Tag Archives: middle children

Let’s Talk About ‘X’

punkgrrrl October 14, 2019 Critiquing Leave a Comment

Generation X – the perpetual middle child. We are often left out of conversations about generational contributions and that is most likely because of how we were treated from day one.

Growing up with the original “me” generation (boomers) as parents really took a toll on us as a group. We were seen as lazy in relation to their generation, but that was mainly because in the 80s/90s we were in our teens and twenties. What kids AREN’T lazy in their teens? Laziness is a defining factor of the teenage years. Sure there are those who have a drive from the day they are born, but those people are outliers. Most teenagers (and yes I am making a generalization here) are lazy.

Teenagers also need more sleep than children and adults do (read about that here) and so it can seem like they are lazy when their bodies are just craving more sleep. Due to their schedules, they usually don’t get the right amount of sleep (9 hours per night is what a teen actually needs) and so they may appear groggy during the day. Although these sleep patterns are seen in teenagers from all generations, somehow Generation X was tagged with the laziness and slacker labels. Due to these labels, we have been ignored or inched out of many conversations over the years and now, because we are a slightly smaller generation sandwiched between two larger generations (the ‘me’ generation boomers and the ‘me me me’ generation Millennials) things like this happen.

Being ignored has it’s upside too, though. It means that we were not marketed to heavily until we reached our 40s and 50s. Either advertisers didn’t believe we had disposable income (which could be the case since we lived through a pretty bad down turn in the markets in both 2001 and 2008) or they simply couldn’t figure out how to use our grunge music to sell us products. Our musicians didn’t sell out in their 20s like some of the current day musicians have. And hey – no judgement on the sell out thing – Millennials need to sell out in order to acquire all the things that will make them feel safe and happy. Gen Xers were just better at making due.

Now, we can thank our former latch key status for supposedly teaching us to be better with our finances, so it isn’t all bad, but it can be disconcerting to see our generation completely ignored. Especially when it comes to popular media. Specifically, a show that a lot of us adored when it first came out in the 90s, that has now decided to completely erase us from the timeline of, well, time!

That show is Tales of the City, which has been rebooted on Netflix for another go at it. Armisted Maupin has been brought on as a consultant and the new series revolves around the old characters, Anna Madrigal who is now 90 and the gang from Barbary Lane, who are now supposedly in their late 40s. They have also added new characters – Shawna, the daughter of Connie Bradshaw, who is 25 years old and a slew of other Millennials that are the new tenants and ‘Barbarians’.

I would normally suspend my disbelief to be okay with the fact that some of the ages of characters are not exactly correct, but when it results in everyone my age being written out of the story it makes me a little mad. I mean – Shawna should be in her 40s. She should be a Gen Xer. But that wouldn’t make for great television since they wouldn’t be able to have the boomers make fun of her as a Millennial (which they do several times throughout the new series). The main characters from the original series (Mary Ann, Brian, Mouse, DeDee, etc.), in this timeline, are actually Gen X, but because they should be in their 50s/60s, they act more like boomers. And they refer to them as old folks, even though the actors are clearly in their late 40s and early 50s. So although there are characters that are the age range of Gen X, they are not perceived as such. These people were in their 20s in the original show (filmed in the 90s, set in the 70s), which means that with the normal passing of time they would actually be in their 60s/70s now. All this to erase a generation that nobody wants to reference and be sure to include the 2 ME generations in the storyline.

I get that it is just a show, but think about how popular culture has treated Gen X over the years and you will see why this can be bothersome. It bleeds into other parts of our lives in a way that allows the 2 generations before and after us to not take us seriously. It allows them to dismiss us in order to serve their own needs. Even while we are generating social security to take care of the boomers and allowing the Millennials to come back home to live with us after college or their first failed attempt in the workplace. We have supported both generations emotionally for YEARS and what do we get out of it? Invisibility.

I suppose that as a generation, Xers might LIKE to be invisible as it did provide some good cover in our younger years. We had a lot more freedom than the Millennials are getting. But, in the long run, the price we paid for anonymity has caught up to us. We didn’t have to see our idols sell out for a quick buck, but we also lost a lot of our people along the way.

So – while we languish here in the next decade, trying to make our way as middle-agers, we will remain invisible. As we plow through all the stereotypical assumptions about our generation to help make the world a better place and rid our politics of boomers like our current POTUS*, we will just have to consider ourselves the new silent generation. Maybe we didn’t have a world war to unite us, but we have certainly had a lot to deal with in the last 40-55 years on earth and life will continue to be a grind. The upside is that Gen Xers know how to deal with ‘the grind’ and we will eventually prevail no matter how invisible we are. It is, after all, always the quiet ones that make the most lasting impact.

Gen X Kids

punkgrrrl October 08, 2019 Critiquing, Reading, Watching Leave a Comment

Today I was sent a link to an author Twitter account that brought up a very interesting dialogue concerning the state of Gen Xers. The author, Sally Kilpatrick, asked a question concerning the moms of Gen X women that know how to do domestic tasks that we, as Gen X women do not know how to do. She is doing research for a character in her next novel that is, apparently, going to be a Gen Xer, and she wanted to get feedback from women born between 1965 and 1980.

