Generation XGeners: would you say that we tend to be the children of Boomers, or Silent Generation?

[Taverner]

I realized that out of my friends who are GenXers, all of them had Silent Generation parents. Wondering if this from myopia or if it is true...

And I find that if I meet the children of boomers, there is a slight disconnect there...

[sadbear]

1. I'm 36 and my parents are boomers.

[TwilightGardener]

2. My husband and I are both 42, but my parents are in their 70's, his

are boomers (early/mid 60's, they had him young).

[MiddleFingerMom]

3. By definition, The Silent Generation was born between 1929 and 1942 and the Baby Boomers...

.
.
.
.. were born between 1946 (a HUGE postwar marriage-and-birth rate -- hence the Baby
BOOM) and 1964.
.
My folks were born in 1920 and '21 and I always thought of them as part of The Silent
Generation. MFMDad fought in WWII in the Pacific and he and MFMMom married RIGHT
after WWII and started a family.They experienced The Great Depression as young
children/adolescents.
.
40 years and more later, MiddleFingerMomDad STILL ate with his arms defensively
circling his plate so that the other kids couldn't steal his food.
.
My siblings were all Boomers, reaching legal age from the time of The Beatles'
arrival in The States to the early years of disco -- the oldest being most familiar with
pot and hallucinogenics and the youngest most familiar with cocaine.
.
We still sit with our eyes protectively guarding our stash boxes so that the other kids
can't steal our stash.
.
.
.

[cemaphonic]

4. Probaby depends quite a bit on the cohort

I was born in '74, and me and most of the people that I went to school with all had first-wave Boomer parents that had kids in their mid 20s. Older Xers (the group that originally got stuck with the label) would have been much more likely to have Silent Generation parents.

And yeah, I can see a disconnect - I find that I share as many attitudes and cultural signposts with the post-80s group as I do with the older Xers.

[Taverner]

16. Born in 1970 - so not sure if that makes me an older or younger Xer...

My brother (born in 74) and I always felt as if we were the last of our group to arrive...

[politicat]

5. I'm a bicentennial baby, partner is a 1970 vintage.

I have one early boomer parent ('49) and one boomer-Jones cusp parent ('56)... I'm the eldest of their offspring, and I am the Xer in the family -- my sibs are early Millenials, but the are quite firmly culturally millenial in ways I am not. I got the very end of the good college education for cheap ; tuition tripled for my sister between my 92 freshman year and hers in 97 and quality was spiraling the drain.

Partner is his parents' last child, born in 70 to silent-Boomer cusp parents ('42 & '43, iirc)who were culturally Boom in that back to the land/ hippie/ late life libertarian sort of way. Partner is a solid Xer - latchkey kid who raised himself on bbs and MUDs.

The Xers I've met with silent parents tended, in my experience, to have had more secure childhoods - more school stability and housing stability, parents with more education so better jobs, fewer familial flights of fancy (my parents thought nothing of moving cross continent; they did so several times). I think that is an artifact of age at child's birth, though, not of generation. My 19 year old mother was willing to take greater risks because she had little invested in her natal community - no property, minimal educational prospects, best likely job on the assembly line in a world that no longer wanted land yachts.

The other disconnect you see might be an artifact of young parents vs older parents at first child's birth. The silent parents of Xers tended to have more stable marriages (as in, in the marriage for the long haul, even if the marriage is mutual torture) because divorce was harder until the mid70s, and delaying first marriage makes for better marriages, regardless of other factors. Young parents divorce more readily, so a lot of the Xer from Boom moiety were in post-divorce poverty, had both parents in full or super full time employment, and child support enforcement was still sketchy then. Thus, Xer from Boom got the majority of the x commonalities like being a latchkey, building our strongest bonds with peers (since parents had significantly lower availability compared to previous generations thanks to work and social calls on their time) and either a distrust or no exposure to organized social/political/religious groups.

It only takes about 1/10th of a given population to create a stereotype, and only 1/4 to share a common set of cultural markers to make that set of markers the generational touchstones.

[sakabatou]

6. My brothers are Gen X. They're the sons of the Boomers

[Tabasco_Dave]

7. i'm 45

My mom was born in 41, my dad in 42 I really don't concider them silent or boomer i would describe them as the American griffity generation they both grew up with rock n roll but they where too old to be hipppies.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Mine are the same way--the Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, early Beatles generation--

that was THEIR rebellion, I guess--but too mature and established as adults (mid-20's) to have been hippies or counterculture in a significant way when the late 60's came around.

[cyberswede]

9. Silent Gen here...

But it's probably more common for Xers to have Boomer parents, imo. Our parents started the family when they were young, but by the time I was born, they were older than the parents of most of my classmates.

There are 8 kids in my family - the first 6 are Boomers, and my little sister and I are GenXers.

[Taverner]

14. Interesting - are you closer to your lil sis, or the other siblings?

[cyberswede]

21. Closer to my younger sister...

My sibs' birth years are:
1950
1952
1954
1956
1957
1959
1966 (me)
1968

I'm barely a GenXer, and I relate to both Boomers and GenXers (with regard to social references, etc.). Interestingly, I'm older than most of my kids' friends' parents, many of whom are GenYers, and I can relate to them, too.

On edit: I bet you meant a closer relationship rather than closer in years. Duh! I'm probably equally close with all my sisters, regardless of age. I'm less close with my brothers, but part of that is due to geography, and part is due to age and gender (my brothers are 10, 12, and 16 years older than I am). We have less in common, life-wise.

[ceile]

10. Slient gen...

Mom was born in 42 dad in 39- divorced when I was 2. I'm the youngest of 4 by 10 years so it was just me and mom by the time I was 8. Latchkey kid. My friends parents were younger than my mom by 6-8 years. Kids of boomers were generally 2 parent households and upper middle class- nothing like my family.

[geardaddy]

11. I'm 47 and my brother and sister are boomers

My parents are/were Silent Generation-ers.

What I don't understand is they classify silent geners as too young to have fought in WWII. My g/f's dad was born in 1925 and fought. My dad was a WWII era veteran and was born in 1927.

[Taverner]

13. Did he lie about his age to join?

Lots of Silent Generation men did that - feeling they'd be "left out" if they didn't fight

[geardaddy]

15. No, he was drafted.

G/f's dad was 18 in 1943 and was drafted into the Navy and saw action in the South Pacific. My dad was 18 in 1945 and joined the Navy Reserve and was in boot camp when they dropped the bombs on Japan.

[HopeHoops]

12. I'm a child of the SPAM and Velveeta generation. Actually, I just squeeze in as a Boomer.

1963 was pretty close to the end of that classification.

[geardaddy]

17. I'm a first year Gen X'er.

1965.

[Taverner]

18. LOL

You probably didn't intend the pun - but Velveta/Squeeze...

[HopeHoops]

19. Sorry, but I don't even GET the pun.

[Taverner]

22. Velveeta - the Squeezable Cheese! Don't you remember that commercial?

Must've been around 1976 or so...

[HopeHoops]

23. No. Don't remember the commercial.

[Arugula Latte]

20. My parents were Silent Gens, and I'm an older GenXer.