Voices from the Middle: Gen Xers Consider Midlife

Time to let other real people talk about Gen X meeting midlife. These are voices of friends and friends of friends who were nice enough to respond to my questions earlier this year. (I love this part . . . kind of like a birthday party, unwrapping what people gifted me with . . . and I'm happy to share the gifts. You're all great. Thanks!)

I think most of us are in denial about middle age. I am....

I'm choosing to take the scenic route and not go through middle age.

Boomers still insist on thinking of themselves as middle aged. I, for one, am willing to let them keep the title.

Either I have never had a mid-life crisis, or I've had one every day since the age of 13.

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Question: Do you think GenX will approach midlife differently than other Generations? If so, how?

Answer: YES . . .

We had our children later so we will postpone midlife – we, I, am the mother of young children but I am only 6 years shy of when my mother became a grandmother and she was a late grandmother for her generation. Thus, we will stay “young” longer – soccer mom, PTA, etc.

People have been waiting longer to have children and so at an age like 43, definitely the “grandma” age at one time, my friends are having children. The “empty nest” syndrome may be taking longer to develop – that feeling that one big segment of life is completed with kids going off on their own and then what to do next that creates a need for self-reflection and restructuring of goals. Also, seems like people my age expect a much longer healthy and productive future for themselves than a generation or two ago.

We will, generally, not be as well off as our parents in retirement . . . no pensions, no social security.

Right now, as I work with seniors, many whom are in the dying process, I have concerns about Medicare, and Social Security, and programs that are currently available to my parents, but that may not be available when I need them. At bear minimum, they may be so spent from and taxed, that Generation X-ers may only get a small portion of what we have paid-in.

I think we may have it harder than others. We are balancing so much: family and the broad sense of caregiving for our parents and kids, work, social activities, and our worship, if we are the 1/3 of Americans who actively have time to worship. We are the "in debt" generation, not only financially but with our time as well.

I think my focus is on staying active and taking care of my health from a more wholisitic perspective rather than focusing on what pills or doctor's cures can mask the signs of aging is different from my parent's generation.

Well I do think I will approach this age differently than my parents, but not necessarily any different that the generation before me. I think we will enjoy ourselves more, and think more about our health. I think we have learned from watching our parents that we will probably live a long time, and it is important to make sure the quality of that time is optimized.

We live life for the most part.  I am probably more active than I was 20 years ago. 

YES. I've noticed among my friends and counterparts a willingness to take a leap into the void and do things that our parents wouldn't have done. Turn 40 and decide on a total career change? Sure, why not! It's possible. You're 38 and you suddenly decide that Marketing sucks and you want to go to med school, even though it'll be 10 years before you're in practice? Sure! Do it! That has been the general attitude of my peers. We seem to have more of a willingness to take a chance and leave the confines of "but you have a good job with health insurance" behind. So many of my friends are currently in their "second act" - either willingly or as the result of a layoff - and every single one says the same thing: "It's the best thing I've ever done." For the generation before us, life changes seemed to only be allowed to occur in your 20s, and wherever you were when you hit 30, that's where you stayed forever. You lived in the same place, stayed in the same job... but not the Gen X'ers that I know. We seem to not mind moving around a lot, trying to find a place to live that makes us happy. My family before me never traveled, and I love being able to hop on a plane whenever I want to, and go to a different country. The whole world is more accessible, and I feel like Gen X'ers are all the richer for it.  And 40 suddenly doesn't look like what 40 used to look like. I look at Jennifer Aniston on a talk show, who seems very 30-ish to me, and I realize that she's 42. And that's a great example of how I feel collectively about my generation: we're not aging the same way the previous generation aged. In fact, I fully expect that at some point in the 50-60 range I'll have to slow down, or maybe I'll have some kind of ailment that young people don't get, and I fully expect to be completely shocked by my sudden physical limitations, and my first thought will be "but how can I have THAT? I'm so young...." -- when, in fact, I'll be pushing 60.  

Gen Xers probably place more emphasis on less important things than earlier generations. We're somewhat ego-centric. Past generations seem to revel in their family life as they age. We tend to focus on what we don't have anymore... looking in the mirror and seeing an unfamiliar face looking back. We're also very into our careers and maybe don't value ourselves for who we are but for what tangible things we can accomplish.

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Answer: MAYBE/ MAYBE NOT . . .

Not sure. We have a tendency to work in several different fields, so we might feel more well rounded in mid-life.

That is a 50/50 answer.  I believe that life approach (politics, socio-environment etc.) determines ones path!  This is true of any generation!    

