Generation X vs Baby Boomers

I have been thinking a lot about my generation, so ignominiously named Generation X. We are perhaps one of the most over looked and under appreciated generations of Americans in the last 100 years.  All our lives we have been overshadowed by the Baby Boomers and all our lives we have been reaping the consequences of their bad behavior.  So at the complete and utter risk of sounding like a whiner, here are some personal observations.

We are a generation of broken homes. I don't remember anyone's parents still being together by the time we graduated, unless their parents were WWII generation and not the Boomers that raised most of us.

Conversely, we are not a divorced generation. We married later and had kids in our 30's.

The Women's Liberation Movement ruined it for us, we now have to work and run the house.  Our grandmothers and mothers have always been housewives.

Phil Donahue wrecked our families.  He told our Mothers they were wasting their lives raising us and that they needed to do their own thing and find themselves; so our Mother's left.  Thanks, Phil.

Marlo Thomas, Phil's lovely wife, told us we could be what we wanted to be and that it was even okay for little girls to be little boys, if that's what they wanted.

By the time we were old enough to enjoy Free Love - we had AIDS.

Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll - Not anymore, we got, Just Say No.

Ronald Reagan was the greatest President of the 20th century and made us all love America again after the disaster of Jimmy Carter.

Our parents expected that we would sleep around and do drugs, so we did.

Our generation would be about the same size as the Boomers if they had not passed Roe v Wade and then proceeded to murder 20 million of us.  If abortion was still illegal we would not be facing a bankruptcy in Social Security and Medicare, because there would be enough adult workers to support those who are retiring.  We would not have become a culture of death that did not value human life.

We remember when a microwave was a "Radar Range" and they were huge.

Everyone, at one point, changed the channel with the needle nose pliers.

I bathed in "Love's Baby Soft".

I can still Boogy Skate.

I know what a Beta Max is.

I have watched a slide show with a projector.

We had films in class, played with a projector that if you were lucky, the teacher would let you run.

We thought the Flock of Seagulls was weird - even then.

We played outside and hung at the swimming pool all day.  If we were thirsty, we drank from the garden hose.

When we joined the work force, suits and ties and business dress was very common. You can thank us for "Casual Friday" that has turned into "Business Casual".

There was one PC in the office and it belonged to the boss.

Thermal paper faxes were cutting edge.

We saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and loved it.

Boys did not show up at our parent's house to pick us up for dates. We hooked up at parties and went dutch.

We wore satin shorts with piping and tube socks to match, if you added a twisted headband with a gold elastic band running through it you could get Physical. We wore Leg warmers and parachute pants, Flash Dance sweat shirts, and jeans that were so tight we had to lay on the bed to zip them up.

We had perms and were the first generation to use mousse. We called a mullet a "Bi-level" and it was painful to grow out.

We smoked at school and in our parents homes.

We do not like to be micromanaged at work and mistrust organizations and institutions.

We are more patriotic than the Boomers or the Millennials. We agree with the War on Terror. We remember the Iran Hostage Crisis, TWA, the Achileal Laurel, Beirut, and 9/11.

We remember when tolerance was putting up with someone's crazy beliefs but not having to accept them.

Radio in the 80's was truly horrible - top 40 or Boomer drivel played over and over again.

We were a latch key generation and got into a bunch of trouble between 3:30 and 6:00.

We will be the Generation that has to clean up the latest mess made by the Boomer hippies, who have bankrupted the country.

We will be the Generation that has to make the sacrifices again, we will not get Social Security or Medicare - the Boomers will absolutely bankrupt those systems.

If the World War II generation was the greatest generation - they raised the Boomers, who are the worst generation.

The Baby Boomers are as a group the most immoral, selfish, corrupt, self absorbed, short sighted generation in American history.  This is evident in the complete and utter disregard the politicians in Washington have for the views, wishes, and future of the American people.  Hey, if it feels good, do it, has always been their motto.  What do they care anyway?  They'll be dead by the time the bills are due.

Thus, the Gen X'r will do what is right.  We will perhaps in the end be recognized as the Grandchildren who rebuilt the empire after our self indulged parents destroyed it.  They say that the 1st generation builds it, the 2nd generation squanders it, and the 3rd generation brings it back.  I pray that 2010 and 2012 usher out many of the derelict Boomers and usher in the children of Reagan who will get to work cleaning up this mess.