this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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Lefty Memes
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We Gen x have been practicing taking a back seat our entire lives. As a generation we still don’t outnumber the boomers. Or we just crossed them on the graph. Pre covid we were supposed to finally cross around 2027. Covid might have skewed the projections. Kind of explains why we are the way we are. Never could do fuck all unless the boomers also wanted it.
And now the millennials are the largest group. Yall got the numbers. Use ‘em.
You guys really are the forgotten generation... My dad claimed to be a millennial the other day, because he forgot there was something in between us and boomers
Millennials were told "put in your time, and eventually it'll be your turn", but we learned early on that "doing everything right" wasn't going to get us anywhere.
I feel like a lot of gen X are hanging onto that like a lifeline (not nearly all of course, there's plenty who don't drink the Kool aid, and took me aside to lay out the truth early). Like despite how only the lucky ones came out ahead, it seems like there's this fear of any change, like it'd tear away what little they've managed to hang on to
Maybe it's because it wasn't entirely a lie for the first half of gen x's career, maybe it's because most of the changes did tear more and more out of reach... Or maybe it's just bias since most of my older family did come out ahead and that led me to find friends with similar life experiences
Granted, I've found older millennials tend to be just as dogmatic if they got ahead, generations are just such broad ranges
What's your take?
I don’t know about the 1/2 half of Gen x careers being necessarily easier. I’m older Gen x born a few years after the generally accepted start for that era.
As a teenager and a young adult I saw that the structures that the silent and boomer generations set up and relied upon weren’t going to be there for me as a senior. Pensions being removed as employment benefits. the GOP demonizing social security and Medicare and underfunding the programs. Graduated from college in a white collar depression. Went though the same multiple crisis that the millennials did, just at a later phase of my life and career development. About the only real advantage my generation had was to be the right age bracket to catch the early internet boom. But also at the right age to catch the outsourcing to China / India boom.
I guess my point is that all the signs were there all along my life of the coming disruptions. I had the right combination of luck factors. Good stable childhood home. Enough food. Decent public schools despite moving as much as I did. Parents that paid for college. No physical or mental issues that prevented me from attacking a career path. Low inflation for most of those years. I did (and do) okay. I’ve helped myself now because I was pretty pessimistic about my future years.
It’s clear to me now we need systemic changes. I had hoped COVID would smack us around enough to give momentum to pivot as a society. But nope! It seems the divisions and right wing political extremism is even worse now. I don’t know where the impetus is going to come from now. For sure it can’t come only from Gen x. We don’t have the numbers. And enough of my generation have fallen down the MAGA cult black hole.