Don't really know. I guess we might update our Facebook status or something.

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Answer: NO . . .

I don't really think so. Regardless of generation, I see middle age as a time where you sort of get used to being in your own skin. Most of your important decisions are in the past, so you just play the remaining cards you've got.

No, it's midlife, move on.

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So . . . yesterday, psychologists and researchers and my own ponderings . . . today, several Gen Xers stepping into the experience of midlife. Am I ready to draw conclusions or not? Hmm . . . 


This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com 

What's the Big Deal About Midlife?

As a person who has acted 35-years-old since she was 3 and who has acted 18 since she was 30, I figured I’d understand midlife well enough. I was expecting to be confused by Gen X. As it turns out, quite the opposite is the case. I understand and often enjoy my generation. But midlife . . . what’s the big fuss all about anyway? Maybe the rest of you will resonate with what others have written about the midlife experience. Here goes:

“When life is no longer seen from a perspective of beginnings through a fantasy of continuous expansion and growth, but rather from the perspective of ends and of death through a fantasy of fate and limitations, midlife has arrived.” —Stein, Murray. In Midlife. Dallas: Spring Publications, Inc., 1983, pp. 41.

“Midlife can be a time of personal reorganization due to an increasing awareness of one’s mortality.”

—Kirasic, K.C. Midlife in Context. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004, pp. 121

“It is almost as if middle and late adulthood are the human laboratory in which existentialism is grounded. The preeminent issues are death (one’s own death), finitude, time, anxiety, dread, nothingness (and the threat thereof), and courage in the face of a threat to personal nonbeing.”

—Olson, Richard P. Midlife Journeys: A Traveler’s Guide. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1996, pp. 16.

“In midlife, the assumption of nearly every role one will assume peaks. Because of the number of roles, and corresponding number of selves, the midlife adult can be viewed as psychologically fragile. Cultural, familial, and personal expectations for one’s self may clash, resulting in a time of confusion, discontent, and personal disorganization.” —Kirasic, K.C. Midlife in Context. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004, pp. 40.

“As we move onto the second curve of new growth, our lives will expand into a richer, more fully developed maturity. This abundance of life cannot be attained in one’s twenties or thirties. Ripeness comes later.”

—Sadler, William A. The Third Age: Six Principles of Growth and Renewal After Forty. Cambridge, MA, 1999, pp. 45.

According to Erik Erikson, midlife is a time when people work toward guiding the next generations, work that often feels as though it is battling a standstill. Changes in thought during midlife tend to bring about new awareness of self, other, environment, and community. Within such issues, the midlifer faces the pull between positive urges to guide/leave a legacy for future generations and negative urges to let life pass while focusing only on his/her own wants and needs. Midlifers who successfully negotiate the struggle tend to become more caring in addition to developing a religious attitude.

“Midlife crisis” is a common topic of authors examining midlifers. Murray Stein eloquently explains that the root of the crisis is the in-between space midlifers find themselves in, “when the ego is a has-been and a not-yet.” Carl Jung suggests that, in order to successfully navigate through midlife, a person must move from ego-centricity to God-centeredness, to descend into inner life in order to emerge as the Self. Stein explains that moving from young adulthood to older adulthood cannot successfully happen unless the midlifer buries the earlier identity and embraces the person he/she is becoming, which is what Jung meant when he said that whoever “carries over into the afternoon the law of the morning . . . must pay for it with damage to the soul.”

I understand in my head what all this is about, but don’t think I’m experiencing what psychologists call "midlife crisis" any more than I ever have. Honestly, I think I’ve gone through this sort of thing so much that it’s just kind of ordinary, not wonderful, but kind of typical to realize that I’m once again living in a state of “liminality” . . . a land of limbo . . . of being a has-been and a not yet with doors closing while other doors haven’t quite opened. I've always been acutely aware of death and the beautiful fragility of life. I've always had a religious attitude . . . I'm not talking about a specific religion, I'm talking about humility that comes from respecting time and an individual life in comparison with all time and creation. I've always been concerned with leaving a legacy and guiding the next generation . . . well, maybe not ALWAYs, but probably since I was 7 years old. I've been content with who I am even as I change, feeling that I am who I need to be since I was maybe 17. What psychologists call "midlife crisis," I view as adult human life, and I've already been living it and hope to continue until it passes on to something else.

Midlife is sometimes compared to adolescence, and I am quite aware that teenagers cannot see the big picture of all the changes they are going through until their teen time is over. Is that why I feel the way I do about midlife? Am I blinded by the storm? Or is there no new storm? And what kind of a potential hazard is our house with 2 young teenagers and 2 early midlifers? Should someone step in and save us?

