What are your opinions of the Baby boomers, Gen X and Gen Y? Why?

[coloradodem2005]

[Jamastiene]

1. Gen X got Clinton elected.

Need I say more? Well, okay, I'll admit it. Maybe the first Bush was right to call us "slackers". We DID lay down on the job during the 2000 election cycle. Hence, The Return Of Bush in stupid form. Sorry, folks. I voted against the idiot twice. I did my part. Where the hell the rest of GenX was in 2000 and 2004, I couldn't tell ya.

[coloradodem2005]

2. I was born in 1979.

And I am considered by most to be an X-er, albiet a late one and I did vote for Gore in 2000, but couldn't vote for Clinton, even in 1996.

[Jamastiene]

4. Okay...

I hope you didn't vote for the first Bush...

[coloradodem2005]

6. What you talkin about? I wasn't old enough to do so.

I voted for Clinton in both mock elections in school.

[Jamastiene]

8. I was joking.

I forgot to put the smily up because I have so much going on at once right now on my computer (it's an antique), plus the fan over the processor is making so much noise I can't even hear myself think. I'm sorry. I meant to put a :D behind it. Of course, you didn't vote Bush.

[politicat]

9. was right there voting beside you.

The 96 was the first presidential election I could vote in and I was so excited. I despised bush elder, and honestly, I think I voted as much for Hillary Clinton as I did for Bill. I learned to love Bill, but I wanted Hillary in the White House.

Still do, but not yet.

As for the Boomers.... I'm not fond of them in general; I think they have a tendency to reinvent themselves every few years and selectively forget as a group that which they did and want to deplore in their children, such as drug use, sex, divorce, serial monogamy, consumer culture, and lack of family values. It's not that Gen X (of which I am solidly a member) did not learn from their (Boomer) mistakes - we did - it's that we did not learn from their mistakes the way they wanted us to. For example: the Boomers boinked their brains out in the late 60s and 70s, and paid the price, in illegal abortions, adoption homes, early pregnancies, the ostracism of homosexuality and STDs. Then AIDS came along, and it scared the Boomers a lot.

So we X'ers grow up with safe sex pounded into our heads from the earliest of days, and most of us practiced it until monogamy set in and the tests came back. This is how we handled sex, along with the Pill and various forms of non-procreative sex. We also accepted homosexuality far better than the Boomers ever did. We're still not perfect, but we aren't nearly as bad as the boomers. But in essence, what we did as a generation was look at the problem and solve it rationally and without a great deal of emotional investment in the solution. The Boomers, however, had a great deal of emotional investment, and could not see that our solution worked for us, and condemned anything other than the opposite of what they'd done (boinking their brains out) as socially irresponsible. If you look closely, it's Boomers behind every abstinence only program out there, and Boomers who tended to freak out most about the idea of teens having sex.

Are we, as a generation, better than the Boomers? Not especially. We have a dysfunctional relationship with technology, in that we love it, but have difficulty not finding the cheap, technological fixes when the real solutions are much deeper; we have a poor relationship with authority, in part because we see authority (in the form of the Boomers) as hypocritical; we were the last generation to really get a decent public school education, and the first to require a college education and still did not get enough science, math or history. However, as a whole, we are less frantic than the Boomers, more introspective, and less concerned with what others think of us. I think those are good traits for a generation to have.

Unfortunately, I fear that we X'ers are in the same place as the Lost Generation of the 20s, in that we had a grand future and much potential that was subverted by disaster before we had a chance to really use it. The recession of the early 90s hurt a lot of us, as did the Depression. Regaining our voice will not be easy, if it's even possible.

[fleabert]

10. well said, from a slightly older Gen X'er...

btw: I helped Clinton by voting for Perot (my first election), I really did like him, then he went a little bonkers. I became older and wiser and voted for clinton in then next one. i also got to vote against shrub in TX, I voted for Ann Richards! woo-hoo! (how different the world would be if she had won that year!)

I remember when the Generation X label was given to us, it was because we couldn't be pinned down on anything...I think.

