Gen X Enters the White House

[Writer]

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_299451.html

NEW YORK - GENERATION X used to stand on the sidelines.
Now, with Barack Obama's victory in the presidential election, they're taking the White House.

That shift from Baby Boomers to Generation X is part of seismic change underway in the United States, as Obama readies to replace President George W. Bush in January, experts say.

Ironically, Generation X, or those born between 1961 and 1981, have long been identified by sociologists as reluctant to get involved, individualistic and cynical.

But 'now it is our time. There is right now a desperate, urgent sense of 'stand up and change things',' said Jeff Gordinier, editor-at-large for men's fashion magazine Details and author of a recent book, X saves the World. 'I can't pretend to be cool and skeptical and detached forever,' he said.

(more at link)

[onehandle]

1. Sorry, he's a Boomer.

However he leans towards Gen X in lifestyle and culture as do I.

"Baby boomer is a term used to describe a person who was born during the Post-World War II baby boom between 1946 and 1964."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby-boomers

"Generation X is a term used to describe the generation of people born between the approximate years of 1965 to 1980, or 1968 to 1979, depending on the source."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_x

[malik flavors]

2. They say 61, you say 64. Nobody really knows this stuff. I'd say he's more Gen X than Baby Boomer.

[Writer]

6. I think people are reluctant - if not defensive - about saying he's an X'er because it's not "sexy."

It's much "sexier" culturally to see him as a Boomer - which is the largest voting block in the nation at the moment - or as the cop-out "Gen Jones."

[kwenu]

70. I beg your pardon. X-ers are the sexiest group.

[Taverner]

40. He self identifies with Gen X since he straddles generations

My mom, the generation right before the boomer, is a boomer. She likes boomer music, is a feminist and identifies more with that group than her own. My dad, just one year older, identifies with the previous generation.

[anneboleyn]

51. His pop culture sensibility and references are VERY Gen X -- my husband and I (both Xers)

talked about this all of the time. He may miss the official start by a few years but in spirit he is a Gen Xer, not a baby boomer. Clinton was the quintessential baby boomer president.

[ecstatic]

58. Yeah. 45ish is the new 30! nt

[Writer]

3. Do you think Obama believes he's a boomer? n/t

[onehandle]

5. Maybe not. I don't know. I said he leans into Gen X in other ways.

Numbers, however, are indisputable. He's a Boomer.

[Writer]

12. I don't think strict numbers define a generation.

To say that there is some bright line dividing those born in 1963 and those born in 1964, for instance, is pretty limited. Historical experiences aren't encapsulated into brackets; generations evolve.

[Kind of Blue]

57. Right on and thank you!

[Chan790]

59. I agree...

by chronological measure...I'm a Gen-X baby (1979). However, I'm in no way Gen-X.

All my friends growing up were younger than me (I'm the oldest of my generation within my family as well...my next older cousin is 5 years older than me and I was the first of a spurt of 12 children within my extended family within 4 years.), all my cultural touchstones are Gen Y, I can't remember a time when I didn't have a computer at home and barely remember a time before the internet, I have no direct personal recollections of the Cold War or Reaganism, the first truly significant cultural event I remember was the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first presidental election I remember happening was Bush vs. Dukakis.

So yeah...I'm Gen-X except that I'm not.

[BamaGirl]

72. I agree

He sounds very Gen X to me, but I have an aunt born in 64 who is totally Boomer. Those early years in a generational shift, people can go either way. I was born in the middle of Gen X and have never doubted it for a minute lol.

[8 track mind]

7. Good question

Obama in my opinion acts more like an X'er than a boomer

[marshall]

50. I think he probably has more in common with Boomers

At least up until he went to college. He was raised by his grandparents--the generation that raised the boomers.

However I do think once he got out on his own and was exposed to a broader spectrum he changed a lot. And since he has had children relatively late in life he is going through a lifestyle that most people ten to fifteen years younger than him are experiencing.

[skooooo]

15. nope he's an X-er..

:-)

[onehandle]

16. No he isn't times infinity plus 1.

;-)

[skooooo]

38. blablbab blabbb blah blah... I can't hear you!!