I’ll share what other Gen Xers I know have shared about what they think midlife might be in a later post. Until then . . . any insights from voices of experience?


This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

Before X

Gen X isn't the only generation who has travelled through midlife. During midlife, people tend to learn to appreciate generations that came before in new ways. Older generations, after all, are the ones who raised us and are the ones we will be looking after in our families should they need our assistance. Today’s older adults were born before1951.

The GI Generation was born between 1901 and 1924 (currently ages 87-110). The GI Generation has also been called the Greatest Generation. In their childhood years, the American population was primarily rural but was moving quickly to the cities. Ford’s Model-T automobile came on the scene in 1908, but many in the country certainly relied on other forms of transportation. Women gained the right to vote. Radio reached American homes. Prohibition and the roaring 20s lifestyles clashed. Evolution was on trial in Tennessee. Country-wide crises hit during the generation's teenage years with the stock market crash, the collapse of other world economies, masses of homeless and unemployed people, and the Dust Bowl. The GI Generation found their identity as young adults as they were thrown into World Wars I and II on foreign soils and were sweating to increase homeland production to meet the needs of war.  In The Greatest Generation (an interesting book with photos and stories), author Tom Brokaw said, “Black Americans were called Negroes or Colored in polite company and official documents, but the hateful epithet nigger was a common expression, even when referring to black Americans in uniform. They had few champions of racial equality outside their own ranks.” Japanese Americans at home found their citizen rights removed. White members of the generation became heroes, found their meaning as heroes, and will always be remembered as heroes. They entered post-war life especially mature as a result of their war experiences. They continued to hold to the values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith. Brokaw noted, “They helped convert a wartime economy into the most powerful peacetime economy in history. They made breakthroughs in medicine and other sciences. They gave the world new art and literature. They came to understand the need for federal civil rights legislation. They gave America Medicaid.” As a generation, they have been characterized as frugal, team-oriented, loyal to institutions and causes. To their generation, marriage has been a binding commitment, and divorce has been unacceptable.

The Silent Generation was born between 1925 and 1945 (currently ages 66-86). The Silent Generation, born after the stock market crash and before the end of World War II, has also been called, the Postwar Generation and Seekers. Their earliest memories are memories of hard times. In the words of Strauss and Howe from the Fourth Turning (a book I’ll probably talk about another day) the Silent Generation “grew up as the suffocated children of war and depression. They came of age just too late to be war heroes and just too early to be youthful free spirits.” In a blog written by a Silent Generation man reminiscing about his generation's past, I read, “Because they had to look after their worried parents, they became empathizers, mediators, and conciliators.” From postwar times on, other descriptive words about the generation included, “withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, and unadventurous.” A a 1970 Time essay of generational self-examination, noted, “Our aloofness stemmed from an early skepticism. As youngsters during World War II, we collected paper, stomped on tin cans and weeded victory gardens to help the heroic Russians and defeat the hated Nazis and Japs. Before most of us were in our teens, we were taught that the Germans (no longer Nazis) and the Japanese (no longer Japs) were our allies and the once heroic Russians our enemies. Small wonder that in our college years we learned to be wary of ideologies or political passions.” According to Wikipedia, as young adults, the generation displayed confused morals, “expecting disappointment but desiring faith.” They worked hard, saved little, and women desired careers and families. When the Baby Boomers came along, the Silent Generation as mid-lifers felt especially crunched in the middle of powerful voices. The 1970 Time Essay on the generation said, “We can understand, as the young cannot, why the older generation is afraid, and more sadly, why it is resentful of those who seem to have everything but gratitude. To both young and old, we are almost invisible. The young often see us as the cop-outs—as the shorthaired, button-down junior exec or the suburban housewife in a station wagon—and many of us are.” In the 1960s and 1970s, the Silent Generation racked up the highest divorce rates in the country’s history even though they claimed to hold to the value of marriage. The Silents, as a generation, made a strong mark as artists, journalists and mediators including such people as: The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood, James Dean, Little Richard, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Quincy Jones, Tina Turner, the Beat Poets, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gloria Steinem, and Jimmy Carter. I don't know about the rest of you Xers, but the Silent Generation's outlook reminds me a bit of us. Strauss and Howe actually say that Xers are the shadow of the Silent Generation.

