I come here now to read AT articles. Their controlled comment section is unmanageable.
Not if they were born in the first decade of the period. I was born in 1966, and the first time I used a computer was as a senior in high school in 1984.
I’m glad I’m an Xer. Boomers began the destruction of the country. Millennials will finish it off. Two of the worst self absorbed groups ever.
The wife and I joke about this frequently. Neither of us gives a s@#$, we don’t panic, we tell other people off when needed, take care of our own s@#$, don’t take handouts, and for the most part societal criticisms leave us unscathed (other than straight-white-male-isms).
I’m a little too old to be in Gen X. But I like Gen X better than the Baby Boomers, on the whole.
They were also known as latch-key kids and MTV was decent during their youth.
“But if we want advice on saving world, I think there are some people we forgot to ask. The “In Between” generation. Maybe because their label has been so obscured, none of us were paying attention when they pressed those wicked little buttons, when they fired up the machine and took the levers of control, when they put the Millennium Falcon into hyperdrive and blasted through the universe. We need to visit their tucked-away offices and take counsel with the people really running things. They are old enough to know what’s right and still young enough to fight for it. But walk softly and beware the silent partner. She is always smart — and always dangerous.”
This.
Quiet perhaps livid for certain
All four of our kids are Gen X-ers. The article is spot on.
As a Generation Xer, I can sit down, relax, and watch the Boomers, Millenials, and Generation Z tear each other apart.
Older Gen X-er here. I thought we had it better than any other generation. Went to high school in the Reagan years. Young enough to savor the best decade of the post-WW2 era. Old enough to remember the tough times of the 1970s, so we didn’t let the 1980s spoil us. I honestly think my peers were the most balanced, level-headed people I’ve ever known.
I am a boomer and my wife is an Xer. She is an educated professional and she hates Trump with a passion.
To quote The Ox, “I ain’t quiet, everybody else is too loud!”
Born in January 1965, I’m one of the very first X’ers. This article rings true in many areas. Got my first taste of computers in the late 70’s, had to learn on my own in the mid eighties working in the accounting department of Union Bay Sportswear. At the time we all got Macs and had to figure it out on our own. Lotus 123, FUN TIMES!
Well. My kids have normal names. And I would kick their behinds if they took part in an asinine “protest”. Get your behind to work, and quit whining, is my general response to all my kids.
Bookmarked for later viewing.
X mostly got hammered by the great recession in their prime earning years and the boomer generation that would not get out of their way.
Boomers just raised hell in the 60s and 70s but it was the Silent and Greatest Generations in charge that were running the show at the time that set the scene for the mess we are in now. Boomers have simply followed the plan of wreck and ruin of traditions and fiscal responsibility and big gooberment that was established starting with Roosevelt, enhanced by LBJ, a Greatest Generation, and simply continued by others. Now though the aging boomers have introduced undisguised communism or flat socialism and racism to sustain power and grow it. Boomers didn’t actually make the mess we are in but the egged it on and watched it happen and then are willing participants.
I think the only thing Boomers have done is be self-absorbed, raise the Millennials and X, make software and internet commerce, make money and get all woke or something. Not sure since I lived in a near conservative insular bastion of the oilfield so it is hard for me to even see the rest of the Boomer Generation let alone understand them. For 40 years we were too busy either head down and butt up in a boom cycle or head down and butt up trying to survive a bust cycle. I didn’t look up a lot and survived it all.
If Strauss and Howell are correct the Millennials are the “hero” generation that are supposed to save us from whatever crisis is to befall us in this Fourth Turning. I remain to be convinced Millennials are any kind of hero generation or what exactly they will save us from.
If you read Strauss and Howell the pegs in their thesis fall into place pretty well so I am standing by anxiously to find out if the crisis has hit and we missed it or what is to come. My son is a Millennial. I think he is able to be a “hero” certainly smart enough, has work ethic enough but I wonder how motivated he is since he does not use all he has and seems uninterested in anything but getting by.
They are the “too old to be young and too young to be old” generation. Fried Green Tomatoes is on and that is Evelyn’s problem. The Menopause Generation.