:hi:

[stubtoe]

21. I've never understood why the boomer generation is 18 years wide, while

generation X is only 11 (or 15) years wide.

I've always thought these "generation" appellations were more marketing strategy than an actual sociological cohort.

[Unsane]

23. Obama's mom was a boomer, but not Barack.

[onehandle]

25. 1942. Boomers start in 1946.

As in, post-war baby boom.

[Unsane]

26. Her father was a WW2 vet. He came home and had Ann. For all intents, she was part of the boomer gen.

get over yourself

[Mabus]

24. Once a Boomer always a Boomer

But yes, we did have a helluva ride and, thanks to a lot of things, us later Boomers enjoyed many aspects of the Gen X life.

[surrealAmerican]

33. I was also born between 1961 and 1964, and I have never ...

... heard anyone call me "gen X", post-boomer yes, but not gen X.

[Nedsdag]

36. I was born in 1963, but I don't consider myself a boomer.

While the real boomers were growing into adulthood, I was in kindergarten. I have nothing in common with the so-called "boomer" generation. I don't.

The true boomer generation started in 1943, not 1946.

[skooooo]

39. Same here..I think it has more to do with memories.

I don't remember any of the Kennedy's, MLK, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, etc. dying. Nope.

[polichick]

60. You don't have anything in common with the boomer generation??

Don't care about the environment, civil rights, women's rights, world peace, green energy????????????

[Nedsdag]

65. Of course, politically, but then again, everyone boomers and non-boomers

should care about civil rights, women's rights et al.

You don't have to be a boomer to care about the environment, civil rights, world peace and green energy.

[Writer]

67. Not every Boomer believes in those things.

There is the other half of the Boomer population - the pro-Nixonites who cried in 1974 after his resignation. George W. Bush is one of them.

[Not the Only One]

41. Obama doesn't self-identify as a boomer

"Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more -- and it is time for our generation to answer that call..." -- 2/10/07, when Barack Obama announced his intention to run for president, uttering the word "generation" no fewer than thirteen times in his speech.

"In the back-and-forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation -- a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago -- played out on the national stage..." -- The Audacity of Hope

"There's no doubt that we represent the kind of change Senator Clinton can't deliver on. And part of it's generational...Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done." -- Barack Obama on Fox News, November 2007

[LisaM]

63. Isn't there a term called tweener?

to describe those who bridge the Baby Boom and Gen X?

I would say Obama is either a very late Boomer or a Tweener. He is NOT GenX.

[azmouse]

4. I'm the same age as Obama and grew up being called a 'Boomer'.

Why should it be any different now?

Edited to add:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers

Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from 1946 to 1954)
Memorable events: assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., political unrest, walk on the moon, Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women's movement, protests and riots, experimentation with various intoxicating recreational substances
Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented

Baby Boomer cohort #2 (born from 1955 to 1964)
Memorable events: Watergate, Nixon resigns, the Cold War, the oil embargo, raging inflation, gasoline shortages
Key characteristics: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism

[Mabus]

19. Same here

What do you bet that the article was written by some Gen X'ers trying to grab some of the Boomer Love. ;)

[surrealAmerican]

34. Sounds about right to me.

[Pithlet]

64. Not all of us. This Gen Xer thinks it's silly to call him a Gen Xer.

He's not. I was in elementary school when he was graduating from college. He can easily remember the 60's. I cannot. He was a teen and adult through the 80's. Gen X were kids in the 80's. He's almost my boomer parent's age. He just about qualifies as a boomer age wise. He may not identify with the boomers, but we don't share generational experiences. As much as I'd love to think a Gen Xer was in the White house, our generation is only now starting to seep into positions of power. We might see a president from our generation in 8 years, though. He's between the Boomers and Gen X.

ETA the argument could be made that his own perosnal experiences make him identify more with our generation. But that doesn't make him a Gen Xer. That I can get on board with. That's what make him a great guy :)

[Connie_Corleone]

8. Michelle Obama is a Gen Xer, so YES, Generation X is entering the White House.

[onehandle]

11. Nope. 1964. Also a Boomer. nt

[Connie_Corleone]

13. 1964 is the beginning of Generation X.

