Update: This little piece needed some redrafting/editing. Hat tip to Jack.
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We've heard plenty about the WWII era “Greatest Generation” as well as Boomers; so how about a little print on Gen Xers for a change, eh?
This seemed to be the promise of
Thomas Freidman's op-ed today, but once again, it appears that Gen Xers are simply a point of reference for Boomers to compare themselves to in the greater scheme of things. A more appropriate and descriptive title Freidman should have offered might be: “The Real Boomer Legacy.”
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation,” that classic about our parents and their incredible sacrifices during World War II. What I’ve been thinking about actually is this: What book will our kids write about us? “The Greediest Generation?” “The Complacent Generation?” Or maybe: “The Subprime Generation: How My Parents Bailed Themselves Out for Their Excesses by Charging It All on My Visa Card.”
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Friedman was born in 1953 making him a Boomer and it's refreshing to hear a Boomer critique the failures of Boomers. We don't see that very often, especially via titles such as,
“The [Real] Greatest Generation.” In fact, as a Gen Xer, it's been pretty tiring to sitt in the shadow of self-aggrandizing references all of these years. Lay on to that the incredulous suggestions that Gen Xers are not radical enough, disengaged, slackers, etc., and it plain gets a little annoying.
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More below the fold.
For those of us born between 1964 and 1982, Friedman's op-ed might sound familiar to what many of us have been thinking all along. As a generation (not any person or persons in particular), Boomers have benefited from the legacy of those who came before them. The War Generation worked through the Great Depression, went to war, then came home to rebuild much of America's infrastructure. We benefit to this day for almost everything we take for granted. Additionally, the “Greatest Generation” has provided for something no one should take for granted: a historic transfer of wealth in the form of inheritence. Boomer children are now the recipients of their parent's financial legacy. Anticipating this, they helped themselves to the generous cuts in the inheritence tax. Unlike proponents of the estate tax — Andrew Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt and Warren Buffet — it seems as if the Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush era prefers to recieve rather than give.
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Let's hope the “Me Generation” begins to start thinking more closely about the legacy they are leaving to the rest of us. Kudos to them on successes in environmental and social advancements. But when it comes to our debt-economy and investments in America's infrastructure, the generations that follow are being left with the bill.
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One obvious metaphor of the most likely Boomers legacy is the parent who, in death, leaves children with debts to pay. Maybe the parent was a narcissist who lived for the day but never planned for funeral expenses because it was too morbid to think about. Maybe the parent was a second-generation business owner who let the business go bust. Maybe it was a parent who said, to heck with the kids, I'm having a stellar retirement.
inherit their parent's debt. Sure, they love their parents, but their parents were frankly irresponsible and maybe a bit narcissistic in living for the moment and leaving others to clean up the mess.
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Friedman calls it as it is. But there's one other annoying reference in his analysis: the assumption that Gen Xers are sitting around quietly when we should be, in his words, “more radical than [we] are today.” I've heard this face-to-face right here in little ol' Northfield when a boomer said, “Where are people your age?”
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Gen Xers are in the omnipresent shadow of the Boomer Generation because we are half in number and therefore a much smaller public voice and a consumer group that most companies don't market to. It's not like we're sitting around quietly at all. We're the middle child of America's family, left to our own devices and generally passed over in favor of the eldest and the youngest. Boomers and Echo Boomers are the focus groups by virtue of their much larger populations. This translates to consumer marketing focusing on Boomers and Echos. It also translates to Boomers and Echos realizing more political opportunities in elected postions. Right here in Vermont we are beginning to see Boomers maintaing control while the Echos begin to rise as a new focus group for mentoring.
