sense of unexplainable melancholy
23. SECRET ONE - hidden wish things were back the way they were between 1970-1974, and frequent imagination and daydreaming that they have become again so - but almost never admitted to anybody
24. Awareness 1970-1974 were not perfect, but a wish to see them return anyway
25. An obsession with vinyl recordings from the past
26. Fondness for playing "dress up" in clothing from the past, esp the Fifties - not the Sixties or Seventies
27. Fondness for retro Fifties photos, fonts and kitsch (see www.lileks.com for examples)
28. Disinterest in anything else from the Fifties
29. Strong desire to "Remember, Collect, and Archive" - recalling, collecting and carefully cataloguing, organizing and archiving mementoes from years before 1980
30. A cutting, sometimes caustic sense of humor - sense of humor very cruel
31. Sometimes personal cruelty
32. Visual interest in monkeys, liking for naming things "___ monkey"
33. Soothed at night by listening in bed to TV theme songs from the past (this is a big secret one!)
34. Often afraid at night, night terrors that cannot be readily explained
35. Soothed by innocuous things - trips to doctor, dentist, etc - that remind us of doing same things as children (again, not readily admitted)
36. Most library-friendly generation in the world
37. Disdainful of Gen Y view of computers and cell phones as personal accessories - prefers to see these machines simply as "tools", and does not understand or share idea of decorating or wearing phones as fashion statements; fond of saying "a computer is a tool, the internet is a tool"
38. Secret fondness for archaic technology, sometimes secretly collects it - i.e. old analog telephones, etc.
39. Remembers TV theme songs with lightning bolt accuracy
40. Can remember entire passages from childhood television shows, but not always on command - often it is accidentally triggered by hearing an innocuous audio fragment from those shows, and then BANG: sudden memory of entire dialogue section from show occurs, and is often 90-100% accurate

I could still go on! :)

[meganmonkey]

76. #32 is so true!

:rofl:

That's what I get for wandering into the lounge ;)

[hsher]

81. What IS our monkey obsession???!!!!

We ALL have it

[meganmonkey]

89. A desire to get in touch with

our primitive selves?

I don't know, but at work I am (among other things) the 'office monkey' - I even have the word MONKEY written on my tape dispenser so no one can steal it! :)

[Bonescrat]

87. Maybe 3 weeks ago I was at work...

and a friend and I were commenting on how we are nothing but number monkeys. (Born '72 BTW).

[hsher]

90. LOL... and I ask again...

Again I ask... "What IS our monkey obsession?" "Why do we all secretly obsess about MONKEYS?"""

[Kickin_Donkey]

103. Nos. 12 and 37 really speak to me ...

The Boomers just ahead of us were/are so into conspicuous consumption and trendy materialism, whether it be "make-out" vans in their early years or Mercedes in their latter, Ralph Lauren-brand shirts, the latest stereo and videocam technology, Varnet glasses, condos in Maui.

The GenY's just after us are so enamored of cell phones, Blackberries, PlayStations, iPods, GPS in their cars, backpacks with Little Miss Kitty keychains. They are so weighted down by gadgets!

Us GenXers, as a group, are not like either of those generations. Maybe that's why we are a 'tweener generation -- we created very little consumption wave. We reject the gross materialism of the Boomers or the GenY addiction to gadgets. I think we were more affected by the 1960s and '70s ethics of environmentalism, the notion of finite resources, recycling, getting back to nature, "small is beautiful," "less is more," the energy crisis of the mid-1970s. We were taught that minimalism was a virtue, to travel lightly, quality generic was better than designer labels, to NOT be materialistic. To live simply was to be more self-sufficient. A Walkman was just a way to enjoy music; it made no lifestyle statements. As kids, we made our own fun, a lot of it out of doors; we didn't have nor need video games.

I think it's a direct result of the era we grew up in. The Boomers grew up in the postwar economic expansion of America, when buying homes, cars, TVs, etc. was a direct reaction to the austerity and poverty of the Depression and the war years. The GenY kids grew up in the Reagan and post-Reagan years when consumption and wealth was and is all the rage and "greed was good." I have always shaken my head at the consumption of those a few years older than us and a few years younger than us.

[BuelahWitch]

104. Alot from both of your lists fits me to a "T"

Especially the '50s stuff. Actually, I'm into the '20s and the '50s. And the writing and spelling fits too. When I see young people, who I know to be fairly intelligent individuals, sending me messages like "r u ok?" it drives me nuts. And the friends. This MySpace stuff and collecting "friends" that you don't know and who never speak to you, what's up with that? A 25 year old friend of mine has over 200 people on his MySpace list. I have 19. A few are from school, some from a previous job, and others who share the same interests I have (classic film, television and music from the 20s to the 50s). I think adding people just to have "friends" is silly...but that's my opinion.

[Nikki Stone1]

42. These are quite large generalizations

Do you have statistics for any of your points? How are you backing this up?