The Baby Boomer Generation was born between 1946 and 1964 (currently ages 47-65). Baby Boomers were born after World War II, often to young, married GI couples during a twenty-plus year era of economic prosperity. They number more than any other living co-hort, are just now hitting retirement, and are accustomed to having society respond to their needs. As adolescents and young adults, Boomers took up causes and pushed hard to spur societal change. They ushered in a time of being more carefree as individuals and of thinking outside the box. Boomers seem to have broken the mold for expectations at each age they’ve hit along the way. Theirs is the generation of Vietnam, Woodstock, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. They were the long-haired, hippy, Flower Children of Xers' childhoods. As a group, Baby Boomers had more access to education than previous generations, and they also have tended to hold steady jobs with pensions and to own homes at an early age. They are currently the strongest, most active political generation in our country. In the late 1980s, a sociological report to the American Academy of religion said that as many Baby Boomers raised their families, they were returning to churches and religion in a search for meaning. Research shows Boomers to be a generation of religious seekers who do not necessarily view religion as their parents or grandparents did. The activism of Boomer youth is evolving into volunteer activities of older Boomers. Most of them are still mid-lifers, just ahead of Xers. The oldest 5 years of the Boomer generation has walked into older adulthood, just as the oldest 6 years of Gen X have hit midlife.

My grandma who I wrote about in the last post was born in 1901 and shared most of her generational characteristics with the Lost Generation, the generation just above the GIs. The Lost Generation is pretty much extinct from the planet now, which is kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around.

I've enjoyed considering life and generational experiences of living U.S. generations that are forging ahead of Xers and hope you've enjoyed the brief exploration as well.

OK all you non-Xers out there (or Xers, for that matter) . . . do I have anything here wrong? Should anything be added/ changed? What do you think has characterized generations other than X and why?

This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

An X in the Circle of Life

Bequeathing Incognito

And the man begat man begat another

begat the father no son remembers,

a tissue-covered residue

molding in a grey photo

extinct by resounding

years and blood

replicating hollow mirrors of himself.

And each man breathed a boy breathed another

breathed men abandoned to foretime,

a foreshadowing legacy

inherited by surviving sons

reproducing generations,

men and boys

breaking old apparitions and creating new ghosts.

And each sire bore his sons bore his son

bore his boy who buried the bequeathor

except for the blood

grey eyes stretching from a page

into a breathing likeness

foreseeing future

failing to recall men and years

before he shatters.
                                -Me

-something I wrote at age 22, after Grandma had given me a stack of tin-type photos of relatives I’d never known

I don’t know about you, but thoughts of midlife, of looking ahead and behind, are familiar friends to me.

My dad was 36 when I, his first child, was born in the tumultuous year of 1968, and his mom was 31 when he, her first son, was born a few years into the Great Depression. My paternal grandma took over many mothering duties for me when she was 71, serving as something between mom and grandma, remaining my strongest female influence until she died at age 91 during the first year of my marriage.  

Every summer Grandma prepared me and herself to celebrate her last birthday, but one summer kept following another with yet another last birthday cake. My lifetime of memories of her begin after her first stroke, when she started using a walker to get around, when her toenails grew thick, her bones ached from arthritis, she talked about blood pressure, and her flesh bled and bruised easily. She lived alone on the farm where she had raised her sons. Dad told me that Grandma was crabby because it was difficult for her to give up the control she’d always had over the farm, her adult sons, skills she’d always been strong at, and her body. He was sandwiched between raising two kids, farming, and looking in on his mom.

The spring after I was married, her body just slowed down enough to stop one day, not quite getting her to one more last birthday cake. She was a strong, stubborn woman who spent laborious but fun hours during 90 degree days without air conditioning teaching me to can green beans, tomatoes, pickles and whatever other food my dad grew to keep the two of us busy. She taught me to make pies from scratch, scrub floors, fold laundry, hammer nails, prune rose bushes, and grow flowers. She let me parade her old hats and dresses from the 1920s during my one-girl fashion shows and practice walking with her walker or cane or feeling my way around her downstairs with my eyes closed, practicing being blind just in case I ever accidentally poked my eyes out. We laughed, sweated, and rested a spell outside under the shade trees with lemonade or cold tea together.

Once, frustrated that I’d been made the gatekeeper to prevent her from literally crawling up to the second floor of her house to clean, she uninvited me to her funeral, and we cried and raised our voices through the experience because each of us sure had a mean streak. I never doubted she had the ability to make me go find and cut a hickory switch for her to whip me with if I ever got out of line, and while I’d never seen her use the shotguns hanging above the washing machine near her front door, I could easily imagine her aiming one at strangers, probably chicken thieves, who may have come to her door from time to time as she was raising two boys and tending to a bed-ridden husband out in the middle of rural Illinois.

