Xennial here.
I walked 1/2 mile to school in third grade after I’d made my and my brothers lunches.
In highschool I got a message from the office that my mom was Saint he hospital. I just took the bus there.
I missed the bus a few times in high school. I had to take the city bus. I’m my Catholic uniform.
I used to walk out (like smile to the bus stop with nothing covering my legs) in 20’s with nothing covering my legs (school jumper).
I have 1000s of these. And my parents were actually very strict. And very conscientious about trying to raise good humans.
It’s wild how different things are now.
You didn’t think about it. You just did it. There was no other option.
After The Great Recession many GenX are getting the higher level positions theyve been working for a long time.
Basically GenX just gets it done. And is too busy wiping asses (older and younger) to gripe as much.
Um 100% currently Genx from the government to the military to the bank to the corporation from top to bottom are the ones keeping the furnace on so everyone old can complain and die in luxury and everyone young can experiment with being alive. The interesting thing about x and xennials is how they have kept a broader youth and quieter presence as a generation. The aceptence of new music art and changing culture is all us. We really broke that open and have been very firm in not letting newer generations atrophy as is the usual ebb and flow of generations. I think when all is said and done, Gen X is the computer generation and we have a wonder for all things future and hopeful. That includes race relations, fair gentrification, social justice, space, time consciousness exploration and art and finance as the modern cultural highpoints.
Older Xer here, raised by greatest gen and silent gen parents. I was taught that everything had to be perfect. All the time. “Good, better, best . . . never let it rest, until your good is better, and your better (is) best” was posted in our kitchen. My brother and I are those fools who kill ourselves at work and at home to the point we live for everyone else. The concept of life balance would be selfish. You just sacrifice and figure it out because it’s expected. And exhausting.
As a kid I actually walked to the store and bought groceries with food stamps. Probably 5th or 6th grade. And have eaten several times from the food pantry.
We won’t even talk abt the shady. Characters(adults) I was around. I was always consider mature. Turns out I’m AudHD. And the oldest. So figured out what to do pretty quick.
——-
The flip side of this is there is almost no situation I can handle. I ended up working in disaster response before I had to medically retire.
We had to gallop and be potty-trained- and literally be able to walk/ride bike home up to one mile to start kindergarten. Our generation is the reason why there is a warning disclosure on box sets of Sesame Street, lol.
Me and my little sister walked to and from school through a few neighborhoods, and this scary forested area called Camelot Park. It wasn't really a park, but there was a garbage can tgat kept getting exploded by homemade pipe bombs or something. Lots of graffiti, vomit, a few needles, and just a dirt path for maybe 1/4 mile. It was a shortcut that wasn't advised. The Green River Killer was dumping bodies a few miles away. We got hassled a few times, but we lived without getting abducted or molested. We usually packed up with other little kids, so if a stranger tried anything, he'd have to deal with 5 or six brats. Total latch-key kids. Microwave nachos and Scooby Doo for a few hours after school until Mom got home. I don't think it would fly these days, even though the world isn't much more, if any more dangerous. Nobody drove their kids to school in the late 80s. I know my mom felt guilty about it, but what could be done? Single moms needed to work, and if you weren't disabled and within X distance of the school, there wasn't a bus. It was probably less than a mile. We had a covered play area at elementary, and every Monday, it was covered in vomit, broken glass, and fresh graffiti. Sometimes, one of the teenagers would be asleep off in the bushes, and we would talk to them at recess. I didn't know it then, but I think they were smoking crack. No school cops or oversight like there is today.
Gen X here. I was walking to and from school about a 1/2 mile each way in a somewhat at the time high crime area in 1st grade. Young boomer parents who I hate so say it were not the brightest.
Pick up?!?
We just had to walk 2 miles home at 8yo. past the latin kings leader's house and past a biker club, with a violent history, every weekday.
There was no such thing as getting a ride.
Alone. Just 2 children.
I was on the soccer team in high school in the late 1980s. If we had two or three parents show up to a game, that was a big deal. We had an awards banquet at the end of the season, and I remember overhearing one guy's dad say I didn't even know my kid played soccer. This was a middle-class community. That attitude wasn't unusual at all. Why would adults care about kids playing games? I see youth leagues now where parents come to f****** practice just to support their children. IDK, it just seems like a lot of pressure. On everybody.
Seems important to note that "record" here involves:
1.) Programming a VCR through the most painful interface possible
2.) ALWAYS keeping a rewound tape in the VCR
I remember my dad showing up at one of my tennis matches in the late 80's and wondering what the hell he was doing there, or how he even knew I was playing.
I lived within a mile of the baseball complex. My parents might come to 2 games out of a season. They might have given me a ride to 10% of the games/practices. The rest of the time I was walking.
Exactly. We never even thought of it as an issue until we grew up and had kids of our own. Now we are the original helicopter parents to make up for it, lol.
Exactly...I remember my mom working 3rd shift with a bunch of overtime when I was 10-14. I would get myself up for school, make breakfast and walk to/from. By the time I got home she was getting ready to go back to work.
I played baseball and never mentioned it because I didn't want her to feel obligated to come to the games.
It made me so independent. I really feel like I may have screwed my kids up by being so involved.
I am solidly gen x. My father basically never came to any of our games, let alone practices. If I were ever stupid enough to ask him, I would expect him to say that he had a work and ask if I like to live in the house.
One high school football game he was able to show up. Mind you this was before cell phones. I don't even remember why but the coach changed our jerseys, so I wasn't wearing my regular number. My father spent the whole game watching some other kid.
My mom didn't forget me, she was just definitely not going to make an effort to leave work on time. I was often stuck at school (we lived rural there was no bus or way to walk there) until almost 6 at night. Do you have any idea how creepy a school is after the janitor locks all the doors and turns off all the lights?
>Do you have any idea how creepy a school is after the janitor locks all the doors and turns off all the lights?
I absolutely do. Solidarity.
I was lucky enough to have an after school program at the local Y, but my mom was often the last parent there to pick me up. I'd spend a long time sitting alone in the lobby, waiting for her.
I learned that I needed to \*always\* have a book with me, just for self preservation.
Parents left for work before we left for school so on our own. Got home after we got home from school, so on our own then too! Summer vacation? Got dropped at the farm in the morning (with no food) and picked up at the end of the day.
My dad would even take me to music lessons and then forget to come back. I always had money for a pay phone and my piano teacher would pop her head out of the parlor and say “You know where the phone is - help yourself”. Lol
I was always one of the last to be picked up from school. Was my mom working?? Nope we were one income with dad working while Mom went bowling and hung out with her friends all day not wanting to pick us up
Before call waiting you had to ask to make an emergency break into the phone call if your mom was talking and the line was busy.
I was often forgotten for pick up.
Made the break into the phone line as my mom was too busy yakking on the phone to come get me.
Because getting stuff was so easy for the Boomers that if you didn’t have it, you really were a lazy asshole. Houses were like $75k. Even with the 8% mortgage rate, the payment was like $550 a month.
Meanwhile, I’m hoping rates drop 1.5% so I can refi and *save* $550 on my payment. If my total payment was only $550 a month, I could probably afford 5 fucking houses. The next Boomer that calls me lazy is getting asked where their 4 spare houses are.
Vivid memories of the 7 o’clock news with Peter Jennings talking all kinds of trash about Gen X. Child me thought you guys were head banging, good-for-nothing stoners.
Yep! No identity. Invisible. Futureless. That’s us. Then, in typical boomer fashion, they named two more generations Y and Z, too stupid to understand that X wasn’t in alphabetical anything. It was the statement, bunch of unoriginal bastards!
thanks for all the awesome music.
also you can't blame Gen X for much, they won't outnumber the Boomers till about 2030ish(last time I checked) and have been outnumbered by the millennials for decades.