I would not disagree that certain social conditions create certain common experiences for a large portion of a group, but I would not go so far as to develop a list of definitive traits. And some of these "traits" are actually the results of educational practices. For example:

1. Good readers, spellers--The US had good language teaching methods until the late 1970s and 1980s when a number of misguided methods inspired by misreadings of Noam Chomsky hit educational circles. The new methods deemphasized spelling and grammar teaching and highlighted "whole language" and "natural approaches" to language learning. Language skills are not an internal generational trait but the result of popular teaching methods.

2. Analytical, Critical thinkers.--Critical thinking became an educational buzzword in the late 1970s and 80s, when Xers were in high school and college. Teachers began to stress critical thinking from early ages, rejeting strictly rote memorization. I would not make any claims for the ability to critically think for this age group or any other as an overall trait. There are plenty of counterexamples that we all know personally.


As for the rest of your list, I'd be eager to know what studies have been done. Some of your traits seem to be linked: #3,4,5,6,7, 14, 15, 16, 17 in particular seem to describe a very detached kind of personality--lonely, critical of self and others, unable to really connect to people--and this all seems linked to a childhood of moving around a lot. If the statistics hold out on these traits, it would be worth looking at broad social trends of the 60s and 70s that formed these personalities.

But I'd need to see stats before I sat down to read your book.

[hsher]

43. A lot are from American Demographics mag

And others are from different polls I've put out over the years, questionnaires and so on. I'm still out there digging up official scientific polls, though. If I get my advance, that's something I intend to do. But yeah, a lot of these are broad, and many point to a critical loner personality, but they also seem to hold generally true for most of us - and what I hope to do in the book is nail down WHY we seem to share an overall "critical loner" personality. Where is that coming from? Why?

[Nikki Stone1]

45. I am always suspicious of studies until I know who did them and how

As Mark Twain would say, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

That said, American Demographics has a vested interest in getting it right, so I could see info on geographical moves or spelling test scores being legit. Which ones are based on your own studies and how did you do these studies?

[hsher]

46. There was even more in Am Dem

They had our social characteristics, too. Many of them, I felt were not quite accurate. But some were. The ones based on my own studies are the very specific nostalgia-related ones. I hired a market research group to back up my gut instincts. They went into malls and offices, found Gen X'ers willing to talk, and who had time, and asked a volley of questions. Getting the data back I was amazed at how many of us shared very similar characteristics, like the night-time terrors thing. The study is still underway, and I have MANY more studies, polls and questionnaires to put out there before this book is anywhere ready for publication.

We're going to do this very scientifically and collect and manage the data the right way. Um... heh heh... might *you* be interested in answering the next volley of questionnaires...? (hopeful smile) :)

I've got another one scheduled early spring (though it may be sent earlier; if it is, don't hate me)

[Nikki Stone1]

I wonder what the traits of "people who tend to answer questionnaires" look like? :)

People who are eager to answer a questionnaire may be looking for social connection and have had lonely childhoods where they moved a lot. :)


Your book will probably be very popular. Make sure it comes out in time for Christmas and see if you can get Hugo Chavez to read it at the UN, preferably while he is calling Bush the Devil. :) (If Chavez knows how to do one thing it's move product.)

Seriously, good luck, and I hope you make enough money to support oodles of Democratic candidates in 2008.

Best wishes.

:)

[hsher]

48. Thanks, Nikki! (hug enclosed)

:hug:

[Nikki Stone1]

50. Now don't forget the little people when you hit that talk show circuit

And for cripes sake, don't go on any show with Katie Couric.

:D

[Nikki Stone1]

47. ....

self delete, double post

[alcibiades_mystery]

28. Poor, working class New York

drunks all around, fighting in the schoolyards, baseball, roller hockey, stupid fucking science projects.

The 80's fucking sucked. There, I said it.

Born 1973.

[laundry_queen]

32. I'm on the tail end of Gen X.

Let's see. I had a decent childhood - 2 parent household. My parents were a lot more strict than the other parents. My dad was a spanker, my mom was the nurturer. They were both well meaning, but generally absent. I saw them maybe 2-4 hours a day, if that. See...both parents worked, had to, because of the economy in the early 80's. We were generally paycheck to paycheck, no frills at all. They did try to provide us with as many 'things' as they could, because they both grew up incredibly poor and didn't want us to grow up with nothing, like they did. We took many family vacations, most by car.
Toys I remember were transformers, tonka trucks, strawberry shortcake, my little pony, cabbage patch kids.
Tv shows - we didn't get to watch much tv - my dad was always watching the news - no question of where my obsession with politics came from. We did watch smurfs on Saturdays. My mom used to watch Magnum P.I. when my dad was out of town. I remember all the 80's music. Culture Club. Madonna. We listened to it all. Except country.
I wouldn't say I enjoyed my childhood, despite my parents' attempts to make it a good one. My dad was a strict authoritarian and I was a sensitive child and my memories are mostly of my fear of him. I now have a good relationship with him, however, because I recently learned he was mentally and physically abused as a child and thought he was doing a great job with me at the time. We've talked about it. My parents are still together and we all get along great.
Hope that was brief enough!

[proud patriot]

33. I could write a book on my childhood alone

I was a love child of two hippy parents .

They divorced very early on , but I remember
the commune house in San Francisco and Music
And Golden Gate Park. I remember the magic
that was in the air .

