I read this article (gift link) and while some points are familiar, much of it didn’t ring true:
Cynical and mocking, sure. Latchkey kids (or more correctly, self-sufficient) I agree. But I don’t think of us as “slackers” (though I could be persuaded that was just a “shield for earnestness”), let alone engaging in “trauma-bonding”.
Generation X was probably the hardest hit by lead emissions. High lead exposure as small children likely caused brain damage that led to increased criminality years later.
So you think the trait that best exemplifies Gen X is “increased criminality”??? Are you a boomer?
One of the traits, not the only one (Gen X suffered other traits due to lead poisoning). This does not mean that Gen X itself is to blame in a collective sense, since the lead emissions when Gen X were infants and toddlers were the result of actions by members of previous generations (the inventor of tetraethyl lead was born in what is called the Lost Generation).
No, Gen X. Just conscious of one of the ways that Gen X got a bad deal in history. (Fortunately, did not grow up in a big city where lead pollution was highest and the crime wave was worst.)
I think this meme sums up a lot of Gen X’rs!
More seriously - no, definitely not slackers. Not sure where that comes from, certainly not something I see in anyone I know personally or where I have worked.
Tone of the article was a bit meh, if you ask me. As for things like making things safer for our kids (I’m not bothering with the helicopter parent thing because I actually believe most parents aren’t) - yeah, people progress. Having your kids wear seatbelts in cars make sense. When you see a 6yo kid break their collarbone falling off a playground swing (happened to my brother), playground matting makes sense. When bad things happened to people it makes sense to be more careful, and maybe letting your kids roam unsupervised until dinner time isn’t all that anymore. I do think growing up in a world like we saw in the 70s and 80s of recessions and high inflation and nuclear shelters etc, never mind the casual sexism and racism that was around a lot then, affects how you want the world to be for your kids.
I fully agree with your assessment.
I don’t see us as slackers either. If anything, we worked too many hours in our youth, believing that was the surest path to career success.
We’ve also been a very entrepreneurial generation, having had the good fortune of entering the workforce just as the Internet boom began. And we’ve had to be financially self-sufficient — the first 401(k) generation, with most of us never having the safety net of a pension.
Gen X are the best Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Galaga players on earth.
I don’t have a subscription, but I saw a recent headline from the WSJ about how Gen X is getting skipped over for Millennials for C-Suite roles in large companies.
I read an article recently where the author pointed out that we will likely never see a US President from our generation.
I have mixed feelings about that, tbh.
That is mentioned in the article above, though there’s plenty of time for the situation to change. It is interesting how the years/decades in which presidents are born have tended to cluster (most famously in 1946) and that there was never a president born in the 1930s (John McCain was the last nominee from that decade).
The last time that happened was the 1810s and was presumably because the Civil War allowed a younger generation to rise. There hasn’t been a president born in the 1950s either and to me that’s more likely to be skipped than Gen X: coming of age in the optimistic late 1980s and 1990s seems more promising than coming of age in the depressed 1970s.
I’m Gen X, and agree with all of the above, but would also sheepishly accept slacker as an additional trait. We are, at the very least, a generation that enjoys slacking. Which doesn’t mean that we do it all the time! But we definitely pioneered the idea that laying on the floor while watching music videos and eating skittles was a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon.
I also feel that our lack of representation in C Suites and the White House are more than compensated for by our domination of popular culture - specifically in all forms of storytelling.
I saw a similar article on Yahoo:
Talk about nonsense statistics:
New research finds that millennials’ comfort level with artificial intelligence is helping them leapfrog Gen X in succeeding baby boomer CEOs.
New Russell 3000 data shows Gen X-aged CEOs in their 50s now make up 43.4% of the total, down from 51.1% in 2017, Fortune reports. Baby boomers aged 60+ have risen from 35.1% to 41.5%, while millennial CEOs in their 30s and 40s have grown from 13.8% to 15.1% over the past eight years, according to the Conference Board and Esgauge.
Firstly, the criteria (30s, 40s, 50s and 60s) don’t actually correspond to the generational cutoffs, which have moved up in age by 8 years between 2017 and 2025, not stayed fixed. And secondly, if these statistics are accurate, more CEO positions are going to people in their 60s (up 6.4%) rather than people in their 30s and 40s (up only 1.3%).
A more accurate interpretation would be that boomers are holding onto CEO positions (they were in their 50s in 2017 and are now in their 60s). Not that millennials are leapfrogging Gen X.
Exactly.
Gen X high school would likely be considered extreme slacking compared to high school today for those (then and now) aiming for more selective colleges (popular state flagship or more selective).
I will take you on right now 
. Born 1961… Lol 
So because I was born near the end of the baby boomer era I probably identify more with Gen x… Plus that thinking automatically makes me younger 
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Born in 1965, I feel like a lot of the traits attributed to Gen X belong to younger side of our generation.
However, when compared to my husband born in 1959, I’m definitely Gen X lol
Hm, I’m only a few years younger but feel very much a part of Gen X.
The Breakfast Club came out in my senior year of high school and I’m not sure one can get more Gen X than that 
