Posted on 09/07/2004 8:49:33 AM PDT by qam1
Group called slackers embraces family
In the 1990s they were derided as cynical slackers. They were mocked in pop culture as lazy, selfish types who would rather spend their time moping in overpriced coffee shops than moving into adulthood.
But Generation X is all grown up now - and having children.
And when reality finally did bite the 60 million Americans born between 1965 and '79, they didn't react as might be expected. Gen-Xers are embracing family life with a vigor not seen in baby-boomers.
Generation-X includes more stay-at-home dads, fathers working from home and dads cutting back long hours than previous generations, say analysts.
Gen-X moms are distinguishing themselves from baby-boomers by embracing traditional roles. Though they're more college-educated than any previous generation, more Generation-X moms than boomers are staying home or working part time.
Xers' focus on home life shows up in several more parenting trends: they make financial sacrifices in exchange for family time; they're increasingly discipline-oriented; and they let their kids just have fun.
In part this is a reaction to their background, say sociologists. Their childhood was a time of personal and political upheaval. Xers were the first generation with large numbers raised in broken homes. Almost one-third had divorced parents, compared with 13 percent of boomers, according to the Yankelovich research analysis firm. Nearly half of all Xers had working moms. Before they were labeled slackers, they were latchkey kids.
Now Generation-Xers have become homebodies. And they're raising more than half of all children under 18 in the United States, some 40 million kids.
Fathers more involved
Three years ago, Ellen Barrett, program director for the Heights Parent Center, noticed more men coming to the Cleveland Heights gathering Place.
"In the last three years, we've really had a surge of dads, and not just dads who happen to have the day off or who are home on vacation," she says.
The center now has a busy father's play group with about 40 members, most in their late 20s to mid 30s, that meets several times a month.
The last decade has brought significant changes in the roles of fathers, says James Chung, president of Boston-based Reach Advisors. The company recently released the first major study on Generation X parenting. Titled "From Grunge to Grown Up," it surveyed 3,020 Gen-X and baby boom parents nationwide.
According to the study, 48 percent of Gen-X fathers spend three to six hours per week on child rearing, versus 39 percent of boomer dads. Forty-seven percent of Xers wish they could spend more time with their children, compared to 36 percent of boomers.
The number of stay-at-home dads has jumped 18 percent since 1994, to 189,000 in 2002, according to the Census Bureau.
For Parma resident John Benson, 35, and wife Maria, 36, the decision to swap roles was a financial one. As a writer, Benson could work from home while taking care of their 1- and 3-year-old sons, unlike his wife, who works in accounting.
But the choice was also based on his childhood.
"I was a latchkey kid, and I don't want my kids to be latchkey kids," he says.
That's a common denominator among many Gen-X parents.
"Gen-Xers grew up in the aftermath of a time of much social upheaval, in an era of rapidly increasing divorce rates and mothers rapidly re-entering the work force," says Chung. "Some of them want to raise their families different from the way they grew up."
Bernard Carl Rosen, professor emeritus of sociology at Cornell University and author of "Masks and Mirrors: Generation X and the Chameleon Personality," says it's not just family history that's influencing Xers.
"Generation X is far more insecure than boomers. Their family situation was a bad one, the economy was not in good shape when they were growing up, they've seen a lot of betrayal by politicians. The world they grew up in felt very fragile."
But mom still the anchor
When one parent does stay at home, it's still more often the mother. What's different is that though there are now more college-educated women among Xers, there also has been an increase in mothers staying at home and working part time.
Census figures found that 10.6 million children under 15 in two-parent homes were being raised by stay-at-home moms in 2002, a 13 percent increase from the previous decade.
Twenty-five percent of Gen-X moms spend 12-plus hours a day on child rearing, according to Reach, more than double that of boomer moms. (Even when boomer children were as young as the Xers' kids, moms spent less time with them, says Chung.)
Cleveland Heights stay-at-home mom Andrea Lynn, 32, says she had long planned to quit working as a librarian when she had children. A past nanny job helped make up her mind.
"I saw what the working two-parent household was like and I didn't want that," says the mother of a 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. "It's too hard to have everything."
Many women are coming to that conclusion.
The number of professional women working part time - by choice - has risen 17 percent from 1994, to 2.9 million according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In part, this is due to the fact that Gen-Xers feel less loyalty to one company than past generations did. Women today also don't feel like they have to prove themselves as much as boomers did - it's a given they can have a career if they want it.
"I knew working full time wasn't going to work out after the birth of my third child," says Bay Village resident Amy Hannum, 33, mother of a 7-year-old son and 5- and 3-year-old daughters. She works three days a week as a development writer at Oberlin College. "I wanted balance in my life."