Raised by my grandparents from age 5-12, then
my dad til adult.

As a kid I remember learning to preserve our
resources watched "M*A*S*H" every night.

I remember schoolhouse rock on Saturday Mornings .

HR puff n stuff , land of the lost ...The doo run run
and Grease brought me into adolescence along with Risky
Business...AC DC Boston Supertramp ..Iron Maiden

Metallica ...The feeling of everything has already
been done so why bother was very strong in my teen
years ...God I hated Reagan and Bush Sr ...

Watch the movie "Pump Up The Volume" to get gen x.

Up until fighting the bush Administration I had wished
I had been born earlier . I felt jipped that I missed the
civil rights and the social revolution of the sixties .

Now I understand that the time I was born equipped me for
the defense of the Constitution that has been needed recently .

[yvr girl]

38. A carefree childhood with dark undertones

It seems to me, that we were the last generation to have a simple childhood. We knew how to play. My friends and I spent hours in 'the forest' exploring and acting out stories. There were regular neighbourhood-wide games of Kick the Can. I enjoyed the freedom to roam. My immediate world seemed safe.

The world at large was a mess. I remember hearing about the doomsday clock, and how close we were to midnight. Many of my contemporaries thought that the world would end when 'someone pressed the button.'

[hsher]

40. "Last generation to have a simple childhood" - YES

You just hit it on the head. Is that what causes the melancholy we sometimes feel?

[baby_mouse]

99. Oh, yes.

Yes. It is.

[Omphaloskepsis]

55. I think we are about the same age..

My mom bought me a knife for my eleventh birthday (I had just been mugged by someone with a gun for my shoes). People used to always steal my Airwalks and my skateboard. In hindsight giving a small child a knife was a poor choice. My sister who was three years older and started hanging out with skinheads (sharps) for protection. They used to escort me to and back from school every day. This was in Redlands, California. I had a shitty childhood.

[hsher]

86. I was born Oct 1968

I put "Aquarius" on my blog profile because... OK, tinfoil hat, astrology fan... my Sun and Uranus are conjunct in the first house, meaning even though I am a Libra, I should share more characteristics with Aquarians, who are ruled by Uranus. Seems to be true. I DO have more Aquarius traits than Libra.

[sakabatou]

41. Damn. I'm Gen Y

[hsher]

44. There's going to be a poll for you guys too

We're going to be asking you what you think of us, what you think of your parents (mainly Boomers, I think), and what you hope to achieve over the next decades. Generation Y will be invited to a round-table discussion where you talk to us, we talk to you, and both of us talk to your parents. This ain't over yet!

[momophile]

49. happy until about age thirteen

I was born in 1972 to a single mom with one other child. My parents had divorced after my dad got back from the Vietnam War with the usual problems. My mom remarried when I was one year old. They then had two more girls. My mom and my step-dad were hippies and dreamers. We spent my childhood moving from town to town – something like six different elementary schools. I look back with a great fondness for my childhood up until about age thirteen. I was free to roam around the small communities in which we lived. Played on the road and on the train tracks; played in creeks and trees; played football with the neighbor kids; roller-skated to “Funky Town;” rode the city bus and hung out in the mall.

My mom always said that I was born 30. I knew we were poor and I understood the value of money (as much as a ten-year old can), but I also knew that others had it much worse off than we did. I owned two t-shirts that said, “Anything boys can do, girls can do better,” and I believed it. I marched around school leading the re-elect Carter campaign. My favorite books were about the Underground Railroad. I got punched in the face in the second grade when I tried to kiss a boy.

My grandmother committed suicide when I was five. I punched the wall and cried all night. I walked to Sunday school alone for a year, belonged to AWANA, and accepted Jesus into my heart in the back of a friend’s station-wagon when I was seven. By thirteen I had made up my mind that there was no god. The Ramones were my favorite band.

By thirteen I knew I didn’t belong. I resented those with money. I first kissed a boy at 15 and it was terrible. I lost my virginity so that the same boy would finally stop trying and shut the hell up. I loved The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode. They sang to me. Boy after boy used me. I was nearly raped at age 17. I was on the verge of hating men. My best friends and I called ourselves “The Lunch Club” and we always sat at the same wall in high school. I still didn’t fit in. I knew that I could never kill myself because it would kill my mother.

I'm fine now and mostly happy.

[BlueIris]

52. Traumatic and abusive. So were my teenage years, and my young

adulthood. The Boomers' Generation is filled with the WORST. PARENTS. EVER. And thanks for tanking the economy and the government for us, assholes, that was real nice. It's going to be a peachy 21st century thanks to you.

[raccoon]

61. Thanks for tarring a whole generation with one brush!

Plenty of parents BEFORE the baby boomers--like mine--were lousy parents.

[hsher]

65. Totally, I agree

It's just this is a book about the Gen X experience, and I have to include an account of our parents. I'm sure your parents weren't perfect, just like mine DEFINITELY weren't perfect - but this is a book about the life experiences of people born 1962-1975 or so. Sorry if we offended.

[idgiehkt]

101. my parents were boomers but they don't know it.

they weren't hippies...and they were immeasurably better than their parents who were unbelievably fucked up and incompetent when it came to being nurturers of human beings.