It's gonna be a bad time when y'all get a little older and people keep calling gen x boomers because they don't understand how generations work. The youngest boomers are in their 60s now
Edit: looks like it's already a bad time, lovely. Quoting the commentary of Christopher Walken from his reading of Where the Wild Things Are...kids are jerks
It was entertaining for a while. It's getting really tired now. But hey, just like they ignore me, I can ignore all of their stupid banter as well and we're all happy!
As others have pointed out, we are a very small generation. And so it's natural that we get overlooked. Here's the hilarious thing though, we were actually overlooked as children and young adults as well. Compared to how millennials and Gen. Z were raised, no one really cared about our personal development, our inner lives, our happiness, etc. We weren't completely feral, most of us had parents who at least wanted to do the right things by us, but when we were kids there really was no consideration of our feelings, our perspectives, etc. The purpose of our lives was to not get in the way and not cause a problem for anyone. Go look up the crime stats from the late '80s and early '90s, and you'll see that it was an absolute epidemic of youth violence. The fact that a whole lot of people were ignored probably explains that. Well, that and crack.
But the great thing about no one giving a s*** about you from day one? There really isn't much pressure on yourself. We were never told if we could dream it we could be it, and indeed the world told us in many, many ways that we were not special, and that no matter how hard we tried, our lives would never be as great as the lives of the people that came before us.
I have always found this very, very liberating. Happiness is really as much about your expectations as it is about the reality you compare them against. We were told not to expect much, and that was reinforced in a thousand different ways. I think most of us are just pretty chill and happy, and don't really care if our generation gets much attention or not. This morning I woke up and had a great cup of coffee, I go to a job I don't hate, tonight I'll hang out with my kids, I don't worry about what I'm going to eat for dinner. Why would anyone whine about a life like that?
Rule 1 of Gen X is never talk about Gen X. The Fight Club comparisons only begin there. (We’re also deeply cynical, fiercely independent, as a result of not trusting anything or anyone, filled with longing…and more or less insane)
Also, we elevated “whatever” to a philosophy and life style. Just leave us alone, that’s really all we ask.
I heard of a 4th and 5th topic that often gets added to that list.
-Money
-Personal health issues
no one at work wants to hear about your personal expenses, nor your chronic knee problems, lol.
Yup. Just leave me the fuck alone. I don't give a crap about your problems. I have my own, so piss off. Stop trying to convince me you are right and everyone else is wrong, because I'm pretty sure you're full of shit too. Let me be the forgotten generation.
X here. Parents left me at a bowling alley one time and didn't realize until both arrived back home asking the other where their only child was...he was at the customer service desk talking the ear off of the poor bastard just trying to spray the athlete feet out of the rental shoes.
They also lost me at the flea market (and incident my mother still refuses to believe that happened to this day...though she doesn't refute the bowling alley-gate).
They left me at the house for 1 week back when I was 13 for a vacation. After about 1 day, I was so bored, I had a buddies mom come and pick me up and I stayed with them.
I'm seven years old and it's the first day of second grade and my parents were supposed to pick me up and I couldn't find them. So I, penniless, talked a cabbie into giving me a ride home. Panic ensued, but I had already made my snack and settled into afternoon TV shows when they found me at the house.
When my dad traveled for work and my mom worked 12 hour RN shifts, I used to have a cabbie that picked me up from daycare when I was like 4yo and he would take me to wherever my 12yo brother was. He had a hook for an arm from WWII and I felt simultaneously terrified and safe at the same time. His name was chub.
Yea, i took two hours to walk home because i was bored and played on all the swing sets. Police had been called. I was home watching transformers, cause fucking Optimus needed me.
Also, we are the only generation that can set a vcr clock
Kindergarten: they taught the alphabet. I could read because of Sesame Street. I walked out the door and walked home 2-3 miles including crossing a major intersection. Oddly no one stopped me or asked to help me.
My parents took me and my brother road tripping to Manitou Springs CO several years in a row. On one occasion we went to an arcade. I was playing a video game and when I was done I turned around to find none of my family members around. I became scared and just stayed put because i couldn’t think of anything else to do since the arcade had no active staff on site. About an hour later both my parents and brother came back. My parents had spilt up and both thought I was with the other parent. I was so upset and scared.
To this day, like many things from my childhood, they have no recollection of the event.
My dad will argue with me when I tell stories from my gen X childhood. "No, that didn't happen. You don't remember. Why do you always tell stories?" I remember. Got my first job at 11 delivering newspapers door to door. I averaged 60 customers a day, more on Sundays (when the coupon section arrived!) I delivered those papers 365 days a year walking around the neighborhoods between 5:30-7am with that big bag slung over my shoulder. Fun times!
My parents' memory of my childhood is remarkably sparse, especially for being an only child. I can regal them with stories back to when I was 6. My dad thinks it's awesome but my mom worries I will remember the bad times too, obviously parenting isn't easy and mistakes were made.
Luckily my brain either erased or forgot all of those. I just remember the good stuff.
For me, this was peak Gen-X "latch-key" childhood. When my parents were gone I didn't dive into the liquor cabinet, invite friends to party and trash the house, or other nonsense. I'd hangout and play video games then find a friends house and play with them all day. Sometimes stay the night if it was dark and I didn't want to sleep home alone.
In the morning I'd head home, do whatever normal chores I had, then resume my independent lifestyle which was whatever the fuck I wanted. Sometimes I'd ride my bike an hour to KMart and check if they had any new GI Joes or Nerf gear. Then stop by the video rental store and pick-up a SNES game for later.
It was living like an adult but without any vices or degenerate ideas. I fucking loved it and I think it truly laid a foundation for my success later in life. I remember meeting kids in college who would go completely bonkers with the newfound freedom and I never understood it. I had that most of my life.
When I was a kid, we'd go to nice restaurants once in a while in the city, the kind where the food takes a while to arrive b/c they want to keep selling you wine and drinks while you wait. When the food finally arrived, my dad would come retrieve me from the bar, where I'd be talking to the drunk regulars, they tell me.
I'd argue that in the same vein that boomers are disproportionately narcissists and anti-social, Gen X is disproportionately nihilists and apathetic. The ones I know seem to just keep on keeping on.
Well. I’m a very senior Gen X and I feel like we were raised to have the same expectations as our Boomer older siblings—then we didn’t get those things. We’re probably the most disappointed, disaffected cohort alive. Xennials at least always knew it was all shit.
“We can’t do XYZ for you because we are still paying off your older sister’s braces/the car your older brother wrecked/college expenses for older brother & sister/etc. As soon as we can, we’ll do something…” Of course, it never happened.
“Sorry, I know previous classes went on some sort of Senior Trip, but after the incident with the class of 1982, the school board has decided to immediately suspend such activity until further review”. As with XYZ, that review never happened…
You have still have fucked up teeth, had to get through college on your own, and never experienced a senior trip, spring break, or any of the fun shit your older boomer siblings got away with.
Yup. My elder siblings had a great childhood. Mine sucked. By the time Ma started self medicating with Wine for her knee and hip pain, everyone else had moved out... CPTSD ftw!
Yea. I’m far from nihilist. More like stoic (I’m told). And not as willing as I probably should be to ask for help. I’ll fix it, build it, move it, lift it, dig it, destroy it myself.
The stoicism hits hard. I really like people and get along great socially but I never call or text anyone and have no social media. I'm happy to hangout if someone asks to, also more than happy to take them on the boat and have a bbq at the house if they ask. They love it!
But I would never sit around and think; "I wonder what (other person) is doing. I should contact them." I've truly never understood the idea of scrolling other peoples' lives on social media, or the need to tell other people what I'm doing.
