Dear Boomers - an open letter from a GenXer

[Taverner]

Hey guys and gals!

Honestly, I never bought the Boomer v GenX BS. You folks were our teachers, our rock gods and our writers.

You passed on all the great stuff you enjoyed from your generation to us (The Beatles, Catcher in the Rye, etc.)

You let us know what happened in 1963 and 1968. You didn't mince words.

Many of you were raised by the Silent Generation, as were many of us. We have a lot more in common than one would think.

You were the first to ask "why" and maybe not the first, but definitely among those who asked "why not?"

The 1980's yuppies were such a small subset of the boomers - they barely deserve mention.

If you want to see what most Boomers were doing in that time, see "American Dream" where the outright destruction of a union, and the heartland, are destroyed right before your very eyes.

Among the Boomers we can count Michael Moore, Sting and Bono. There are more, this is just all I could come up with right now.

Anyway, thanks.

We're all on this ship together.

--Tav

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Okay, but my son was born in 1970 and is a Gen Xer. Now I feel old!

[Taverner]

2. A lot of you raised us too...

[pipi_k]

3. Mine also, and

My daughter in 1972

I was pretty young when they were born so I'm always surprised when reminded of how young some of my classmates' kids are in comparison

[7962]

10. Happened to me when my friends started becoming GRANDPARENTS!!!!

Thats just not right.

[SheilaT]

4. Thanks. I'm a Boomer who constantly defends

the younger generations. From 1992 to 2005 I was taking a class or two every semester at my local junior college, which meant I was usually surrounded by 19 year olds. You guys are fantastic! I saw a pretty good work ethic, and a willingness to put up with working conditions that were terrible, much worse than I'd had at that age.

I can assure you that every complaint you've ever heard (and I'm talking to you, Millenials!) about being lazy and unreliable at work and ignorant of the world, every single complaint like that was leveled at us Boomers 50 years ago. The truth is that when you're nineteen years old and just starting out, there's a lot you don't know yet. And sometimes you'd rather party and not go to work the next day. And guess what? That's not so awful.

Most of us old folks didn't know very much about the world, and a lot of us liked to party, and some of us didn't always make it to work in a timely fashion every single day, but we survived and the culture survived.

Oh, something else. I used to read old Life Magazines, starting with their first issue in November, 1936. Far and away the most interesting and educational thing I've ever done. Anyway, I want you to know that by the end of WWII there was this pent-up demand for consumer goods that I'm suspecting (I only got through March, 1945) totally ripped loose as soon as the war ended. It was very obvious to me that the generation that came of age around that time was going to spend money in a way that would make your head spin, and probably not worry too much about the future.

Maybe someday I'll find another library with old Life Magazines and I'll find out how the war ended, and what happened afterwards.

.

[Taverner]

5. Milennials are great - met some awesome IWVs who really got it

The media never reported this, but a big portion of OWS were war vets

[Victor_c3]

6. Are Iraq/Afghanistan War Vets really milennials?

I served in the earlier end of those conflicts (Iraq, Feb 2004 - March 2005) and I was born in 1980. I kind of thought I was a gen-X-er.

Maybe I just have the terms and the year mixed up.

However, the OWS thing being filled with war vets makes a lot of sense. I know I came back with a completely different outlook on things after my experiences in the war.

[Taverner]

7. It's a split

Born in 1980 - you're a millenial

Gen X was 1960-ish to 1975ish

Although you're on the cusp. Like my mom, who is on the cusp of Silent Gen/Boomer, she identified more with the Silent Gen as a kid, and more with the Boomers as an adult

Like all generations, some on the cusp identify more with the generation before or after them

[SheilaT]

9. Try to read "Generations"

by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It came out twenty years ago, so it could use a new addition, which is never going to happen as William Strauss died in 2007.

They make a strong case for the generations actually being defined by outside events that influence them, not simply by a baby boom or bust. They define Boomers as being born between 1943 and 1960, not the usual 1946-1964.

People born on the cusp can really go either way, depending on other influences around them. They have 1982 as the first year of the Millennials, and it does seem to me as though most people I've known born in 1981 really are X-ers (or as Strauss and Howe named them, Thirteeners).

Jimmy Carter, although officially a GI generation, having been born in 1924, strikes me as by behavior a member of the Silent Generation. We never did have a President who was officially from that generation, but Carter behaved like one.

[Taverner]

8. Adaptability to change

That is going to be their core strength - and its a great evolutionary survival tool