[Skittles]

106. ?

do you think all Boomers were hippies?

[Deja Q]

97. That's why "X" = "Screwn"

My youth was traumatic too. But we survive. And we need to stick together to remind those boomers what unity and compassion is about.

[Skittles]

105. nice generalization there, asshole

how did that feel?

[Dastard Stepchild]

54. Let's see...

I remember my childhood fondly, for the most part. No - actually, it sucked because I was always teased by my peers for being a little porker, but other than that, my family was awesome and I had some good times. I remember being constantly afraid that the end was near - that somehow we were all going to be blown off the face of the earth via large stores of nuclear weapons. Still, even that didn't seem to dampen my enthusiasm for colorful cartoons and an array of mindnumbingly unnecessary collectibles, tchotchkes and trinkets.


I think this is a list of everything that stands out for me. These memories imprinted themselves onto my brain for whatever reason, and have stayed with me for many, many years.

- Fraggle Rock
- Emmet Otter's JugBand Christmas
- Rainbow Brite
- Strawberry Shortcake's malodourous scented hair.
- My Little Pony
- Showbiz Pizza birthday parties
- roller rink birthday parties
- those hair clips that would have thin, hanging leather straps with feathers and beads attached to the ends
- the glitter glove
- being scared shitless the first time I saw Thriller
- plastic lunchboxes with saturday morning cartoons on them
- seeing Goldie Hawn on TV as an audience member of the 1984 summer Olympics in LA
- Chevrolet Chevettes without air conditioning that would turn 100 degrees in the backseat in the summer
- neon jelly shoes
- parachute pants
- tails (long pieces of hair at the nape of the neck)
- New Moon on Monday by Duran Duran - the video made me so excited when I saw it for the first time that I went outside and stamped "new moon" into the snow with my feet... all the more dramatic because it was a full moon night
- New Kids on the Block - totally went to the concert with my father when I was 13. Awesome.
- Pound Puppies
- the craze for Cabbage Patch kids and the bizarre need to traipse to a number of stores in one evening all in search of the elusive doll. mine was named phoebe. she had red, braided hair.
- and on a different note... garbage pail kids
- arcades!
- different strokes, facts of life, webster - shows about precocious children that seemed to have no ties to their actual biological parents
- You Can't Do That on Television! Totally loved Moose. Totally hated Lisa.
- Degrassi Jr. High. Wheels made me swoon.
- plastic charm bracelets and necklaces
- collecting colorful stickers
- care bears
- fearing Russians
- fearing that Rocky would not be sufficient to squash the Russian menace
- watching a teacher blow up in space
- BASIC programming on an Apple at school
- my TI home computer hooked up to an old television, and conversely, my mother and I spending hours programming something called the "running man." it was a crudely composed man running across the screen. we felt like geniuses.
- my love of the name elliot (thanks, E.T!)
- sleepovers on the weekends, and backyard sleepovers in the summers
- jabba the hut plastic toy that could be used as a potent weapon when a young male friend alleged that girls could in no way be as big a fan of the star wars movies as boys
- the snorks and other saturday morning cartoons
- monchichis
- D.A.R.E.
- the karate kid. waxing-on and waxing-off in particular.
- fluff college movies that introduced me to the idea that I would someday have sex with people that I went to school with.
- the fact that wearing a coca-cola shirt was considered awesome
- benetton and guess jeans
- tight-rolling jeans until there was minimal circulation in my ankles
- perms!
- The Outsiders. Stay gold, PonyBoy.
- breakdancing on cut-up cardboard boxes in the backyard
- chucking lawn darts at friends and family
- mad libs
- ordering books from scholastic books in my classroom
- banana seats on my electric blue, glittery bike
- VCR remotes that had cords that attached them to the unit
- tiger beat and bop magazines
- legwarmers
- shoulderpads on grown women that could render them a worthy adversary against the most ruthless football player
- casio keyboard concerts for my family
- the brat pack
- john hughes films in general
- buying cassette singles at the record shop in the mall
- the power of the biker short to remove any impediments to tomfoolery while wearing a skirt
- watching G.L.O.W. on saturday nights with my cousins
- spuds mackenzie... a time when people thought of pit bulls as cute beer-drinking dogs and not as bloodthirsty monsters that live to rip out your liver
- fashioning swear words out of the pegs on my lite brite
- boomboxes!
- swapping Sweet Valley High books with friends

.... OK... I have to stop. This could go on forever. :)

[Lyric]

59. You must be almost EXACTLY my age

Let me add:

She-ra, Princess of Power
ABC Afterschool Specials
The Neverending Story
Those metal slap-bracelets
Hypercolor t-shirts!
Normal Is Boring
Swooning over Firehouse's "Love of a Lifetime" as a teen
Cardigan sweaters
Umbro boxers
Starter jackets--the Raiders and the Hornets and the Bulls
Ducktales, wooo-oooh
Michigan and Georgetown sweatshirts
Preps and Grits

[Dastard Stepchild]

63. Having read your profile...

I'm not entirely sure that we are not THE EXACT SAME PERSON. :)

Seriously. I could have written your profile - right down to the bisexual. And your list is the extension of mine were I to continue.