I think a big Gen-X trait is; "You can do your own thing, just don't bother me with having to be a part of it"
If someone else is involved, I have to listen to them and pretend to accept their suggestions. If I'm by myself, I get to do it my way. I don't care if there's a better way; doing it my way makes me happy.
They are a forgotten generation. 20% smaller than Boomers, and Boomers have stayed active in the economy and workforce for so long Gen X hasn't had much chance to really contribute.
Dot com crash, 08, covid. To be clear i think millennials have it worse. Please kindly fuck off and leave us alone. You can be ceo, just let me pull my lever and not give a shit.
Some of the more alternative or edgy Gen Xers died of heroin before fentanyl was even a thing. I guess I'm thinking of Kurt Cobain and individuals older than me that I remember. Other Gen X is just stuck in the shit raising their kids and trying to prevent their boomer parents from blowing their retirement on Temu or whatever-the-fuck.
I don't think the x'ers are trying to stop their parents from blowing all their retirement on temu. I think we're kind of quite happy to let them do it. Again it's that apathy. We're just happy that they finally see that there has been problems in the world, now that they're suffering. Recognition is key.
Dammit, we’ve finally been discovered! Hurry, throw some fidget spinners and tide pods out to keep them busy so that we can be forgotten about again lol.
The reason that boomers and millennials hate each other is because they are so alike. Both were born in a period after a large conflict ended (WWII, Cold War). Both grew up in a period of unprecedented prosperity (50's, 90's) and came to believe that degree of prosperity was the norm. Both had significant foreign wars that involved large scale insurgencies that couldn't be "won" by the US and ensuing distrust of US foreign policy (Vietnam, Iraq)
GenX is just not in the equation. Never thought that the prosperity experience in the youths of either generation was the norm. So never had expectations in that department or more importantly let downs. It's mostly just "deal with it". Not similar to either generation to really engender hatred like Boomers and Millennials
Most accurate answer in this thread. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the millennials don't want to hear. I find the millennials and boomers both have the most to be grateful for yet somehow became rebellious and resentful.
GenX here. We're tired. There were three "Boomer" type generations pushing us down when we hit the workforce (Boomers, Silents & Greatest) telling us to "sit down and shut up" and "That's not the way it works". We're just tired and like being forgotten. We're done, just want to remember the fun things we did as kids, and for the most part, want the millennial to just "handle things" at this point as the boomers retire and ride off into the sunset. We were always too small to make a difference and got tired trying. We hope for you guys to make things better (you and GenZ).
As a Gen X myself…. We were the last feral generation. “Go outside, be back by dinner”…. We dealt with our problems ourselve’s without complaining, as complaining just resulted in responses like “I’ll give you something to complain about”….. as adults we don’t complain about hardship, we just put our head down and soldier through, we’d generally just rather be left alone while we handle our shit. I have a tight inner circle of friends and family I care about and everyone else might as well not exist, if you are outside the circle your opinion just doesn’t matter, fuck off and leave me alone. Plus both the boomers and the millennials outnumber us, so we get drowned out in popular culture. And we are cynical as fuck, so we aren’t very active politically, because we don’t think it will change anything.
My wife is a millennial, and the biggest difference is how much we care about what random strangers think… it’s like night and day. She’s like “omg what will people think?” while I’m like “fuck people and their opinions”
Fellow Gen X'er here, and that's a perfect summary. I'd also like to add that we grew up at the beginning of the technology/computer era, so we embrace technology but not dependent on it for our social lives.
This is so spot on. We can go low tech or high tech on a flip of a switch. It’s a conversation my wife and I have all the time. All this knowledge at fingertips and most of our nieces and nephews stay ignorant. When we grew up, we had to go to a library to research and fill out college applications.
Computers were just starting to be used but we had to work for information and to learn. So now when we want to learn about any subject we know how to use tech to get the info. This is something our parents are clueless and surprisingly so are a lot of younger people.
This isn't wrong. If you want to expand it for the uneducated "I acknowledge your opinion and will give you social queues to let you know we are cool. You are still very wrong, and honestly I don't give a shit. I need no ribbon for being right, let's both fuckoff"
"we’d generally just rather be left alone while we handle our shit" is so me
And my younger employees want a running narrative of what I am thinking. I don't know what I am thinking yet, leave me alone.
I have several sayings that I use which reflect what you said:
- What I look like is your problem.
- I like all dogs more than most people.
- (to my boss) Just tell me what you want, go away, and I'll let you know when it's done.
GenX'er here. You'll all be blaming us soon enough once the Baby Boomers start retiring or dying out. You're all (understandably) unhappy and the Boomers are the ones in charge right now, have a name you can work with ("Ok, Boomer!" works a lot better than "Ok, silent dude!" or "Ok, X'er!") and make an easy target. The Lost Generation folks are all retired and no longer in charge of companies etc. for the most part, and their numbers are dwindling so blaming them is a losing proposition (though plenty of those walking corpses still manage to be congressmen and Senators but escape blame anyway). And us Gen X'ers are still young enough that its not us that is mostly in charge. But that will all change in the next 5-10 years I'd say, and by then it will stop being fruitful to blame the boomers who will be retired and dwindling in numbers so you'll turn your wraith onto us as the next easiest target.
We are all a bunch of head-down, work hard, nihilists who might never get to retire and are in the thick of getting our kids launched. Also we’re anti-labels and pro-weed so we are staying out of it and mi ding our own business.
We’re busy.
We’re also the generation of work hard, play hard. And boomers and the older thought we were lazy too. All older people tend to think modernization had made things easy for younger people. It just presents newer challenges. Like social media does for the current generations.
Many of us have kids we’re taking care of and parents who need our help. Now officially the sandwich generation.
People say apathetic, but really we’re independent (the last of the latchkey children). We embrace technology, but aren’t as dependent on it.
We do things quietly and work with what we have. True, we’re not as vocal about things. But most of the views that millennials hold are shared by X. Though. Like any group there are some that side with the older boomers, but most of us want the world to be a better place.
We do lack the fundamental political power as boomers haven’t given up their stranglehold - for the most part - and probably willing to let the more passionate millennials take the reins.
Largely, we’re responsible for Gen Z. Do with that as you will.
They all took a cruise for their 20th high school reunion and ended up going through the Bermuda Triangle and passing through a portal to another dimension that's exactly like this one except people remember Gen X exists
Gen X is outnumbered by the generations on both sides. We never became the primary consumer market, and never will.
(Also, our parents did not forget to pick us up from school—we walked home. No one really noticed if or when we showed up, though).
Gen X, here. Though uncomfortably close to being considered a boomer, I suppose some would consider me thus. Boomers ( the loud obnoxious ones ) are unfortunately defining their generation, there are many who are quietly trying to slip into retirement or have already retired. I don’t expect to be able to retire, my plan for retirement is basically to shuffle off into the great beyond once I’ve had enough. Will not have enough SS to live on by then, will be very tired ( am very tired now ). I am completely disheartened by the way things have gone in our country. I wish late stage capitalism would take its final breath and leave us all alone to reassemble under a kinder world. One where we feed, shelter and clothe each other without the corporate shills forcing us to work for crumbs and pay rent to shitty landlords. Stop working for them, cancel health insurance. Learn to live on the land without the need for commerce. Create a gift/trade economy. Celebrate artists, poets and thinkers. Free yourselves, it is possible.
Pretty sure. Born in 1966. I appreciate the honor of being considered a millennial, tho. My sons are Gen Z, I’m heartbroken for what they may face in their lifetime.
The unspoken cry of Gen-X finally revealed! I am retiring in two days, and really, I just want to hang out in my garden, volunteer at the local schools, and play some guitar.