[redacted]

29. Originally Genx was defined

----as people born in the 60's. They are not the children of boomers. There are not too many of them -- that was the whole point, it was a drop in the number of babies born another "lost generation."

[coloradodem2005]

14. You've hit a lot of how I feel right on the head.

[coloradodem2005]

16. Actually, I was more hurt by the Bush economy of the 2000's...

...than by the 90's recession. Some of the older ones may have taken a much bigger hit by that recession.

[politicat]

24. Yep. I could not find even a McJob when I got to university

in 92. If the University had not realized how bad the situation was and created a lot of make-work, WPA, work-study programs for students, there would have been a lot of homeless, literally starving students. As it was, a lot of us ended up doing some of the weirdest work-study I've ever come across. But that extra $600 a month made the difference for a lot of us.

[JVS]

3. The outside is looking in, but we're the sluts and we hate everyone!

[coloradodem2005]

5. Who. Us X-ers?

[JVS]

7. G.G Allin and the Murder Junkies!

[CanuckAmok]

11. What the fuck made you say that?

speaking of non-sequiturs!

[JVS]

20. It's how I felt on the inside

[cassandra uprising]

18. sitting in this room

dark and gloom

four walls look like me to be

heeelll

:yourock: JVS

thanks for bringing me back.

[JVS]

22. Ooooh in this room, with my needle and my spoon, all by myself..

I'm making love to myself in this room.


Sitting in this room
sucks so bad
sucks so bad
I want to die!

GG was an inspiration to us all!

Glad to have brought you back!

[UdoKier]

12. Boomers: Most selfish generation of all time

Self-absorbed and almost infantile in their neurotic desire top pamper themselves. Almost all of them are divorced, because they don't have any of the forbearance that got their parents through the depression.


My generation, Gen X, was the first to be raised expecting LESS improvements in their quality of life than those of their parents. We are also fairly self-absorbed and spoiled, but I think the jury is still out on whether we will end up as cynically self-serving as the boomers have turned out to be. They started out idealistic, but sold out their ideals at the drop of a hat. Most of us Xers started out pretty cynical, but some of us have started to want to do more.


As for Gen Y. I have no idea. Don't know anybody in that age bracket very well. Are they even adults?

[BBradley]

13. I turned 18 last September and cast my first vote for Kerry.

So Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're adults. =)

[SmileyBoy]

21. I'm supposedly Gen-Y, and I'm 22.

Born in 1982.

[Lilith Velkor]

30. Next to the so-called "Greatest Generation," that is

They popped out kids like there was no tomorrow. Thanks to them, there probably won't be.

[Abelman]

15. Neither

Millenials are where it's at!

[Bridget Burke]

17. Categories that lack a lot of meaning.

Not all Boomers were hippies who turned into yuppies. Not all Gen X-ers are whiny slackers.

[ismnotwasm]

19. I agree

I'm at the tail end of the baby boomers. Personally, I've always thought naming "generations" a media ploy. There is probably some relavent psychological element, since we are the parents of the next generation, who will be the parents of the next generations, etc. Even as a little girl, though, I wanted to be old enough to be a hippie, and take part in a revolution. To change the world. That part of me has never changed. So I admire all ages of folks who stand for something, and get involved, who care. Don't bother to caterigize them, usually.

[Withywindle]

25. Thank you!

Not real big on the social-astrology thing.

Anyway, I'm solidly Gen-X--born in 1969 to Boomer parents, who were not having kids in huge numbers when they were that young. Part of our alleged "malaise" was supposed to stem from the fact that there were so relatively few of us compared to the Boomers, and we were born during "tumultuous" times that supposedly scared people out of having babies or something.

Frankly my fashionable early-90s "malaise" had a lot more to do with being right out of college, making $5 an hour, getting food stamps, and sharing a two-bedroom apartment with four other people. (Don't get me started on "grunge fashion" and thrift shops.)

(For the record, my first Presidential election was '88. I've voted in every single one, and always for the Democrat. I loved the 90s because it was so much fun to win for a change!)