[onehandle]

14. See post #1. nt

[Connie_Corleone]

18. I already read post #1.

Other sources say 1964 is the beginning. No one has the right answer.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone born after 1960 to 1980 are generation X.

I was born in 1971, so I'm in the middle.

[Virginia Dare]

35. Let's say she's a boom-x'er

I was born in '62 and my other half was born in '64, I always thought we were boomer cabooses...I missed the memo on the changing of the boomer years, the boomers went out when the Beatles came in, 1964....:shrug:

[gblady]

9. like being a boomer....

is a bad thing?
I don't think so...

[Writer]

22. Here's an apology to Boomers... everywhere...

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/07/havrilesky/

[Kind of Blue]

52. Absolutely not.

It's just that us Gen. Jonesers were suckling babes, or crawling, barely walking, or still playing with toys in the 60s and just don't have the same experience. So if we all HAVE to be labeled, being a boomer doesn't fit with me. Plus, my mom is a boomer, nothing wrong with her :)

[Blue For You]

10. Is he a Mod or a Rocker?

:hippie:

[Sebastian Doyle]

29. Maybe he's "King Rocker"

This being a Generation X thread and all......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7vmXGPz2Ik

[Writer]

30. LOL!

:thumbsup:

Billy Idol is the King.

[dana_b]

61. a mocker...

to quote Ringo Starr. ;-)

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

17. It's about damn time.

Fucking Boomers have ruined our country.

[mitchum]

20. Those labels are for marketers and pseudo intellectuals...

invented by marketers in order to manipulate consumption by the half-bright

There is a reason that sociology is considered to be a VERY soft science

[onehandle]

27. I agree. Although I'm a Boomer, I have much more in common with Gen X.

Definitions, however, are definitions.

[adigal]

28. I am 3 months younger that Obama, and we are considered Boomers

although we were too young for Woodstock, free love, psychedelic drugs and protesting the war. The war ended when we were 10 years old!!

[Mabus]

31. But we had the pleasure of watching nightly death tolls during dinner,

seeing a man land on the moon, watch a US President resign without bloodshed in the streets and the first interracial kiss on Star Trek. What a long strange trip it has been.

[Not the Only One]

32. He was in high school during Carter's administration.

Star Wars and Star Trek movies in high school.

"That '70s Show" was produced to tap into Gen-X nostalgia. Obama and the show character Jackie, the youngest of the group, are the same age.

Little House on the Prairie, Happy Days, Schoolhouse Rock, The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, etc.-- all TV shows from when he was a kid.

He is totally Gen X.

[Virginia Dare]

37. Not to mention the height of the Disco era, Saturday Night Fever..

those were some tacky times.

[Kind of Blue]

54. "those were tacky times." And I loved it!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Nedsdag]

49. That was my era as well.

Nothing boomer there.

[Beacool]

42. The article is wrong.

The cut off date for the Baby Boomers is 1964. Heck, I should know, I'm Obama's age and we are both at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation.

:shrug:

[cameozalaznick]

43. Nope. Generation Jones.

That's the group that came after the boomers and before the Gen Xer's. They used to lump us in with the boomers, but found we really didn't have as much in common with them culturally, so we now have our own slot.

[shrike]

44. Yep

I'm a year older than Barack, have always been called a boomer, but don't identify as one. Would much rather be called "Generation Jones" or Gen X.

[Writer]

46. Have you considered that the reason why you didn't have much in common, is because...

you identify more with Gen X'ers, and could likely call yourself a Gen X'er?

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

45. William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their books Generations : GenX=1961–1981

The generation receives its name because it's the 13th to know the flag of the United States (counting back to the peers of Benjamin Franklin). Strauss and Howe defined the birth years of the 13th Generation as 1961 to 1981 based on examining peaks and troughs in cultural trends rather than simply looking at birth rates.<1> Howe and Strauss speak of six influences that they believe have shaped Generation 13.