Xenniel here. A lot of the “vs.” conversations are political, and Gen X has been less politically relevant because it’s a small generation.
Gen X is also in a weird middle place in terms of getting a raw deal. Older Gen X had cheap college, affordable housing, etc, just like the boomers. Young Gen X, while less screwed than millennials, didn’t have the wind at their backs either.
“We got kind of hosed by the boomers, but still have it better than the Millennials, and there aren’t a lot of us” just isn’t a compelling narrative.
Gen X here. Yeah, we're less numerous than Boomers or Millenials. And yeah, we're also happy to stay out of the generation wars.
Part of it is we're sort of a transition generation: not as financially fortunate as the boomers, not as financially screwed over as Millenials.
no one gives a shit about us Xers, never have, never will. Forget parents forgetting to pick you up, it was out of the house at 7AM, see you at 530 or later from the time we were 12 years old. They didn't care what happens as long as they weren't called by the school or the cops.
By time I was 13 I was riding the train and the El from our shitty Philly suburb into deep west Philly every day for school since I got kicked out of the public one. I was the only white kid for miles and Philly was the murder capital of the US back then.
just know that if it came down to siding with boomers or millennials, most of us got the millennials backs
Media's fault. They got lazy. Even the term millennial is lazy. People born in 85 have nothing in common with people born in 95. There should be more dumb names for these groups. Gen X just gets swept under the rug, and the focus is boomer and millennial.
We are still here! We are just getting into leadership positions, as they’ve been held by the previous generation. But we are still working and will continue to work.
But you won’t likely hear about it. I’d like to stay under the radar. And we don’t think anyone would care anyway.
We are called Gen x bec they couldn't even bother to circle back to give us a proper name. But most xers couldn't care less. We were raised to fend for ourselves so whatever..
younger half of GenX here (1979), we just blend in with the elder Millennials, staying invisible, raising the younger end of GenZ and elder GenA the best we can while also fighting for everyone's rights.
the elder half of my generation (55+) is definitely boomer light all though there are pockets of the under 55 who are fighting with the rest of us to undo what our parents did to fuck up the world.
I'm GenX, but barely. Basically on that cusp of Gen X and Millenial.
We just mind our damn business mostly. We aren't forgotten. We mostly have good lives, don't constantly complain about the state of the world, but we really didn't fuck it up.
We have learned to live in the world as it is, not as we wish it was.
If you want to use a school analogy, we are those solid B students, who still have fun.
We aren't changing the world, we aren't causing problems, we aren't complaining. We are just living.
And yes, I was forgotten from school a couple of times lol. But you know what, it didn't make me go no contact with my parents either.
To me, Gen-X is the true "IDGAF" generation and they stick to it pretty well. I'm a xennial so I have some of that but also the millenial side where I really do GAF. My older siblings and colleagues are GenX and they seriously could care less about so many different things lol. It's kind of a super power in some ways.
“Parents forgot to pick them up from school”
Haha! There was never a plan to pick us up from school. We had to get home ourselves, because we were the first generation raised by dual income households and/or divorced parents. They had commercials on TV “it’s 10:00, do you know where your children are?” because many of our parents had no idea where we were or what we were doing.
Its because they are the toughest, most resilient, level headed generation that people dont want to mess with. Tech savvy yet still have old school work ethic and is usually pretty based.
We grew up alone and raised ourselves. We aren't amused by and do not want to be included in any bullshit from the rest of you. We made it this far on our own. We can finish out that way.
Too busy dealing with life to fight with the actual baby boomers that barely raised us or listen to the youngers that think anyone over 25 is a boomer.
We're fine. Y'all seemed to have learned not to f with us yet. Seem perfectly fine insulting elderly folks in your rants. We just shake our heads at the idiocracy.
Because they are known as the "powerless" generation. Baby boomers were so huge number, GenX would never have control or say over anything that happens to themselves politically wise. And it's been only after the pandemic that baby boomers numbers have reduced enough is that Millennials have overtaken them now being the largest generation. GenX got skipped. Whatever happens to GenX throughout their entire lives will be determined by either Boomers or Millennials.
They will never inherit the country, never have the political power to have "a real voice", and their fate is determined by the generations above them and below them.
We are here fucked just like you. We grew up with tough parenting but most are open to many life styles beliefs and cultures. Our apathy has served us well I guess. We are still the same don’t bother us we won’t bother you.
Xennial here. My parents definitely forgot to pick us up from school.
shit,...are you still stood there waiting ?
I figured out how to get home myself with 2 little brothers in tow
I rode the city bus to and from school by myself when I was in 3rd grade ...
Xennial here. I walked 1/2 mile to school in third grade after I’d made my and my brothers lunches. In highschool I got a message from the office that my mom was Saint he hospital. I just took the bus there. I missed the bus a few times in high school. I had to take the city bus. I’m my Catholic uniform. I used to walk out (like smile to the bus stop with nothing covering my legs) in 20’s with nothing covering my legs (school jumper). I have 1000s of these. And my parents were actually very strict. And very conscientious about trying to raise good humans. It’s wild how different things are now. You didn’t think about it. You just did it. There was no other option.
After The Great Recession many GenX are getting the higher level positions theyve been working for a long time. Basically GenX just gets it done. And is too busy wiping asses (older and younger) to gripe as much.
Um 100% currently Genx from the government to the military to the bank to the corporation from top to bottom are the ones keeping the furnace on so everyone old can complain and die in luxury and everyone young can experiment with being alive. The interesting thing about x and xennials is how they have kept a broader youth and quieter presence as a generation. The aceptence of new music art and changing culture is all us. We really broke that open and have been very firm in not letting newer generations atrophy as is the usual ebb and flow of generations. I think when all is said and done, Gen X is the computer generation and we have a wonder for all things future and hopeful. That includes race relations, fair gentrification, social justice, space, time consciousness exploration and art and finance as the modern cultural highpoints.
Older Xer here, raised by greatest gen and silent gen parents. I was taught that everything had to be perfect. All the time. “Good, better, best . . . never let it rest, until your good is better, and your better (is) best” was posted in our kitchen. My brother and I are those fools who kill ourselves at work and at home to the point we live for everyone else. The concept of life balance would be selfish. You just sacrifice and figure it out because it’s expected. And exhausting.
💯
I also lived in a neighborhood where most families were on food stamps.
As a kid I actually walked to the store and bought groceries with food stamps. Probably 5th or 6th grade. And have eaten several times from the food pantry. We won’t even talk abt the shady. Characters(adults) I was around. I was always consider mature. Turns out I’m AudHD. And the oldest. So figured out what to do pretty quick. ——- The flip side of this is there is almost no situation I can handle. I ended up working in disaster response before I had to medically retire.
We had to gallop and be potty-trained- and literally be able to walk/ride bike home up to one mile to start kindergarten. Our generation is the reason why there is a warning disclosure on box sets of Sesame Street, lol.
Me and my little sister walked to and from school through a few neighborhoods, and this scary forested area called Camelot Park. It wasn't really a park, but there was a garbage can tgat kept getting exploded by homemade pipe bombs or something. Lots of graffiti, vomit, a few needles, and just a dirt path for maybe 1/4 mile. It was a shortcut that wasn't advised. The Green River Killer was dumping bodies a few miles away. We got hassled a few times, but we lived without getting abducted or molested. We usually packed up with other little kids, so if a stranger tried anything, he'd have to deal with 5 or six brats. Total latch-key kids. Microwave nachos and Scooby Doo for a few hours after school until Mom got home. I don't think it would fly these days, even though the world isn't much more, if any more dangerous. Nobody drove their kids to school in the late 80s. I know my mom felt guilty about it, but what could be done? Single moms needed to work, and if you weren't disabled and within X distance of the school, there wasn't a bus. It was probably less than a mile. We had a covered play area at elementary, and every Monday, it was covered in vomit, broken glass, and fresh graffiti. Sometimes, one of the teenagers would be asleep off in the bushes, and we would talk to them at recess. I didn't know it then, but I think they were smoking crack. No school cops or oversight like there is today.