Hannum plans to return to work full time when her youngest enters school, a career path similar to many Gen-X moms'. Only 16 percent of stay-at-home moms will not consider returning to work, says the Reach survey.
"Now there are more options for women," explains Chung.
Discipline returning
Choice comes with a price.
"I told my husband that even if we had to give up a car, I wanted to stay home," says Lynn. "He was very supportive."
Willingly making financial sacrifices is a common Gen-X parenting trait, notes Chung. But the cuts are aimed at parents, not children.
There is, however, one thing for their kids that they seem to be cutting back on: the permissiveness of many baby-boomer parents.
"A lot of boomer parents think they have to be friends and buddies with their kids," says Hannum. "A lot of Generation X parents have a good time with kids but have clear boundaries that they are the parents.
Adds Lynn, "You owe it to your kids to teach them how to behave and to have manners. I really believe in limits for kids."
For many, that includes lighter extracurricular schedules.
"There's less demand for enrichment activities" among Gen-X parents, says Chung. "The attitude is more 'let the kids be kids.' " ."
Such attitudes are natural for Gen-Xers, explains Rosen.
"They are very sensitive to other people's needs," he says. "To the boomer, the world was more or less fashioned to his or her needs, and that included children. I think Generation-X will make better parents than boomers."
Yep, and so is Rush.
(And me, too!)
"The boomers are Woodstock, Watergate and Haight-Asbury. Its LSD and Timothy Leary, its the Berrigan Brothers and Howard Zinn, most of us werent even alive (really we were babies when these nuts were hitting their stride.)"
I wasn't a baby during this time, I turned 13 in 1970, but still, I didn't understand what all the protests were about. The people partaking in these events were college students and they seemed AGES older than me. I did know though, that my father, Marine of Korea era) was angry about what the students were doing and saying. I remember being happy when the soldiers came home, but mostly just because I was concerned for their safety (a neighbors boy had been injured quite badly.) I dnd't understand all the anger directed at the soldiers returning, and believe it or not, the teachers in my public school never addressed it,one way or another.
Just keep telling yourself that and go back to sleep.
Spent all your days escaping to the office, did you?
Growing up means taking responsibility, including the decision whether your dollars are worth more to your family than your time and attention.
There's room to disagree on that score.
Before the women of Gen X reach menopause, something needs to be done to promote having more children. The Boomer effect will be like "Groundhog Day" - the Boomlet are largely chips off the old block and if they don't reform, they will further propagate the madness. Gen X needs to doubly replace itself, averaging 4 plus kids per couple and then some, to account for the barren. Adopting from other countries can also help.
Have 3 or four more.
If you can, have or adopt more kids. Our values need to be propagated. There are 70 plus million Boomlet kids, who are chips of the hippy block. Our offspring need to be more numerous than we are.
It is wonderful you have been blessed with three. May they live long, be fruitful and multiply!
You are truly blessed!
While it may sound harsh, it is going to happen. There is no avoiding it. Anyone now over 50 who believes that the welfare state will or should help them (or should do anything at all beyond what it did 150 years ago) is truly deluded. I pray for their souls.
During the 1960s the subversion (directed by the KGB) was naturally, of the college students and the inner city blacks. We all know what happened then.
I was lucky. I just happened to go to some of the last schools that used corporal punishment. SWATTTTTT! [any questions?]
This sounds just like my Gen-X family. Thing about it is, I am completely unsurprised by this. The era in which we grew up was about a rebirth in traditional values (mostly under Reagan). It also doesn't surprise me that the "experts" completely missed it...again.
This Gen Xer does not intend to have any kids. Society is sick, getting sicker and one in which I don't intend to raise children in.
All I can say is, don't forget to vote. You are the salt of the earth, the classic flyover Boomers. Too bad there are so few of you.
They are still stuck in the "Thirtysomething" mentality (FYI, I really hated that show!.....)
I had the same thought after 9/11 when my wife and I were discussing having a second child. We asked ourselves why we would want to bring children into a world where people do these sorts of things. After some reflection, I decided that people like us are exactly the ones who should be having kids otherwise it will only get worse.
"Discipline returning".
Gen Xers like myself have probably read the book: "The Epidemic. The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children." By Robert Shaw.
Excellent book, I devoured it.
Yep...my X'er is a great Mom!!!
If you narrow your focus to those who have wealth, influence and power, the generational definitions make more sense. The 60s counterculture essentially run the world now. Even the so called "conservatives" among them, in the halls of power, are far to the Left of even some Democrats of the 1950s. Walking as I do, literally in the heavy wake of the Boomers (born, '62) I have made a career of cleaning up after their messes. The only difficulty has been just the sheer amount of career competition - I always have many people, 10 - 30 years older than me, competing against me directly. I just makes me get even better.
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