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."
We boomers grew up before people realized that a cadre of socialist ideologues was subverting the schools deliberately aiming to break the transmission of culture to the next generation and substitute their own. I can remember when even suggesting this was going on was enough to get you labeled "lunatic fringe". They tried to keep it under wraps in the Sixties, but these days, it's right out front and on parade.
You Xers, knowing instinctively that something precious has been lost, have now set yourselves well on the way to recovering it.
ping
Great article.
I'll be the half of the couple who has the much higher earning potential, but in a field where I cannot consult or otherwise work at home. Meanwhile my husband will be more able to work part time from home. It may not be possible for when we plan to have our first child, but good daycare is just so expensive for multiple kids that we will do our hardest to let him be a stay at home dad when we're blessed with children.
We both are at the tail end of Gen-X, both from loving, intact families where both parents worked. I don't feel as if daycare was detrimental to me...I think it's sad that sometimes people assume that daycare is a horrid experience. There are really good centers around here, but they come at a steep price. So for us, it's really a financial consideration rather than a philosophical one.
I respectfully disagree. I think it is common for children to rebel a bit against their parents' values -- and they often gravitate to the values held by their grandparents. See the book "The Fourth Turning" for interesting generational studies of America.
Cool! This is me, too. 35 years young (stay-at-home) mom to 5 month old twins...
As a Baby Boomer who never felt like one (born in "55), I, too,
grew up a latch-key kid in the '60's.
Today, I'm a stay at home, homeschooling mom who feels she fits in better with Xers than any of the boomers I know.
I had thought this might happen with the generation of kids who grew up the way I did. Glad to see my hunch was right.
Parents who have not grown up as a lacth-key kid, have no idea what it is like.
I still remember when my daughter was little and I would drive past day care centers, I would just cry. All of those kids who will grow up knowing mom and dad had better things to do than be with them.
Good grief.
The Nintendo Generation of couch potatoes are beginning to replicate.
When are the parents of these Gen-X slackers ever going to kick 'em out of the nest???
add me to the ping list....great article
Also the way that all my "X'er" friends are much more conservative than our parents were is encouraging.
Yup, that is me as well. I'm also 34--my hubby is 8 yrs older, but he grew up in a traditional family situation--no divorce and youngest of seven children.
Your point is well taken - kids are naturally rebellious as they become increasingly independent.
I should have been a little more clear - I think its generally true that adults tend to mimic their parents' values.
Carolyn
Anyway, I'm thrilled to see this trend being documented. There is always hope...
The future looks good, Obviously good parents = good kids -- See It's the morning after in America this looks like it's going to be a long term trend
And to those that are complaining that we should all get off our butts and go to work - it just reinforces what this article is saying. We have different priorities - to us, family is more important than a fat check. Back to basics.
I would also like to point out that I recently read an article here about how youth these days actually respect their parents. I happen to have a 13 year old and can attest that, as strange as it may sound, my son falls into that category with ease. It seems to me in my feeble mind that paying attention to kids and giving them a strong upbringing actually may have payoffs in the long run.
I see too many generalities in the article. It seems some people presume a status or condemn groups of people just because of the date on their birth certificate. A lot of it is contrived anyhow. I think the only significant difference is between the kids that were raised up pre TV and post TV. My brother was born in '41. His generation seemed generally better adjusted than my group born in the late 1950s. The kids born in the 60s, 70s and 80s shared with my age group the deleterious effects of the overpowering popular culture. The big difference between the kids of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s were superficial like what no-talent popular musician was being forced upon us or what ugly clothing style was afflicting our particular age. This Generation X, Q and Z garbage sociology is just a reflection of a people with too much time on their hands.
Ah yes, that may be the article I was recalling. Bravo X-ers! Keep up the good work!
That's why so many of us Gen-X young'ens are having only 1 parent work and getting by on less income -- We're making less money so there's less to tax and redistribute to old fogies and we're also waiting for enough of the baby boomers to die off or become senile so we can vote your socialist security, mediscare, prescription drug crap all right out from under you. Isn't majority rule wonderful?
I second that sentiment. I'm an X'er with two kids. The company I work for is far less important than the two of them. I don't see the same sentiment in boomers (as a group, since there are some great boomers among them).
This confirms my observations. I'm the parent of two Boomers and one Gen Xer. The differences between them are stunning. The Boomers are selfish, arrogant, condescending, liberals who refused to have children. The GenXer is loving, generous and just became a father. I'm watching him with his baby and I'm amazed at his ability to care for her. The grandmas on both sides have stepped in to help her working Mom (teacher)by staying with the baby so she won't be raised by strangers. My son lives over his photography studio and is right near if he is needed. I see evidence of better parenting from the Genxers all around me. I say God bless em.
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