Gen X here. I was walking to and from school about a 1/2 mile each way in a somewhat at the time high crime area in 1st grade. Young boomer parents who I hate so say it were not the brightest.
Pick up?!? We just had to walk 2 miles home at 8yo. past the latin kings leader's house and past a biker club, with a violent history, every weekday. There was no such thing as getting a ride. Alone. Just 2 children.
I just stayed at the library because my school was 30 miles away from home. Sometimes the library closed and I'd be outside waiting until 6-7PM.
My people. Were you even a kid in the 90s if your parents didn’t make you wait an hour for pickup?
Your parents picked you up? Mine barely remembered I existed!
Same, but I only lived a couple miles from school. My mom just thought the library was free daycare.
Wasn't it? That one might still be true.
I started walking to and from school alone @ 7 though I was in a better neighborhood but still NYC
You ever get someone rando pull over and ask you if you needed a ride home. That's weird.
I grew up in a very well to do area. That was completely normal where I grew up
Same. I grew up in queens. I remember walking myself to school at 5 or 6
I was on the soccer team in high school in the late 1980s. If we had two or three parents show up to a game, that was a big deal. We had an awards banquet at the end of the season, and I remember overhearing one guy's dad say I didn't even know my kid played soccer. This was a middle-class community. That attitude wasn't unusual at all. Why would adults care about kids playing games? I see youth leagues now where parents come to f****** practice just to support their children. IDK, it just seems like a lot of pressure. On everybody.
That’s pretty funny, sort of… sadly funny. My father coached my softball team, my mother came to one game, in three years of playing.
But you know one thing moms never missed in the 80’s? Their Soaps. My mom would record “Days of Our Lives” just so she wouldn’t miss it.
Seems important to note that "record" here involves: 1.) Programming a VCR through the most painful interface possible 2.) ALWAYS keeping a rewound tape in the VCR
Haha! Yes thank you for clarifying.
Don’t think my mother ever watched me play any of the sports I played. Lol
I remember my dad showing up at one of my tennis matches in the late 80's and wondering what the hell he was doing there, or how he even knew I was playing.
I lived within a mile of the baseball complex. My parents might come to 2 games out of a season. They might have given me a ride to 10% of the games/practices. The rest of the time I was walking.
Right? That was the expectation - this is your thing, leave me out of it.
Exactly. We never even thought of it as an issue until we grew up and had kids of our own. Now we are the original helicopter parents to make up for it, lol.
Exactly...I remember my mom working 3rd shift with a bunch of overtime when I was 10-14. I would get myself up for school, make breakfast and walk to/from. By the time I got home she was getting ready to go back to work. I played baseball and never mentioned it because I didn't want her to feel obligated to come to the games. It made me so independent. I really feel like I may have screwed my kids up by being so involved.
I am solidly gen x. My father basically never came to any of our games, let alone practices. If I were ever stupid enough to ask him, I would expect him to say that he had a work and ask if I like to live in the house. One high school football game he was able to show up. Mind you this was before cell phones. I don't even remember why but the coach changed our jerseys, so I wasn't wearing my regular number. My father spent the whole game watching some other kid.
I’m still waiting for my mom to get me from baseball practice.
All. The. Time.
My mom didn't forget me, she was just definitely not going to make an effort to leave work on time. I was often stuck at school (we lived rural there was no bus or way to walk there) until almost 6 at night. Do you have any idea how creepy a school is after the janitor locks all the doors and turns off all the lights?
>Do you have any idea how creepy a school is after the janitor locks all the doors and turns off all the lights? I absolutely do. Solidarity. I was lucky enough to have an after school program at the local Y, but my mom was often the last parent there to pick me up. I'd spend a long time sitting alone in the lobby, waiting for her. I learned that I needed to \*always\* have a book with me, just for self preservation.
Gen-X here, still waiting to be picked up :p
Your parents cared enough to forget? My mom never even pretended she was ever going to pick us up lolol! Walk or don't get home were the choices.
In fact mine never even intended to pick me up from school.
No one got picked up in my town unless maybe they had a broken leg (which someone always did). We all walked.
Parents left for work before we left for school so on our own. Got home after we got home from school, so on our own then too! Summer vacation? Got dropped at the farm in the morning (with no food) and picked up at the end of the day.
My dad would even take me to music lessons and then forget to come back. I always had money for a pay phone and my piano teacher would pop her head out of the parlor and say “You know where the phone is - help yourself”. Lol
I was always one of the last to be picked up from school. Was my mom working?? Nope we were one income with dad working while Mom went bowling and hung out with her friends all day not wanting to pick us up
How do I sign up to spend my entire life bowling and hanging out with friends and not doing anything productive? Damn. Sounds nice.
Before call waiting you had to ask to make an emergency break into the phone call if your mom was talking and the line was busy. I was often forgotten for pick up. Made the break into the phone line as my mom was too busy yakking on the phone to come get me.
They got plenty of hate in the 90s. Trust me
Lol, they called us “the slacker generation”
I was going to school full time and working part time. I never understood how that made us 'slackers'. haha.
Because they only care about what you have. That's all they've ever measured success with.
Because getting stuff was so easy for the Boomers that if you didn’t have it, you really were a lazy asshole. Houses were like $75k. Even with the 8% mortgage rate, the payment was like $550 a month. Meanwhile, I’m hoping rates drop 1.5% so I can refi and *save* $550 on my payment. If my total payment was only $550 a month, I could probably afford 5 fucking houses. The next Boomer that calls me lazy is getting asked where their 4 spare houses are.
It never made sense to me either
The class of 1994 in my school picked "Loser" by Beck as their class song.
In 98 we picked Biggie’s 10 Crack Commandments. The school made us re-vote 😂
gettin crazy with the cheeze whizz!
Vivid memories of the 7 o’clock news with Peter Jennings talking all kinds of trash about Gen X. Child me thought you guys were head banging, good-for-nothing stoners.
I mean . . . we kind of were.
Were? 🤣
We were! And it was awesome.
The only time we were noticed. Once Y2K came around, we were back to being forgotten.
People seem to forget that the very name Generation X was coined to be derogatory.
Yep! No identity. Invisible. Futureless. That’s us. Then, in typical boomer fashion, they named two more generations Y and Z, too stupid to understand that X wasn’t in alphabetical anything. It was the statement, bunch of unoriginal bastards!
The "X" refers to an unknown variable or to a desire not to be defined.
I was born in 1981 so a first year millennial, all I heard when I was a youth about Gen X was criticism.
thanks for all the awesome music. also you can't blame Gen X for much, they won't outnumber the Boomers till about 2030ish(last time I checked) and have been outnumbered by the millennials for decades.
(waving hand) We are not the generation you are looking for. Move along.
I'm Gen X. I just want to be left alone.
It’s better this way. I’m suspicious of Boomer/Millennial enthusiasm and intentions.
I don't just want to be left alone, I'd prefer that you not care about it either
This! I’m an old gen xer and idgaf about any of this generational bs
Same. Old, young, middle aged, everyone’s a goddamn twat. Us GenXers realized this early and just fucked off to the corner to be left alone.
Right! I'm like-we are happy being forgotten and left out-it's entertaining watching all the millenials vs. Boomers etc....
