by Domnall Óg
Home >> Talkin’ bout my generation
Some of the cultural achievements of Generation X include Hip-Hop music, “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman, Grunge music and “Matrix”. Generation X-ers were born during the ‘sex without consequences’ period: we are the babies everyone was trying so hard not to have.
We were born before ‘psychobabble’ – that vacuous nonsense of Generation Y where people talk about ‘emotional intelligence’ and ‘closure’ instead of ‘maturity’ and ‘getting over it’.
We just made it into the Space Age with Yuri Gagarin’s mission in 1961. Our chips were potato not silicone and crimes were committed by criminals not deprived childhoods.
We did not have PlayStations or X – Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms.
We had friends – we went outside and found them.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again. We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue – we learned to get over it.
For Generation X a ‘reality show’ was football or a documentary. For Generation Y a ‘reality show’ is sitting in the living-room watching other people sitting in a living room. For our parents it was World War II.
I’m not sure how well these definitions Generation X and Y work in regard to Spain. This country has had a very distinct post-war experience to the rest of Europe.
When I came here 16 years ago I taught children. I found them to be rude and unruly. It seemed to me that after so much repression from a dictatorial system, the parents had decided to let their children enjoy freedom.
Too much.
To say that children should express themselves is a dereliction of duty. They should only express the best of themselves. Anything less is bad education. We Generation Xers were lucky in that respect. Our parents saw what happens when you don’t say “no”. Our parents lived under Winston Churchill, our kids see George W Bush. That’s how big the gap is!
When my mother (Generation W?) was born, the Bolsheviks were struggling to gain power in Russia, alcohol had just been prohibited in the USA and the Ottoman Empire was only two years dead.
When I was born the Berlin Wall was still up, J. F. Kennedy was alive and the felt-tip pen was one year old. The Beatles had yet to have a number one hit!!
Generation Y (or “Why?”) will have to contend with the neo-Crusades of West versus Middle East, technological advances outstripping ethical debate and the ‘dumbing down’ of the news media.
Maybe future historians will see Generation X as the lucky ones: the ones who lived through a golden age.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2008-11-21 10:00:00 +0100
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Hi, Dónal.
I’ve enjoyed your article a lot and I agree when you talk about a distinct post-war experience to the rest of Europe.
I think Generation X (like me) have difficults making intelligent use of technology, and Generation Y have no problems about it, but these are more confused about the “why” of technologies, because they spend more time “using” technologies but have less time than us to think of the purpose of them. Generation Y people look like they’re always thinking about the new car, the new motorbike, the new mobile phone, the new video game, ipod, etc… the things I don’t care about so much.
Now people is more worried about in “to have” instead of “to be”
Of course, we’re living through a golden age.
Best regards,
Carlos
I beg to differ; I know a lot of Generation Xers who are very interested in money, status, and social climbing. I also know more Generation Xers who talk more about closure and all that emotional crap than a lot of those people in my generation, who really have had to just get over things. Generation X has given us lots of good things, but lots of craziness as well.
I am neither Generation X nor Generation Y. I am part of that middle generation. I think we got the best of both worlds. Maybe we got the worst, too. MS-DOS, need I say more? Oh, and we saw the Berlin Wall, too, though at our age we didn’t understand the repercussions of it. We Americans only knew that the Communists were the bad guys.
Of course, you have to give Generation Y a little credit. They have friends, too, of course, and even went outside to play. And fighting is not OK, no matter what Generation you are from.
All that said, and having given this generation of children and adolescents the credit due to them, I think you are absolutely right in matters regarding children. Children here, and from what I have seen, in countries like France and Italy as well, are indeed rude and unruly, obstreperous you might say. As they say, “it is the fault of the parents.” Maybe…
Funny thing about identifying the effect one’s generation has is that we don’t tend to see it much, much later. Being a generation Xer myself, I hit my teens in the early 80s (serious economic depression time in Ireland with one in five emigrating and 20% unemployment) and was too busy trying to study, work and enjoy life to take any notice of the socio-political effect my generation might have been having on the Ireland of the future. Then came the new kids on the block, bathed in economic growth (unlimited access to credit from other European countries’ savings banks) and it was like the 80s was just a bad dream. Indeed, youngsters nowadays (at least in Ireland) are told, ‘If you don’t behave, I’ll show you some newsreel from the 80s!’ Scares the hell outta them.
It occurred to me that we sounded like these gentlemen…
_Courtesy of the official Monty Python Channel on You Tube_
Hi everyone
What a great article.
It is not possible to compare both generations, due to our parents had to struggle really hard to go over it and for us it is also really hard times due to the competitive times.
Years ago to became a good professional didn´t require a high degree and nowadays to work in an office enviroment is required a high degree and also be fluetly in a lenguage.
Things as friendship used to be more valorated and enjoying out home was tipical.Nowadays those things are differents, people prefer enjoying with video games or others device rather than friends.
Greetings