all i can say is, Gen Xers need to grow up. Falling between the Gen X and Baby boomers, at least philosophically, leaves you in an even worse position, you belong NO WHERE. but as the OLDEST child, i guess i am secure enough not to need approbation from the media or anyone else : )
An excerpt:
Some have suggested that Generation Xers are proud to not be from the baby boom generation and actively rebel against the idealism the baby boomers advocated in the 1960s. Some would also argue that it is not merely the idealism of the 1960s which Generation Xers are rejecting, but a deeper cynicism of the fact that such "idealism", inevitably doomed in its gratuitous naïveté, so quickly gave way to an era unequivocally focused on commercial and industrial progress; a period which incubated many of the problems facing their, and coming, generations. They fantasize about how the 1960s and 1970s supposedly offered Boomers easy sex without consequence while resenting the lasting damage done by an era in which they now realize they were the babies adults were trying so much not to have.
Other people born in the described time period reject the labels as not particularly useful, and point to social class, geography, and other factors having far more influence than chronology. The fuzzy boundaries of Generations X and Y give some credence to this argument; though perhaps, more obviously, such facts underwrite the very problem central to the definition of Generation X, and alluded to in the title itself—namely a crisis of identity.
The problem may be that this generation lacks a core. While Boomers couldn't escape their generational center, Xers struggle to find one. Generation X is the most immigrant generation born in the twentieth century.
Generation X has survived a hurried childhood of divorce, latchkeys, space shuttle explosions, open classrooms, devil-child movies, and a shift from G to R ratings. They came of age curtailing the earlier rise in youth crime and fall in SAT test scores -- yet heard themselves denounced as so wild and stupid as to put The Nation At Risk. As young adults, maneuvering through a sexual barricade of AIDS and blighted courtship rituals, they date and marry cautiously. In jobs, they embrace risk and prefer free agency to loyal corporatism. Politically, they lean toward pragmatism and nonaffiliation. Sometimes criticized as "slackers", they nevertheless were widely credited with a new growth of entreprenuership and the resulting dot-com boom.
The really freaky think is the devil-child movie thing. I never realized until i read '13th-gen' just how anti-child most of American society was in the late 60s and throughout the 70's. Looking back, I do remember restaurants without high chairs, adults-only apartment complexes, and the like. We were the first generation whose parents took pills not to have. And hollywood subconsciously viewed us as evil (see devil-child link above).
No wonder so many of us are messed up. And no, xsm, I don't blame you personally.
Just don't splatter me with that paint brush!