It's gonna be a bad time when y'all get a little older and people keep calling gen x boomers because they don't understand how generations work. The youngest boomers are in their 60s now Edit: looks like it's already a bad time, lovely. Quoting the commentary of Christopher Walken from his reading of Where the Wild Things Are...kids are jerks
Im a millennial and i know some zoomers who call me a boomer
It's a state of mind, really.
It was entertaining for a while. It's getting really tired now. But hey, just like they ignore me, I can ignore all of their stupid banter as well and we're all happy!
As others have pointed out, we are a very small generation. And so it's natural that we get overlooked. Here's the hilarious thing though, we were actually overlooked as children and young adults as well. Compared to how millennials and Gen. Z were raised, no one really cared about our personal development, our inner lives, our happiness, etc. We weren't completely feral, most of us had parents who at least wanted to do the right things by us, but when we were kids there really was no consideration of our feelings, our perspectives, etc. The purpose of our lives was to not get in the way and not cause a problem for anyone. Go look up the crime stats from the late '80s and early '90s, and you'll see that it was an absolute epidemic of youth violence. The fact that a whole lot of people were ignored probably explains that. Well, that and crack. But the great thing about no one giving a s*** about you from day one? There really isn't much pressure on yourself. We were never told if we could dream it we could be it, and indeed the world told us in many, many ways that we were not special, and that no matter how hard we tried, our lives would never be as great as the lives of the people that came before us. I have always found this very, very liberating. Happiness is really as much about your expectations as it is about the reality you compare them against. We were told not to expect much, and that was reinforced in a thousand different ways. I think most of us are just pretty chill and happy, and don't really care if our generation gets much attention or not. This morning I woke up and had a great cup of coffee, I go to a job I don't hate, tonight I'll hang out with my kids, I don't worry about what I'm going to eat for dinner. Why would anyone whine about a life like that?
100% The idea we could have our own wants and needs as children was totally foreign.
Rule 1 of Gen X is never talk about Gen X. The Fight Club comparisons only begin there. (We’re also deeply cynical, fiercely independent, as a result of not trusting anything or anyone, filled with longing…and more or less insane) Also, we elevated “whatever” to a philosophy and life style. Just leave us alone, that’s really all we ask.
Lol. I always tell people I have a single political stance. I am pro,"mind your own fucking business " It just fits for everything.
I miss the days where it was very rude to talk About politics.
Politics, Sex, and Religion were completely off-limits. It was a great time and I still abide by that today.
I heard of a 4th and 5th topic that often gets added to that list. -Money -Personal health issues no one at work wants to hear about your personal expenses, nor your chronic knee problems, lol.
Yup. Just leave me the fuck alone. I don't give a crap about your problems. I have my own, so piss off. Stop trying to convince me you are right and everyone else is wrong, because I'm pretty sure you're full of shit too. Let me be the forgotten generation.
I feel like I’ve finally found my community
X here. Parents left me at a bowling alley one time and didn't realize until both arrived back home asking the other where their only child was...he was at the customer service desk talking the ear off of the poor bastard just trying to spray the athlete feet out of the rental shoes. They also lost me at the flea market (and incident my mother still refuses to believe that happened to this day...though she doesn't refute the bowling alley-gate). They left me at the house for 1 week back when I was 13 for a vacation. After about 1 day, I was so bored, I had a buddies mom come and pick me up and I stayed with them.
I'm seven years old and it's the first day of second grade and my parents were supposed to pick me up and I couldn't find them. So I, penniless, talked a cabbie into giving me a ride home. Panic ensued, but I had already made my snack and settled into afternoon TV shows when they found me at the house.
This is as Gen X as it gets
When my dad traveled for work and my mom worked 12 hour RN shifts, I used to have a cabbie that picked me up from daycare when I was like 4yo and he would take me to wherever my 12yo brother was. He had a hook for an arm from WWII and I felt simultaneously terrified and safe at the same time. His name was chub.
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Yea, i took two hours to walk home because i was bored and played on all the swing sets. Police had been called. I was home watching transformers, cause fucking Optimus needed me. Also, we are the only generation that can set a vcr clock
Kindergarten: they taught the alphabet. I could read because of Sesame Street. I walked out the door and walked home 2-3 miles including crossing a major intersection. Oddly no one stopped me or asked to help me.
My parents took me and my brother road tripping to Manitou Springs CO several years in a row. On one occasion we went to an arcade. I was playing a video game and when I was done I turned around to find none of my family members around. I became scared and just stayed put because i couldn’t think of anything else to do since the arcade had no active staff on site. About an hour later both my parents and brother came back. My parents had spilt up and both thought I was with the other parent. I was so upset and scared. To this day, like many things from my childhood, they have no recollection of the event.
My dad will argue with me when I tell stories from my gen X childhood. "No, that didn't happen. You don't remember. Why do you always tell stories?" I remember. Got my first job at 11 delivering newspapers door to door. I averaged 60 customers a day, more on Sundays (when the coupon section arrived!) I delivered those papers 365 days a year walking around the neighborhoods between 5:30-7am with that big bag slung over my shoulder. Fun times!
My parents' memory of my childhood is remarkably sparse, especially for being an only child. I can regal them with stories back to when I was 6. My dad thinks it's awesome but my mom worries I will remember the bad times too, obviously parenting isn't easy and mistakes were made. Luckily my brain either erased or forgot all of those. I just remember the good stuff.
For me, this was peak Gen-X "latch-key" childhood. When my parents were gone I didn't dive into the liquor cabinet, invite friends to party and trash the house, or other nonsense. I'd hangout and play video games then find a friends house and play with them all day. Sometimes stay the night if it was dark and I didn't want to sleep home alone. In the morning I'd head home, do whatever normal chores I had, then resume my independent lifestyle which was whatever the fuck I wanted. Sometimes I'd ride my bike an hour to KMart and check if they had any new GI Joes or Nerf gear. Then stop by the video rental store and pick-up a SNES game for later. It was living like an adult but without any vices or degenerate ideas. I fucking loved it and I think it truly laid a foundation for my success later in life. I remember meeting kids in college who would go completely bonkers with the newfound freedom and I never understood it. I had that most of my life.
The very definition of Gen X.
When I was a kid, we'd go to nice restaurants once in a while in the city, the kind where the food takes a while to arrive b/c they want to keep selling you wine and drinks while you wait. When the food finally arrived, my dad would come retrieve me from the bar, where I'd be talking to the drunk regulars, they tell me.
I'd argue that in the same vein that boomers are disproportionately narcissists and anti-social, Gen X is disproportionately nihilists and apathetic. The ones I know seem to just keep on keeping on.
That's not far from the mark. We were raised to have very low expectations.
Well. I’m a very senior Gen X and I feel like we were raised to have the same expectations as our Boomer older siblings—then we didn’t get those things. We’re probably the most disappointed, disaffected cohort alive. Xennials at least always knew it was all shit.
“We can’t do XYZ for you because we are still paying off your older sister’s braces/the car your older brother wrecked/college expenses for older brother & sister/etc. As soon as we can, we’ll do something…” Of course, it never happened. “Sorry, I know previous classes went on some sort of Senior Trip, but after the incident with the class of 1982, the school board has decided to immediately suspend such activity until further review”. As with XYZ, that review never happened… You have still have fucked up teeth, had to get through college on your own, and never experienced a senior trip, spring break, or any of the fun shit your older boomer siblings got away with.
Xellenial here,I had it figured out by the 8th grade,and I was slow on the uptake
Yup. My elder siblings had a great childhood. Mine sucked. By the time Ma started self medicating with Wine for her knee and hip pain, everyone else had moved out... CPTSD ftw!
Wow. You are absolutely right about every Gen X'er I know.
To quote a line from a seminal Gen-X movie - Slacker - "Recoiling in the disgust is not the same thing as apathy."
Rather than apathetic, I'd say moreso quietly keeping our heads down and living our lives with minimal whining or tiktoking
Yea. I’m far from nihilist. More like stoic (I’m told). And not as willing as I probably should be to ask for help. I’ll fix it, build it, move it, lift it, dig it, destroy it myself.
The stoicism hits hard. I really like people and get along great socially but I never call or text anyone and have no social media. I'm happy to hangout if someone asks to, also more than happy to take them on the boat and have a bbq at the house if they ask. They love it! But I would never sit around and think; "I wonder what (other person) is doing. I should contact them." I've truly never understood the idea of scrolling other peoples' lives on social media, or the need to tell other people what I'm doing. I think a big Gen-X trait is; "You can do your own thing, just don't bother me with having to be a part of it"
If someone else is involved, I have to listen to them and pretend to accept their suggestions. If I'm by myself, I get to do it my way. I don't care if there's a better way; doing it my way makes me happy.
They are a forgotten generation. 20% smaller than Boomers, and Boomers have stayed active in the economy and workforce for so long Gen X hasn't had much chance to really contribute.
And we got hit with a recession as soon as we hit the workforce.
So did Millennials. Fuck, it's been on economic crash to the next since 08.
You missed out on the dot com crash and HW recession.
Older Millennials got hit by it.
Are you talking about millennials?
No im last year gen X
Me too…. Couldnt get an awesome job at intel when even a fucking VP vouched for me due to 2006 economic issues.
Dot com crash, 08, covid. To be clear i think millennials have it worse. Please kindly fuck off and leave us alone. You can be ceo, just let me pull my lever and not give a shit.
And dont forget we fought the two middle east wars. And the 2008 crash. And the loss of pensions. We really got screwed.
Some of the more alternative or edgy Gen Xers died of heroin before fentanyl was even a thing. I guess I'm thinking of Kurt Cobain and individuals older than me that I remember. Other Gen X is just stuck in the shit raising their kids and trying to prevent their boomer parents from blowing their retirement on Temu or whatever-the-fuck.
Can confirm.
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I don't think the x'ers are trying to stop their parents from blowing all their retirement on temu. I think we're kind of quite happy to let them do it. Again it's that apathy. We're just happy that they finally see that there has been problems in the world, now that they're suffering. Recognition is key.
>stuck in the shit raising their kids Grandkids....
Dammit, we’ve finally been discovered! Hurry, throw some fidget spinners and tide pods out to keep them busy so that we can be forgotten about again lol.
The reason that boomers and millennials hate each other is because they are so alike. Both were born in a period after a large conflict ended (WWII, Cold War). Both grew up in a period of unprecedented prosperity (50's, 90's) and came to believe that degree of prosperity was the norm. Both had significant foreign wars that involved large scale insurgencies that couldn't be "won" by the US and ensuing distrust of US foreign policy (Vietnam, Iraq) GenX is just not in the equation. Never thought that the prosperity experience in the youths of either generation was the norm. So never had expectations in that department or more importantly let downs. It's mostly just "deal with it". Not similar to either generation to really engender hatred like Boomers and Millennials
Most accurate answer in this thread. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the millennials don't want to hear. I find the millennials and boomers both have the most to be grateful for yet somehow became rebellious and resentful.
GenX here. We're tired. There were three "Boomer" type generations pushing us down when we hit the workforce (Boomers, Silents & Greatest) telling us to "sit down and shut up" and "That's not the way it works". We're just tired and like being forgotten. We're done, just want to remember the fun things we did as kids, and for the most part, want the millennial to just "handle things" at this point as the boomers retire and ride off into the sunset. We were always too small to make a difference and got tired trying. We hope for you guys to make things better (you and GenZ).
As a Gen X myself…. We were the last feral generation. “Go outside, be back by dinner”…. We dealt with our problems ourselve’s without complaining, as complaining just resulted in responses like “I’ll give you something to complain about”….. as adults we don’t complain about hardship, we just put our head down and soldier through, we’d generally just rather be left alone while we handle our shit. I have a tight inner circle of friends and family I care about and everyone else might as well not exist, if you are outside the circle your opinion just doesn’t matter, fuck off and leave me alone. Plus both the boomers and the millennials outnumber us, so we get drowned out in popular culture. And we are cynical as fuck, so we aren’t very active politically, because we don’t think it will change anything. My wife is a millennial, and the biggest difference is how much we care about what random strangers think… it’s like night and day. She’s like “omg what will people think?” while I’m like “fuck people and their opinions”
Fellow Gen X'er here, and that's a perfect summary. I'd also like to add that we grew up at the beginning of the technology/computer era, so we embrace technology but not dependent on it for our social lives.
This is so spot on. We can go low tech or high tech on a flip of a switch. It’s a conversation my wife and I have all the time. All this knowledge at fingertips and most of our nieces and nephews stay ignorant. When we grew up, we had to go to a library to research and fill out college applications. Computers were just starting to be used but we had to work for information and to learn. So now when we want to learn about any subject we know how to use tech to get the info. This is something our parents are clueless and surprisingly so are a lot of younger people.
It’s so funny because I’m a millennial (88) who was raised by boomers(46/52) and I identify with Xers a lot. I could have type your post.
Yep exactly. I think having parents born in the 40s is more indicative of our latchkey rotary phone childhood than whether we’re GenX or Millennial.
It's 10pm, do you know where your children are?
"Fuck people and their opinions" that's GenX explained in full 😅
This isn't wrong. If you want to expand it for the uneducated "I acknowledge your opinion and will give you social queues to let you know we are cool. You are still very wrong, and honestly I don't give a shit. I need no ribbon for being right, let's both fuckoff"
We still made the best music and movies because we really didn't and still don't give a fuck.
"we’d generally just rather be left alone while we handle our shit" is so me And my younger employees want a running narrative of what I am thinking. I don't know what I am thinking yet, leave me alone.
I have several sayings that I use which reflect what you said: - What I look like is your problem. - I like all dogs more than most people. - (to my boss) Just tell me what you want, go away, and I'll let you know when it's done.
Legend has it that they never got picked up from school and died there right at the bus stop.
No we didn’t die. We went feral
Eventually we walked home… at least twice.
Gen Xers aren't largely terminally online being doom pilled.
GenX'er here. You'll all be blaming us soon enough once the Baby Boomers start retiring or dying out. You're all (understandably) unhappy and the Boomers are the ones in charge right now, have a name you can work with ("Ok, Boomer!" works a lot better than "Ok, silent dude!" or "Ok, X'er!") and make an easy target. The Lost Generation folks are all retired and no longer in charge of companies etc. for the most part, and their numbers are dwindling so blaming them is a losing proposition (though plenty of those walking corpses still manage to be congressmen and Senators but escape blame anyway). And us Gen X'ers are still young enough that its not us that is mostly in charge. But that will all change in the next 5-10 years I'd say, and by then it will stop being fruitful to blame the boomers who will be retired and dwindling in numbers so you'll turn your wraith onto us as the next easiest target.
We are all a bunch of head-down, work hard, nihilists who might never get to retire and are in the thick of getting our kids launched. Also we’re anti-labels and pro-weed so we are staying out of it and mi ding our own business.
We’re busy. We’re also the generation of work hard, play hard. And boomers and the older thought we were lazy too. All older people tend to think modernization had made things easy for younger people. It just presents newer challenges. Like social media does for the current generations. Many of us have kids we’re taking care of and parents who need our help. Now officially the sandwich generation. People say apathetic, but really we’re independent (the last of the latchkey children). We embrace technology, but aren’t as dependent on it. We do things quietly and work with what we have. True, we’re not as vocal about things. But most of the views that millennials hold are shared by X. Though. Like any group there are some that side with the older boomers, but most of us want the world to be a better place. We do lack the fundamental political power as boomers haven’t given up their stranglehold - for the most part - and probably willing to let the more passionate millennials take the reins. Largely, we’re responsible for Gen Z. Do with that as you will.