These influences are as follows:
* Readily-accessible birth control
* Legalization of abortion on demand
* Increase in divorce
* Increase in mothers in the work place
* The Zero Population movement
* "Devil-child films"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book)


Barack Obama wasn't even in high school yet when Vietnam ended and Nixon resigned. He has nothing in common with the baby boomer generation.

[muriel_volestrangler]

71. I'll trump your authors with the US Census:

In 2006, the oldest of the baby boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, will turn 60 years old.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/006105.html

Official.

[BuyingThyme]

47. Boomer.

[Dawgs]

48. Not even close. GenXers were born after 1965.

I was born in 1970 and I'm not sure I belong in that group.

[anneboleyn]

55. This article says Xers are 1961-1981; the 13th Generation from Howe's book

excerpt from Wikipedia (Howe's book on Gen X):

13th generation

In the 1991 book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe called this generation the "13th Generation" and defined the birth years as 1961 to 1981. Using their methods, it is the 13th to know the flag of the United States (counting back to the peers of Benjamin Franklin).<5> The label was also chosen because they consider it a "Reactive" or "Nomad" generation, composed of those who were children during a spiritual awakening. Older generations generally have negative perceptions of Reactive generations -- whose members tend to be pragmatic and perceptive, savvy but amoral, more focused on money than on art<6> -- and the use of 13 is also intended to associate this perception with the negative connotations of that number. The authors highlighted this negative perception by noting the large number of "devil-child" movies (e.g. Rosemary's Baby)<7> released soon after the first members were born, compared with more positive movies such as Baby Boom that were released when the first members of the next generation were being raised.<8>

[onehandle]

62. He's in the minority. The established years are 1946-1964.

My parents had kids starting in the early 50's to me in 1962. They were the exact demographic for the parents of Baby Boomers.

I identify myself more with the Gen Xers, but technically, I'm a Boomer.

[anneboleyn]

53. From the article, Obama had a "chaotic" childhood, more common to Gen Xers than Boomers

Boomers, whether accurately or not, are usually thought to be the rebellious children of two-parent, 1950s families (as in The Big Chill). Gen Xers grow up in divorced/broken households and use pop culture as a way of dealing with difficult times (as in Reality Bites).

From the article:

"Neil Howe, author of Generations: the history of America's future, also sees Mr Obama as the archetypal X-er, growing up in the 1960s and 70s and experiencing early on all the major social changes in family values and behaviour.

'Obama was the product of an experimental inter-racial marriage: the father left, he travelled all over the world, a topsy-turvy, chaotic childhood, which is characteristic of Xers', Howe said. 'There is no accident that he has defined himself as a post-boomer politician.'"

[polichick]

56. Well, not exactly - but he is a late boomer.

[TragedyandHope]

66. Close enough

I guess I'm a Gen-Xer and Obama really demonstrates that he relates to the world in the same way I do, which is a marked change from the way many Boomers do.

The other day, another DUer put it really well when he said that the generational difference might be delineated as pre- and post-Apollo missions. The generation that came of age during or after that time, has always seen the world as a big, blue marble. One world, one people. Older folks who came before us, came of age and shaped their world views before they really saw our world for what it truly was.

[muriel_volestrangler]

69. "came of age during or after that time" - so, Gen X starts at 1955 at the latest?

I mean, 13 is a very generous definition (on the low side) of 'coming of age'. Some might put it at 18 - in which case, Generation X is those born 1950 or later.

Look like the Baby Boomers hardly got started, then?

[TragedyandHope]

74. Well, this idea was posted by another DUer and it was not about exisiting generation categories

like Boomers, X, Y and Z. This is a new category of before and after we saw the Earth as it really is for the first time. Seeing our planet as one world and the human race as one people. For the first time there was concrete, photographic evidence.

[Writer]

68. More evidence that he's an X'er... you all have to read this!

http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/11/5-signs-preside.html

[Barking Spider]

73. True GenXers have to have at least 1 year of high school take place in the 80's.

And the more years of high school that took place in the 80's, the more genXer you are.

My definition.

Obama graduated from Columbia in 1983, so he wouldn't have had been in HS during the 80's.

Sorry, he's a boomer.