Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Woe Is Me, Me, Me [Generation X/Reagan]
Newhouse News ^ | 4/20/2006 | Evelyn Theiss

Posted on 04/21/2006 11:54:15 AM PDT by Incorrigible

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-73 next last
So, it's the Baby Boomer's fault that kids today are messed up!
1 posted on 04/21/2006 11:54:17 AM PDT by Incorrigible
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible
They are brash and cynical. They believe they're entitled to quick financial and professional success. They're also lonely and anxious.

Take out the "brash" and "financial" part and I guess that's me.

2 posted on 04/21/2006 11:56:19 AM PDT by pcottraux (It's pronounced "P. Coe-troe.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible

Wait a minute, now "GenX" is only from the '70s up? What happened to the late '60s?

And I think it's funny she uses the epithet "Gen Me" when it was the sainted Hippies (some of the Baby Boomers) who came up with the epithet "the Me Generation" for those immediately after them coming of age in the '70s.

Proves to me the Hippies always get away with everything - including calling everyone else "Gen ME" while they themselves ironicaly ARE exactly that (despite this woman's claims).


And 1 other thing....I'm sick of this.....

....WE GEN X WEREN'T ALL RAISED BY HIPPIES!!!!! (Proud daughter of "Silent Gen".)


3 posted on 04/21/2006 11:59:09 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: qam1

ping


4 posted on 04/21/2006 12:09:17 PM PDT by kenth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the OlLine Rebel

My two gen X kids are doing very well, and I am proud of them.


5 posted on 04/21/2006 12:11:48 PM PDT by ClaireSolt (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible

Parents play a huge role in the development of a generation. I don't blame all boomers as my parents were boomers. They instilled in me a strong work ethic which has served me well. However, I saw lots of my peers being spoiled rotten and being handed everything on a silver platter. Now may of these spoiled children are moving back home since they can't achieve instant career success and buy a 3,000 sf home in a trendy area.

I made peanuts for my first 7 years out of college. My wife and I lived in cracker-box apartments for a time, and then finally purchased a very modest home. However, I gained great experience, and have reached a point in my career when I can now afford some of the things my parents have. It took me over 10 years, but that's made it all the more satisfying.


6 posted on 04/21/2006 12:12:48 PM PDT by VegasCowboy ("...he wore his gun outside his pants, for all the honest world to feel.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible
And when those me-focused children start making life care decisions for their boomer parents and the SocSec bonds start coming out of the lockbox requiring massive tax hikes to pay them off ... hoo boy!

Give up those dreams of using the equity in your home to afford a nice assisted living facility. Junior's gonna have other plans for you, starting with a search for Judge Greer, Jr., all the while muttering about your deteriorated quality of life. Think that "we're here for your liver" Monty Python skit was cute? How about if it played out "your quality of life has sunk below acceptable levels" "no, it hasn't! I'm perfectly happy" "no, sorry, that's it for you! Now where did you put that life insurance policy?"

7 posted on 04/21/2006 12:17:07 PM PDT by NonValueAdded ("Too soon to remember??? How about TOO SOON TO FORGET!" from Mr. Silverback)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the OlLine Rebel

Generation X
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Gen X)
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Generation X (disambiguation).
Generation X is a term for the generation of people born in the Western world (especially people born in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom) following the post-World War II baby boom generation. While the exact dates bounding this age demographic are highly debated, those born from the 1960s to the early 1980s are generally agreed-upon as possible members of this group. The term is used in demography, the social sciences, and marketing, though it is most often used in pojklkpular culture. The generation's influence over pop culture began in the 1980s and has only grown in the 1990s and 2000s.

Although the origins of the term "Generation X" go back at least as far as the early 1960s, it was popularized by Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, in which Coupland describes the angst of those born between roughly 1960 and 1965, who, while technically part of the Baby Boom Generation, feel no connection to its cultural icons. In Coupland's usage, the "X" of Generation X referred to the namelessness of a generation that was coming into an awareness of its existence as a separate group while at the same time feeling completely dwarfed and culturally overshadowed by the Baby Boomer generation of which it was ostensibly a part. The term Generation X has come to mean something else in popular usage (see below), having been appropriated by the generation following the Baby Boomers -- leaving Coupland's Generation X once again nameless. Generation X has also been described as a generation consisting of those people whose teen years were touched by the 1980s, although many who are considered part of this generation had their teenage years stretching into the 1990s.

Another common description of Generation X includes within it those people who grew up in a period of transition (1945–1990) beginning with the end of World War II and the decline of colonial imperialism and ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Thus, the transition between colonialism and globalization is thought to separate the Baby Boomers from the Baby Busters, a sub-generation of Generation X made up of the earliest born members.