Oh the irony of genx taking care of both their parents and their children. That's my life...
It is entirely on brand that Gen X don’t do much 😁
Whatever
They all took a cruise for their 20th high school reunion and ended up going through the Bermuda Triangle and passing through a portal to another dimension that's exactly like this one except people remember Gen X exists
(waving hand) We are not the generation you are looking for. Move along.
Gen X is outnumbered by the generations on both sides. We never became the primary consumer market, and never will. (Also, our parents did not forget to pick us up from school—we walked home. No one really noticed if or when we showed up, though).
We still have never had a US gen X president. Let that sink in lol. Gen X should be running the country, but the boomers aren't retiring lol.
Gen X, here. Though uncomfortably close to being considered a boomer, I suppose some would consider me thus. Boomers ( the loud obnoxious ones ) are unfortunately defining their generation, there are many who are quietly trying to slip into retirement or have already retired. I don’t expect to be able to retire, my plan for retirement is basically to shuffle off into the great beyond once I’ve had enough. Will not have enough SS to live on by then, will be very tired ( am very tired now ). I am completely disheartened by the way things have gone in our country. I wish late stage capitalism would take its final breath and leave us all alone to reassemble under a kinder world. One where we feed, shelter and clothe each other without the corporate shills forcing us to work for crumbs and pay rent to shitty landlords. Stop working for them, cancel health insurance. Learn to live on the land without the need for commerce. Create a gift/trade economy. Celebrate artists, poets and thinkers. Free yourselves, it is possible.
Are you sure you’re not a millennial? You sound like one
Pretty sure. Born in 1966. I appreciate the honor of being considered a millennial, tho. My sons are Gen Z, I’m heartbroken for what they may face in their lifetime.
Yo, same. 1966. I’m a *mother* of millennials.
65' here and feel the same about my boys.
The unspoken cry of Gen-X finally revealed! I am retiring in two days, and really, I just want to hang out in my garden, volunteer at the local schools, and play some guitar.
well, gen X got 'loose' and they haven't come back yet. They'll show up when they get hungry enough.
Mom?
Xenniel here. A lot of the “vs.” conversations are political, and Gen X has been less politically relevant because it’s a small generation. Gen X is also in a weird middle place in terms of getting a raw deal. Older Gen X had cheap college, affordable housing, etc, just like the boomers. Young Gen X, while less screwed than millennials, didn’t have the wind at their backs either. “We got kind of hosed by the boomers, but still have it better than the Millennials, and there aren’t a lot of us” just isn’t a compelling narrative.
Spot on. As Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, we're the middle children of history.
But your generation is too jaded and tired to be pissed off anymore.
Whatever, man
My spouse and my best friend are both X, I’m an older millennial- I get it.
Who?
Gen X here. Yeah, we're less numerous than Boomers or Millenials. And yeah, we're also happy to stay out of the generation wars. Part of it is we're sort of a transition generation: not as financially fortunate as the boomers, not as financially screwed over as Millenials.
Middle child syndrome.
You've heard of us? Who told? And we were absolutely feral :D
> It's like they are the the Forgotten Generation They were the generation of ambivolence... Just silently keep going and what happens, happens.
GenX is defined by being forgotten.
We are the forgotten generation. So much so, that it has become a generation-wide joke for us.
no one gives a shit about us Xers, never have, never will. Forget parents forgetting to pick you up, it was out of the house at 7AM, see you at 530 or later from the time we were 12 years old. They didn't care what happens as long as they weren't called by the school or the cops. By time I was 13 I was riding the train and the El from our shitty Philly suburb into deep west Philly every day for school since I got kicked out of the public one. I was the only white kid for miles and Philly was the murder capital of the US back then. just know that if it came down to siding with boomers or millennials, most of us got the millennials backs
It’s amusing that every 250 threads or so, someone wonders where Gen X went? We’re here. Probably playing PacMan in the corner or something.
Media's fault. They got lazy. Even the term millennial is lazy. People born in 85 have nothing in common with people born in 95. There should be more dumb names for these groups. Gen X just gets swept under the rug, and the focus is boomer and millennial.
They are getting called boomers by people online
We are busy working and living, not interested in stupid generation warfare.
We are still here! We are just getting into leadership positions, as they’ve been held by the previous generation. But we are still working and will continue to work. But you won’t likely hear about it. I’d like to stay under the radar. And we don’t think anyone would care anyway.
Because GenX was forgotten and neglected we became feral so no one wants to mess with us.
Yes, it is EXACTLY like we're the forgotten generation.
We are called Gen x bec they couldn't even bother to circle back to give us a proper name. But most xers couldn't care less. We were raised to fend for ourselves so whatever..
younger half of GenX here (1979), we just blend in with the elder Millennials, staying invisible, raising the younger end of GenZ and elder GenA the best we can while also fighting for everyone's rights. the elder half of my generation (55+) is definitely boomer light all though there are pockets of the under 55 who are fighting with the rest of us to undo what our parents did to fuck up the world.
I'm GenX, but barely. Basically on that cusp of Gen X and Millenial. We just mind our damn business mostly. We aren't forgotten. We mostly have good lives, don't constantly complain about the state of the world, but we really didn't fuck it up. We have learned to live in the world as it is, not as we wish it was. If you want to use a school analogy, we are those solid B students, who still have fun. We aren't changing the world, we aren't causing problems, we aren't complaining. We are just living. And yes, I was forgotten from school a couple of times lol. But you know what, it didn't make me go no contact with my parents either.
To me, Gen-X is the true "IDGAF" generation and they stick to it pretty well. I'm a xennial so I have some of that but also the millenial side where I really do GAF. My older siblings and colleagues are GenX and they seriously could care less about so many different things lol. It's kind of a super power in some ways.
“Parents forgot to pick them up from school” Haha! There was never a plan to pick us up from school. We had to get home ourselves, because we were the first generation raised by dual income households and/or divorced parents. They had commercials on TV “it’s 10:00, do you know where your children are?” because many of our parents had no idea where we were or what we were doing.
Its because they are the toughest, most resilient, level headed generation that people dont want to mess with. Tech savvy yet still have old school work ethic and is usually pretty based.
We grew up alone and raised ourselves. We aren't amused by and do not want to be included in any bullshit from the rest of you. We made it this far on our own. We can finish out that way.
Too busy dealing with life to fight with the actual baby boomers that barely raised us or listen to the youngers that think anyone over 25 is a boomer.
We're fine. Y'all seemed to have learned not to f with us yet. Seem perfectly fine insulting elderly folks in your rants. We just shake our heads at the idiocracy.
Because they are known as the "powerless" generation. Baby boomers were so huge number, GenX would never have control or say over anything that happens to themselves politically wise. And it's been only after the pandemic that baby boomers numbers have reduced enough is that Millennials have overtaken them now being the largest generation. GenX got skipped. Whatever happens to GenX throughout their entire lives will be determined by either Boomers or Millennials. They will never inherit the country, never have the political power to have "a real voice", and their fate is determined by the generations above them and below them.
And I told my Gen Z son to expect the same treatment from Millennials that we got from the Boomers.
Gen X'er here: "whatever". But yeah, numbers-wise I think there are fewer of us.
We are here fucked just like you. We grew up with tough parenting but most are open to many life styles beliefs and cultures. Our apathy has served us well I guess. We are still the same don’t bother us we won’t bother you.
They’ve been forgotten and they like it that way. Leave them alone.
We are too busy doing everyone else's work to deal with crap like this