1975?

[Lyric]

66. 1979 actually

But damn--close enough! :)

[hsher]

64. Thanks SJ

There are several facets of your memories that reflect a Generation Y childhood, and with your permission I'd like to include them.

[Dastard Stepchild]

77. Not a problem...

I've always felt like I was on the cusp of X and Y - or at the very least in a special little group known as "a child of the 80s." That seems like a much more fitting label for my ilk of friends that have just now turned early 30. I seem to relate best to people born from 1973 to 1978.. in the sense that we share many common memories. We just missed the New Wave and early hardcore punk boats, but we ushered in grunge in our teens. We saw in the first wave of rave parties, too. I remember seeing Moby play in a deserted warehouse in Chicago.

[Dastard Stepchild]

78. are we called the MTV generation?

That's what I found when looking it up on Wiki, and this makes the most sense to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Generation

[hsher]

79. I think you are called MTV Generation...

But it makes me sick to think you guys have to be named after a TV network. They better think of a better name for you.

[lildreamer316]

56. Heather..

I just wanted to check in, it will take me a while to get this together, but I am 33 and husband is 29 (on the edge of Gen x, but it's like we are the same age 'cause he liked all the same stuff we did).
I'll get back to you; please check in with me via PM.

[carlydenise]

58. 1964 here

I was somewhat of a hippie child. I remember watching the Monkees on TV, listening to The Doors, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys as a small child, as I was into music from a very young age. I remember playing outside most of the day, not worrying about strangers or being exposed to leaded paint *as I am sure I was*, the evening news on our black and white TV was usually solid Vietnam images, Dan Rather hanging out in army gear while reporting the news. I remember watching the Wizard of Oz for the first time and that tornado scaring me half to death, as I lived in the southwest on the edge of tornado alley, and tornadoes were fairly common. One Christmas when alumunium trees were in style, we had one, the appliance colors that were in style were avocado green, dark brown and some ugly gold color, living rooms had shag carpet in the same colors, but usually orange. In the early and mid 70's I remember The Brady Bunch on TV, Partridge family, Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Sea Monster. I had a pet rock, used "Gee your hair smells terrific", and wished I was old enough to go to discoes and studio 54. I had Farrah Fawcett hair, the styles were wrap around skirts, peasant shirts, gouchoes. Andy Gibb, Leif Garret and Shawn Cassidy were my trilogy. I had one of the first video gaming systems, it was an Odyssey made by Magnavox I think, it was quite barbaric compared to what is out now, as a late teen and young adult I had an Atari, but most of my time during that era was spent at the video arcade, spending my boyfriends hard earned money one quarter at a time, leaving enough for his Trans Am payment.
Carly

[AngryAmish]

60. I had a great childhood

My folks weren't from this country but I grew up in a nice suburb. I went to a good school where the kids mostly settled their own problems. Did bad things happen? Yes but no one should expect a perfect life and if people fail you you should forgive them.

[Maine-ah]

62. ha, my father was a teacher and able to support

4 kids and a stay at home wife on that income. We lived in a tent for four months while my father built our house. Yes, a tent, a ford pinto, 4 kids, 1 irish setter and two parents. I remember taking baths in a small rubber maid plastic tub.

As for tv shows, well, I had the usuals. Sesame Street, Electric Company, Capt. Kangaroo, The Muppet Show.....

I was born 1974. as I have understood it, Gen-x (which that label is so fucking -pardon me- stupid)was like '66-'79.

[democracyindanger]

68. Star Wars.

Pretty much says it all.

[hsher]

80. Sure does!

Don't you love kids now, dissing the first Star Wars and saying it ain't all that, and that LOTR is better?

:rofl:

Yeah right.
Star Wars was A PARADIGM SHIFT for movies and will be for all time, with long lines of thousands snaking around the block for miles folks wanting to see it. LOTR will ***never*** match that.

And Star Wars and its sfx made LOTR possible, hello?

[tinfoil tiaras]

69. What generation would I be?

I was born in 1991...do I like not get a generation or something? :(

[hsher]

82. How about the way more mature than the rest of us generation?

They haven't figured you guys out yet. Some people are calling you Indigos... but that's a whole nother conversation ;)

[tinfoil tiaras]

83. Sounds cool...haha

Indigos? Enlighten me (either through PM or through here...im interesteddd) :)

[hsher]

85. It's kinda neat... you guys are supposed to have super powers

I'm not kidding. People really believe this. I'm inclined to agree... since here you are like 15 or something yet YOU GIVE ENOUGH OF A DAMN ABOUT OUR COUNTRY YOU'RE ON DU RIGHT NOW. Would I have been at 15?

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope?
I would have been at www.smash-hits.com, if it had existed and been about the magazine with that name. Looking at Duran Duran :)

Here's an indigo site:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art17810.asp

Disclaimer - I'm not sure whether we should believe this.
<---- cynicism: Gen X trait

[tinfoil tiaras]

88. Whoa...super powers! amazing!

But my mom was REALLY interested in politics when she was my age (She's a boomer...I think...yeah. 1957? Thats boomer?) and younger, so I guess I get it from her.

The article was interesting. "Peace Loving"...heck yes we are! :)

[Deja Q]

71. A weird mix of good and bad

If you would like a longer story, PM me. I'm known for knowing lots of details. (I even recall the furniture and decor of my parents' house pre-1980... it looked very 1968 until 1979 when the "beige disease" infected them...)

To make a long story short: While other kids were singing "No more classes, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks", I was singing "No more classes, no more books, no more students' dirty looks".

I recall pop crap such as Swatch watches, Garbage Pail Kids, Transformers, Cabbage Patch Kids, Atari 5200, Nintendo (got mine in 1992 - only 6 years late!), kids wearing t-shirts with the current year (e.g. "1986") or band tour shirts (Metallica's "Metal up your ass tour 1988" was one of my faves :eyes: ) And lots more...

I've contemplated writing my own book about life as an undiagnosed Aspie. I've read other books from other people, but I recall some of my past that would probably make it a best-seller... :evilfrown:

[martymar64]

74. Brief memories of childhood

I was born in 64 and spend my toddler years in Spain. We returned to the US in 1969 when I was 5. I remember Sesame Street and Zoom. I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and Laugh In were on TV at night. So was Walter Cronkite, reporting how many men died in Vietnam that day. We moved aroud alot, so I was often lonely and a little scared, always being the new kid, the stranger. My dad was often drunk so I was scared as to whether Nice Dad or Asshole Dad would be the one coming home that night. I remember getting molested by an older kid down the street when I was about 8. I remember a hippie asking me if I wanted to buy "a lid". I remember spending time in the library, books were a steady friend that never abandoned me or put me down. I remember winning the spelling bee for my whole school in the 6th grade. I remember being put in the gifted class and learning concepts like brainstorming and using computers before they were in th classrooms. I remember looking up to the Fonz and Dr. Johnny Fever, they were so cool, like I wished I was. I remember being strangely attracted to punk rock. I remember the days that Elvis died, when Keith Moon died. I remember so much more, some happy but alot more sad.

I try not to look back as much anymore. The past is gone and good riddance. I try to focus on today and tomorrow now. It's all I have.

[fudge stripe cookays]

75. Born 1966...

Grew up in Austin, Texas when it was where old hippies went to die. I had a wonderful childhood. I had a brother who was 12 years older than me, so much of the pop culture that I got early on was inherited from him.

He was a Beatles fanatic, so some of my first memories are of listening to Beatles songs, and thinking that they were singing about my aunt. "Aunt Elaine is in my ears, and in my eyes!" I also walked around singing "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Who are you what have you sacrificed?!" My mom, a diehard Catholic, about had a stroke until my brother explained Jesus Christ Superstar to her. He had 45s of "Jumpin Jack Flash," "Badge" by Cream, lots of Badfinger, the Hollies...it helped my musical taste mature long before many of my friends.

But I loved the Banana Splits and the Monkees, Penelope Pitstop, Sesame Street, and I LOVED singing "Yummy Yummy Yummy."

I went to public elementary school until 5th grade; I was sent to Catholic school from 5th through 8th grade because busing hit Austin. My mom was a racist, and didn't want me going to school down on the east side with little black kids.

I remember, about 1972, CONSTANTLY hearing the name Sharon Tate-- Sharon Tate, Sharon Tate on the news. It wasn't until years later I finally got ahold of a copy of Helter Skelter and found out what the controversy was about.

One summer in August, I went down to Mercedes in the Rio Grande Valley with my cousins to visit their grandparents. It was SOOOOO interminably boring for a 9 year old with only an Underdog coloring book to keep her busy. Lots of old pasty faced white men talking about Nixon Nixon Nixon. That's what I remember of the Watergate hearings.

I had a gorgeous blue bicycle with a basket with flowers on it, and rode around the neighborhood with my little round orange Panasonic radio providing an AM soundtrack to my every move. I was a Barbie fanatic, and had the townhouse, the plane, the boat, and 2 cars. Several generations of the latest Barbie were serviced by the same mod hair Ken. His sideburns were lost in the mists of time somewhere. Probably a good thing! I didn't know what it was that they "did", but they spent plenty of time doing it to my copies of "No Way to Treat a Lady" by Helen Reddy and "Paper Roses" by Marie Osmond. ;-)

I remember watching my brother washing his souped up Barracuda to "Do You Feel Like We Do," the year Frampton was everywhere.

When I hit junior high, our school spent a lot of time at Playland skating rink. I kept hoping Joe, the boy of my dreams, would ask to slow dance to "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb. I was so proud of my gauchos and my high wedge heels that my dad finally bought me because my mom wouldn't let me have.

My crushes included ALL of the Bay City Rollers (I was partial to Eric), John Travolta (if only I'd known), Andy Gibb, and Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson, of course! I can remember feeling "not quite so fresh" (even as a youngster)gazing at Barry Gibb in his little aviator jacket and silk scarf from the front cover of "Children of the World."

I loved Charlie's Angels. My friends and I used to play Charlie's Angels around their pool.