8 posted on 04/21/2006 12:20:57 PM PDT by Icelander (Legal Resident Since 2004)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible
So, it's the Baby Boomer's fault that kids today are messed up!

Of course -- it is always somebody else's fault.

As a university professor, I found the following excerpts from the article to be especially interesting:

While students in earlier generations felt good about themselves when they accomplished something, now their self-esteem is high even if their performance is poor and they didn't put any effort into doing better, she says. . . .

Unrealistically high expectations might have been fueled by grade inflation in high school, Twenge says. Nearly half of students who were college freshman in 2004 had an A average, compared with 18 percent in 1968, according to a report by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. That occurred even as SAT scores declined over the years, and far fewer students reported studying six hours a week.

The self-esteem movement certainly has a lot to answer for. So do the colleges and universities, which have let standards fall so far.

9 posted on 04/21/2006 12:23:45 PM PDT by Logophile
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible

Many good things in this article. First, I am considered a generation X because I was born in 1969, but the article says that the complainers started in 1970 so I guess I am safe from that...
Second, my parents are boomers (born in 1946) and I think they did a splendid job on us three. I am 37, my brother will be 35 and my sister is 33. I have three kids, my sister has three kids and my brother has not had any children yet because I don't think his wife can have them. I have been married for 12 years, my sister 10 years, and my brother for 7 years. My parents are going to be married 39 years this year. So don't worry about what they say about baby boomers. You guys did a great job.


10 posted on 04/21/2006 12:25:22 PM PDT by napscoordinator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: napscoordinator

Stop being so nice to Baby Boomers! I love the smell of Boomer bashing in the morning!


11 posted on 04/21/2006 12:29:06 PM PDT by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible
The one thing that will always separate us Gen-X'ers from other generations is that we are the first generation to grow up in broken homes.

How that can be left out of the study is beyond me.

Also, the first generation where God was kicked out of the schools, abortion was legal and glorified, among other things.

12 posted on 04/21/2006 12:30:56 PM PDT by yellowdoghunter (I sometimes only vote for Republicans because they are not Democrats....by Dr. Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: VegasCowboy

What?

What you did was "delay gratification" and well, that just isn't going to work now.

Today, I can take a pill to be happy. I can sue someone to be rich. I can eat what I want and have surgery to clean up the mess. I can sleep with who ever I want. I can wear my pants around my knees and complain about being judged. I don't need to work. After 12 years of school I can't speak English or balance a check book. I don't want to be responsible. Did I mention I have to take a pill to be happy?


13 posted on 04/21/2006 12:32:55 PM PDT by mad puppy ( Freeper SirChas: you will be missed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: kenth; ItsOurTimeNow; PresbyRev; tortoise; Fraulein; StoneColdGOP; Clemenza; m18436572; ...
Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.

14 posted on 04/21/2006 12:39:31 PM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: yellowdoghunter

Exactly. Would we "need" 20 million illegal alians working in the USA if 40 million of GenX hadn't been aborted?


15 posted on 04/21/2006 12:42:57 PM PDT by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: NonValueAdded
And when those me-focused children start making life care decisions for their boomer parents and the SocSec bonds start coming out of the lockbox requiring massive tax hikes to pay them off ... hoo boy!

Give up those dreams of using the equity in your home to afford a nice assisted living facility. Junior's gonna have other plans for you, starting with a search for Judge Greer,

Dearest Junior,

All of our finances are locked up tighter than a drum and you have access to none of it. You never made it into the will and a power-of-attorney has taken away any diabolical decisions you thought were going to be yours to make. Kiss it goodbye, Junior.

Love & kisses,
Mom and Dad

P.S. We always did like your sister better than you.

16 posted on 04/21/2006 12:43:01 PM PDT by DumpsterDiver
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible

Bingo.


17 posted on 04/21/2006 12:46:49 PM PDT by SquirrelKing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible
Exactly. Would we "need" 20 million illegal alians working in the USA if 40 million of GenX hadn't been aborted?

I know. It hurts my heart to think about it. So many children who never even got a chance in this great country of ours.

18 posted on 04/21/2006 12:47:57 PM PDT by yellowdoghunter (I sometimes only vote for Republicans because they are not Democrats....by Dr. Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible

Stop being so nice to Baby Boomers! I love the smell of Boomer bashing in the morning!


LMAOROTF.


19 posted on 04/21/2006 12:48:48 PM PDT by napscoordinator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Incorrigible
"If you spend your life in a bubble-wrap of feel-good self-esteem, the real world is going to come as a rude shock,"

Image hosting by Photobucket

20 posted on 04/21/2006 12:53:24 PM PDT by Centurion2000 (Every man must be tempted, sometimes,to hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-73 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson