Ok, so blabbing on and on about the little echo boomers being pumped out into society may well have come back to karmatically bite me in the ass.
I've had two, count 'em two comments about my Gen X status since then by delusional baby boomers...
*Disclaimer* When I say Gen X, I don't mean every single person that is Gen X. When I say Baby Boomer, I don't mean every single person that is a Baby Boomer. I am just venting here, and I full well realize that every single person in these generations encompass all the qualities I am about to bitch about. *End Disclaimer*
The first commenter is an older Boomer who really, really needs to retire. He has the whole Boomer mentality of "The World Shall Fall Apart Without ME Here." We were debating the pro/cons of privatized social security.
"Just wait until there is nothing left for you," he said. "You think people like me should retire, but wait until you are my age. You'll think twice with the problems going on with social security. It's your damn Generation X, just wanting to take over everything."
"Dude, I've been told my whole life that I'm not going to get social security. I've dealt with that fact. I've saved money in my 401k since I was 19 years old."
I really think we should be called Generation 401k, since almost every one I know my age has been saving for retirement in one of these kinds of funds as soon as they could.
I have no doubt that my Generation is fucked up. Think about it. We will never have a huge voice in this country. The advent of the pill and legalized abortion (which I am for) pretty much cut our numbers down. It wasn't until the Boomers started reaching their late 30's that they thought, "Hey! I should pump out some kids!" thus creating the little Echo Bastards.
I read a statistic somewhere once that said we won't out number the Boomers until 2040. I'll be 69, and the huge Echo Boomers will then take over the majority.
How much does that suck?
We are very unique, us Gen Xer's. We grew up somewhere between the time our Moms put their sneakers and power suits on and went to work, to when the Columbine massacre happened, and people decided, "Hey, we should actually watch our kids!"
Our generation was a generation of self reliant little kids that had a big portion of their childhood sucked from them, myself included. My parents were great, there is no doubt, but things were different back in that time.
My little niece A, who is in 2nd grade, isn't allowed to go to the bus stop by herself. I used to walk home from Kindergarten by myself. When I got home, there was a 20 minute lag between when I arrived and the babysitter appeared.
Kindergarten. Image that now? Never. People would go to jail. Back then it was common practice for us good little latch key children to go home, unlock the door, lock it behind us, and wait for the adult to come home.
As I got older, my Gen X brother was responsible for any lag time between when we got home and my Mom got home. He went to Junior High when I was in 2nd grade, leaving me home about 30 minutes before he got home.
To keep us out of trouble, we had certain responsibilities aka chores to do before my Mom got home. This kept us busy and out of mischief. It also taught us a lot about self reliance and independence.
Gen Xer's are a freakin' independent lot...
So it's no wonder we became to be known as slackers once we got a bit older. With all that responsibility we faced as little kids, something had to give once we were old enough to really do what we wanted to do.
Ahhh, rebellion. You gotta love it.
I mean, think about it. What did we Gen Xer's inherit? The first Generation in America (Boomers) that didn't really give a fuck about the next (Xer's). It's true. The ME Gen was to self absorbed to worry about a measly little Generation like us, as THEY were the ones who really mattered.
Puhlease.
They gave us Disco. That in itself should condemn them to Hell. While as teenagers they enjoyed sexual freedom, we as teenagers were scared out of our collective minds by the AIDS epidemic. While they experimented with their drugs as teenagers, they brought Crack to our inner cities as adults and ruined them about the time most of us would think about smoking a joint.
We've got the shaft. We've been collectively fucked by society over and over again.
But we soldier on. We will be in our 50's before we get the promotions that the Boomers got in there 30's. Hey, at least by then our educations might be paid for by the time we are 50, unlike the generations before that saw relatively affordable tuition fees and didn't have to sell off their first born to go to college.
I think I'll save my second account for tomorrow, as this post is long, and my Gen X ass is tired. I'll also let you in on why my Grandpa, who is from "The Greatest Generation" believes that Generation X will inherit that title...
No comments:
Post a Comment