As you might have imagined, it brought her some nasty feedback as there are people on the radical side of feminism that were offended by her assumption that women need to do domestic work and people on the side of radical non-feminism that were upset that she thought they couldn’t do domestic work at all. Both of these opinions, and the resulting vitriol she received (this is a common occurrence on Twitter whenever a woman or person from any marginalized group tweets) are not where I want to focus this post. The question itself raised some interesting thoughts for me, as a Gen Xer that was raised by two working parents. My mom was the main breadwinner for the majority of my formative years and she certainly pushed me to be high achieving, but in my experience that was not a replacement for learning basic life skills.

I think the difference here, and what the twitterverse might be taking too seriously, is that I wasn’t taught domestic chores in order to ‘grab a husband’ or ‘live my life alone’, but I learned how to cook and clean so that I could function in whatever scenario I chose to put myself into as an adult. She wasn’t ‘training’ me for domestic life, she was preparing me for the inevitable. Humans need to eat and keep their living spaces clean. These are basic things that ALL humans, no matter what sex or gender they happen to be, need to know how to perform. Unfortunately, many people on the boy side of the gender spectrum do not get the same education or treatment when it comes to domestic chores, or at least they didn’t prior to the late 1980s. Today, in America, we are moving toward more egalitarian setups for our lives, so that means that people that fall on the male side of the gender spectrum have to learn the same things that people on the female side do. This also goes for non gender binary folks. Humans, in general, need to keep their spaces clean and have a way to feed themselves.

But her question was not specifically about cooking and cleaning. Even if you didn’t have a parent that taught you those skills, and you didn’t have a home economics class in school, you would still be able to read a cookbook or watch a YouTube video to figure out basic life skills. Kilpatrick was focusing more on the craft art type of tasks. Things that you would have learned if you finished high school before 1985, but possibly not if matriculated after that time. The only way to learn some of these things, like sewing, knitting, crocheting, and other household craft tasks, would be to have the knowledge passed down to you from someone older. In fact, in my case, I learned many of these skills from my grandmothers. My Nana taught me to knit and my Grandma taught me cross-stitch. I took the skills I learned from those ladies and learned beading and macrame on my own, with the help of books and videos (yes – videos – it was the 90s after all.)

I did learn to cook from my mother and she passed her sauce recipe down to me (as all Italian mothers do) but I also used the basic skills I was taught to continue learning on my own. When I was in junior high, I actually did take home economics (or home ec for short) as it was still offered. The class was divided into 4 ten week periods consisting of sewing, typing, cooking, and wood shop. In the 80s, home ec was combined with technology and that meant that all students took all home ec subjects. Prior to that time the ‘boys’ would take shop and the ‘girls’ would take sewing, cooking, and typing. But, I was in one of the last classes to have these mandatory classes so we just took everything. This was a very positive experience for me as it allowed me to learn how to use machinery as well.

That year I learned how to thread a sewing machine and make a pillow AND how to use a table saw to cut wood to make a base for a lamp. I also learned how to drill a whole in a Chianti bottle and not crack it to make the lamp itself. I learned how to type 80 words per minute on what would now be considered an old fashioned typewriter AND how to bake chocolate chip cookies. I am not certain if home ec is still offered in high schools today, but if it is, I hope that any human is able to take it no matter their gender. I hope we haven’t moved backwards to re-gendering the tasks. With everything going on in America to try and move our society back to the 1950s, I wouldn’t be surprised if home ec was again something that only girls were enrolled in while boys were enrolled in shop class. That would be a shame, but it wouldn’t be surprising considering the current state of thought in America. (see: Mike Pence – I refuse to give him any linked clicks, but you can Google him)

I also believe that those of us born between 1965 and 1980 found great ways to learn things on our own. Being latch key kids gave us a freedom that Boomers and Millennials did not have. We came home from school and had to figure out how to manage our time to complete homework or make a snack. We had to navigate public transportation and we were given much more freedom to ride bikes and play at friend’s homes without a lot of oversight. We learned how to be self-sufficient at an early age and that has helped us moving into our teen and adult years. Being able to seek out information to learn the things we need to know has always been a skill of Gen X and the Internet was the best tool we could have hoped for to assist us with that research.

In light of this, it seems that Gen Xers (and the author focused mainly on women here, but I want to open it up to ALL genders) are the most resourceful generation of all. We could take or leave the home ec and shop classes and still be skilled at tasks that were taught there simply by seeking out the skills we needed to complete those tasks on our own. Basically, we were happy when a teacher or family member or friend wanted to convey new skills to us that we could take with us, but if we couldn’t find someone that was willing to teach us in our immediate circle, we found the information other ways. Libraries were our friends back before the Internet and now we use all the tools at our disposal with a computer and a wi-fi connection. In the end, the members of Gen X should feel proud to have well rounded skill sets. We worked hard for that knowledge and we are willing to share it with any Boomer or Millennial that comes calling. Tech support or mentorship – either way we are always willing to lend a hand and impart knowledge that we gained on our own.

If you doubt the Gen X penchant for learning new things independently, consider these cartoons that were some of our favourites back in the day…