[ariesgem]

27. I was born in 63

I found out from a poster from another thread with a similar topic that tail-enders like us are labeled "Generation Jones".

http://www.generationjones.com/files/contents.htm

Here's a few snips from their site about "defining" the generations

>>>>

The predictable cycle of one generation's fringe style becoming the mainstream style of the next generation is visual illustration of the existence of Generation Jones. Fashion history tells us there had to be a separate generation between the Boomer hippie fringe and today's Xer mainstream.

>>>>

Mainstream Boomers dressed in a traditional, straight style. The tie-dyed, bell-bottomed, long-haired(men and women), etc. look was the province of the small(but highly visible) Boomer hippie counterculture.

This hippie style became the mainstream look of Jonesers. Generation Jones had two main fringe subcultures—punk and rap. The main common denominator of punk and rap was a sense of pastiche—the mixing together of seemingly disparate styles.


This became the dominant fashion ethos of Xers. Not just the ascendance of body piercings, tattoos, etc., but an overall sense of sartorial anarchy, the "anything goes" pastiche in contrast to the mainstream look of Jonesers.

>>>>

Boomers are mostly the offspring of The World War II Generation, Jonesers are mostly the offspring of The Silent Generation, and Xers are mostly the offspring of the Boomers.



Many thanks to the poster that refered me to that site. It brought back alot of memories. :-)

[Left Is Write]

23. I agree also.

I was born in 1966, about two years too late to be a tail-end Boomer. By the definition of the Baby Boomers (those born 1945 to 1964), my two older sisters are Boomers, but do not identify with that label.

I'm supposed to be a Gen X-er, but I have never identified with most of the characeristics of the so-called X-ers. I find the labels pretty meaningless.

[Arugula Latte]

26. '66 here as well.

I feel exactly the same as you. I've never identified with either generation. Too young for one, too old for the other. Oh well.

[Rabrrrrrr]

28. Gen X rocks! Boomers are self-absorbed me-mentality whinging

yuppie fucks. Just like a mix of the worst of that awful show "30 something" and the elitist, buffoonish barely redeeemable people of "Sideways".

Gen X, though, is just plain awesome! Smart people, see the bullshit and the bankruptcy of the boomer selfish "me me me" generation, have equivalently good music, and have a much stronger sense of volunteerism and less obsession (overall) with things (though they are deficient in an unhealthy obsession with certain things, like using cell phones in the classroom and playing videogames at inappropriate times).

[Bridget Burke]

33. So--everything you know you learned from TV.

The characters of "Sideways" are too young to be Boomers....

Do you know any actual PEOPLE?

[Rabrrrrrr]

34. I also paint with a very broad brush and making sweeping generalizations

which is especially humorous given the fact that I haven't even seen the movie "Sideways".

I just felt like ranting.

Boomers really can be self-absorbed "me me me" blowhards, though.

[Lilith Velkor]

31. Boomers suck, Gen X rules, Gen Y drools

Because I said so! (I'm so fucking mature.) :P

[Jamastiene]

32. I agree. All the way n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

35. I think you summed it up perfectly!

Gen X is like The Great Generation. We (Gen X) witnessed first-hand the spoiled bankruptcy of the Great Generation's children - the boomers - and decided not to go that route.

[marions ghost]

36. The "schism" between

Boomers and the generations that follow has been promoted shamelessly and artificially in the media. (As we all know) characterization of groups is tricky territory. Generalizations can be so easily deconstructed. With the state that our country is in at the moment, it would be advantageous for these 3 generations to find commonality, at least in opposing the current regime. The powers that be would prefer that there be no inter-generational solidarity.

I wish somebody would write a book showing the pitfalls of sharply dividing populations into generational groups (maybe it's been done). Of course there will be differences, and to a certain extent you would want subsequent generations to try to improve things. But the time span we do share is so short, why promote negativity and distrust between generations? If anyone sees any advantage to generational schisms, please reply.