Things changed a lot for me in 1980. My dad died, and everything pretty much sucked after that. My brother had already moved out, so my mom found a boyfriend (a guy she'd dated in high school). He told her he was "in the process of getting a divorce." We moved to San Antonio to be closer to him, and became a "backstreet family" to his real one. For eight years. My memories of the 80s were not half as wonderful. I still have a special fondness for cheesy 80s music. It reminds me of when life was normal.

[hsher]

84. Sharon Tate OMG

Good heavens... that was the beginning of the "we're obsessed with this rich, thin glamorous girl in distress" thing in the media, as far as my memories go. That was the point I first noticed it, was with her. I still have a piece of videotape from a news show back then! She is getting off a plane and the reporters surround her and start chasing her. A guy here in ABQ who worked for a news station gave me this group of VHSes that have nothing but commercials from 1975-1978 on them. (As a Gen X'er, you can well imagine how I treasure THAT!)

Remember these?

1. Set in Kotter-type high school classroom, the students chew Freshen Up gum, feel it burst in their mouths, then sing: "I didn't know... this gum was load-eddddd!"

2. Neon yellow animation: "Let your fingers do the walking through the Bell Yellow Pages"

3. Orson Welles in an armchair, turning down Beethoven on his radio next to him, says, "We will sell no wine... before its time."

4. The young dark-haired guy, newly a lawyer having made the bar, takes his dad out to a restaurant so he can congratulate him. "Tonight with good friends... tonight is very special... tonighhhhht, tonighhhhhht... let it be Lowenbrau." (Jon Stewart has sung this one on The Daily Show.)

I had a poll up where I asked if Jon Stewart was a Gen X'er. Most people said no. Well then why does Jon Stewart obsessively make references back to these kinds of commercials? That's a Generation X trait! If he weren't one of us, HE WOULDN'T CARE!

[fudge stripe cookays]

91. Ha ha...Freshen Up gum!

Hadn't thought about THAT commercial in a long time.

The other night for Halloween, reprehensor wanted to watch "American Werewolf in London" because we hadn't seen it for awhile. He was blown away when I told him that David Naughton was the guy in the Dr/ Pepper commercials who was a Pepper, and ALSO that he sang "Makin It" and was in the short lived series. Who doesn't know THAT? :P

Anybody remember the one with the little kids for Cadbury Eggs that they show at Easter (sometimes, I think they still play it!) with the little kids in chicken costumes saying "Thanks Easter Bunny! Bock Bock!"

Or the ones with the Budweiser Clydesdales?

[hsher]

95. Bock! Bock!

Do you remember this though?

Marathon chocolate candy bars?
Adams Sour Grape and Adams Sour Apple chewing gums?
Chunky?
Sir Grapefellow breakfast cereal?

[fudge stripe cookays]

92. Argh.

Make that cheesy 70s music.

[Kickin_Donkey]

93. Born in 1962 ...

which is what Douglas Coupland would've considered Generation X (he was born in December 1961). Unlike the media distortion of Gen X as being those born, say, in the late 1970s and thus enjoyed the dot-com boom of the late '90s, Coupland's true GenXers grew up in the shadow of the Boomers, who were our older siblings or cousins. Our childhoods were during the Vietnam War, but we were too young to take part in the protests or really understand what was going on. I call us the Brady Bunch generation -- that is our iconic TV show, as was Howdy Doody is for the Boomers.

One of the main things I remember from my early childhood was the Vietnam War. It seemed like the world was consumed by it: Cronkite reading the KIA list at the end of each broadcast, bloody pictures of soldiers in Life Magazine, demonstrations, protests, Berkeley; I kept hearing the same names: Mekong Delta, Saigon, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh Trail, Cambodia, Viet Cong, Khmer Rouge. Up till that time, my whole life had been during the war was raging, so I thought constant war and antiwar protests were the normal state of things.

As a Generation Xer, I had a great childhood. I suppose every generation says this, but things were still simple for kids then. You collected baseball cards because you enjoyed it and wanted to get your favorite players, not because you were dealing in spec. As an elementary school student, you had little or no homework or books to carry home -- unlike the kids of today whose backs are deforming because of the 30 pounds of books they have to carry in backpacks. There were no video games, except for Pong or Atari late in the game. You had to use your imagination with toys -- building cities and houses with Lincoln Logs, Lego, Togl, Tinkertoys, blocks. Boys played sports, sports, sports ... during recess, lunch, after school, etc. Almost every boy in my town played Little League. In some things I think we got the best of both worlds: the order and predictability of the 1950s but also the progress and hope of the '70s -- we all still played Little League but now girls were breaking into the ranks. Church was not a big deal. Patriotism was not a big deal -- we used to make fun of the Pledge of Allegiance. Class, in my child's eye, did not exist.

I came from a middle-class family with a mother who stayed at home. In my memory there was an easygoing-ness and mellow-ness about the mid-'70s. Even before I read this thread, I'd always felt that 1975 was the perfect year. The civil rights battles had been fought and won (we thought). There were goofy pop songs like Kung Fu Fighters, The Streak, Monster Mash, Disco Duck, Bad Bad Leroy Brown. The breaking down of the '50s conformity and the rise of the counterculture trickled down to the middle class: Whole Earth catalog, recycling, Firefox, Sesame Street with its racial harmony and equality, "mixed marriages," ecology, ethnic food

Television shows that come to mind: Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Gilligan's Island, Six Million Dollar Man, Fantasy Island, Happy Days, One Day at a Time, MASH, The Jeffersons, Baretta, Rockford Files, Hawaii Five-O, Kojak, Columbo, Marcus Welby M.D., Rhoda, Emergency, Land of the Lost, Sanford and Son

Cultural items: Wacky Packages, CBS' In the News, POW bracelets, "Please don't squeeze the Sharmin," Howard Cosell, Farrah, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing," Shakey's Pizza, Straw Hat Pizza, Schwinn Sting-rays, Peanuts books, feathered hair-parted in the middle, bicentennial, Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs tennis match, Pele playing in the U.S., the Big Red Machine, Ali, puffy down jackets, our first calculator, big dinner parties with multiple families with kids, crappy Detroit cars, station wagons with faux wood paneling on the sides

Then it all ended. I went off to college in the fall of 1980, the same fall Reagan was elected.

[hsher]

98. Thank you, 1962, and also because...

You have finally settled what was a good-natured argument here on DU - whether Jon Stewart is a Generation X'er. I insisted he was, because Copeland, my humble self, and many other sources start Generation X at about 1961 or 1962, Stewart was born in 1962, and he shares many, MANY of our characteristics. Others, including a couple folks also born in 1962, politely disagreed. My soul never settled on that one. You were born in 1962, you consider yourself an X'er, you watched and experienced the same stuff I did the same time I did (I was born in 1968 and am an X'er), and to me, that settles it.

1962 is Generation X.
Jon Stewart is a Generation X'er just like I said. :7

Great memories. Consider 'em included.

[AllegroRondo]

94. born in 1970

TV with only 4 networks (if you count PBS), and no such thing as a remote control. Dialing in your reception with the little knobs.

My brothers and I would watch the Six Million Dollar Man, Dukes of Hazard, and the A Team. Cartoons only came on once a week, on Saturday morning, and there were weekly arguments over which ones to watch. The biggest day of the year was the second Saturday in September - the day all the new cartoons came out. It was like Christmas. Schoolhouse Rock was something to sing along with, we had no idea it was educational. How many adults today can only recite the preamble to the Constitution if they sing the song?

Big events - I remember the bicentennial, but not really understanding what it was all about (I was 5 at the time). Everything was red, white, and blue that year.
The first space shuttle launch happened when I was in grade school, and they brought TVs into the classroom so we could see it, and the landing.

Pop culture - the big toys (for us anyway) were micronauts, rubik's cube, legos, and Atari. Space Invaders and Pac Man were the most incredible games ever.
I remember when the Cabbage Patch crazy happened, and how my sister had to have one.
When I was 11, we discovered D&D, and our lives were changed. RPGs had just started getting big.

Yes, I generally enjoyed it. It wasnt perfect. We certainly didnt have an easy time, but I think we tend to remember the good parts and forget the hard parts.

[Lautremont]

100. 1970

The Seventies were a very interesting time to grow up in Canada. Because of Trudeau, and probably also thanks to Nixon, Vietnam and Watergate, the whole country was very interested in Not Being American. This meant defining and redefining our differences: principally that as a society we were a multicultural mosaic rather than a melting pot. For schoolchildren, this manifested itself in Canada-themed board games, a steady diet of NFB movies and intensive French immersion. All of this benefitted me in the long run, as today I'm very happy to be Canadian, have a respect for and interest in all sorts of cultures, and speak fairly fluent French.

I went to see Jaws at the age of five, and it blew my mind. Star Wars blew it again two years later, and Raiders of the Lost Ark again a few years after that. TV movies - the ABC Movie Of The Week and all the rest - were a big thing. I don't know what passes for Event TV these days (that disgusting OJ thing, maybe?), but it's got nothing on the Martian Chronicles mini-series. I wathced the Dukes of Hazzard until the day my dad strolled into the room, watched a few minutes of it without comment, then finally casually said "This is really stupid," before walking out. I watched a few minutes more of it, then decided he was right, and never watched it again.

Band On The Run was my first favourite song, if I recall correctly.

[xmas74]

102. 1974

Early years were ok. Played w/ Barbies, loved watching Scooby. Then along came the 80's.

Thanks to Reaganomics, plants shut down left and right. My dad was tool and diecast-no job. The largest employer in my hometown, American Motors, was purchased and shut down. We moved and often.

I remember spending more than my fair share of the time being the new kid in school, terrorized because I was new. I went from Barbies to Duran Duran to The Cure to Queensryche in the 80's. I started out the decade in floral skirts and clogs and ended it in heavy black mascara and bangs reaching for the sky, the stiffness of AquaNet sticking my fingers together.

I started the 80's as an innocent little girl and ended the 80's by being called a whore.

Does that explain it for you?

[Evoman]

107. The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin?

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

[MysticalChicken]

109. I think I'm too young...

...to be Gen X.

Born in 1979. I think I was born a year or two after the "cutoff" year.