Pictures on Grandma’s walls were black and white. Pictures in photo albums were made of tin. We would sometimes rummage through trunks with wedding bands, obituaries, letters, and family secrets all tied together with old strips of aprons. She would let me select musty-smelling books I had to be gentle with while reading, belonging either to people she’d loved who had ceased living before I was born or to an earlier version of herself that I’d never known.

I left home for college at age 17, venturing into territory not experienced by the people who raised me, and I certainly felt as though I’d arrived in a new and strange land. It wasn’t until then that I really experienced unburdened youth or many influences of my own generation, which, as it turns out, weren't exactly unburdened. When I reached somewhere around age 35, I felt as though I’d finally arrived at the age I’d been most of my life. I’m still pretty much there.

Human developmental theories are based on the idea that, as we grow and change, we’re still all the ages we’ve ever been. Somehow, I don’t expect any age I reach to seem like foreign land. Through my family, I think I’ve always been all human ages that keep on cycling. I got to relive childhood when my boys were little, and now I’m reliving adolescence with them. Today my dad is the age Grandma used to be, and I’m the age in middle. Life and death is rich when generations walk together; through such life I’ve tasted eternity where life continues anew forever.

Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time, little girl,

Grandma was little like you.

I ran all around

And jumped up and down.

Yes, what I’m saying is true.

Once Upon a Time wasn’t long ago.

“Behave yourself,” I was told.

I never sat still

And couldn’t swallow a pill.

No, Grandma wasn’t always this old.

Someday soon, little girl,

You will be tall and full-grown.

The years will go fast;

They’ll go speeding past;

Someday, you’ll have a 
“Once Upon a Time”

 Of your own.

-written by me during the second year of college after Christmas break with family 

God be with each of you through the circle of life.


This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

A Moment to Marvel

Humans are astoundingly complex, and the way we’re shaped by our generation is merely a fragment of our complexity. As a mother and an adult, I’ve often lost myself in moments of marvel.

Both my children were born tongue-tied (my dad probably wondered why I hadn’t been born with such a gift for him), but until I became a mother, I’d never considered how many countless biological details have to come together perfectly to create human life before our flesh touches air.

I accidentally bloodied my first child’s nose on my first Mother’s Day as a mom, his first night home after his birth. My second child and I battled each other’s stubbornness early on when I realized he was the kind of child who slapped me in the face when I smacked his hand to keep him away from things like hot ovens and electrical outlets and when he realized I was the kind of mom who wouldn’t allow even his cute little toe to cross over a line once it had been drawn. I wonder how who I am and what I do will affect my children and their children.

My children were born in different states, played with kids whose skin was a different color than theirs in the church nursery, never knew life without computers, and traveled to almost half the U.S. states and eight different countries before they were 9 years old. As I mother them, I can draw limited lessons from my own childhood where the world was mostly our gravel road, my own family, and the nearby county seat with the population of 1700 people. I'm brought to silence as I consider how my dad’s mom must have experienced life with all changes of the 20^th century during her lifetime, 1901-1993. I remember how her most common summary of her life experiences was, “You just can’t even understand how different everything is now; I can’t even explain it.”

I’ve grown to know and care about friends in Ukraine who live in a country that bore the name of six different countries during the lifetime of my grandma who couldn’t put words to her U.S. experiences. I want to understand how politics, starvation, and wars from the last century along with their culture, families and experiences impact the lives of people who seem so very much like me, stemming from quite a different history on the other side of the world. I’m embarrassed about how little I still know of other peoples’ lives, experiences, and histories from thousands of other places on this earth we share.

All of humanity—strangers, friends, family, and I—have been scarred by addictions, illnesses, and sorrows and have known joy. Oh, how we hurt ourselves, each other, and how much we overcome.

I marvel at life, death, our world, each of our journeys, and the God I’ve known and who has walked with me from childhood.

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. -Psalm 139: 8-15 


This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

Wearing the X . . . or not

Do I consider myself a GenXer? Yes and no. At the outset of this year, I would have said that I consider myself a Gen Xer by birth year only but not by experience or attitude, a stance I’ve since adjusted. After researching the culture of Gen X, I see that I’ve lived in the midst of Gen X, absorbing much either directly or through friends. Does that mean I or any other person born between 1965 and 1981 fit exactly into the Gen X mold? No. But I understand what I’m learning about the experiences and attitudes of Gen X much more deeply inside of myself than I expected. I’m finding that I’m not nearly as “other” as I thought.

13 Gen Xers were kind enough to answer all sorts of nosey questions I asked them about their experiences earlier this year. Counting my response above, today’s post shares an equal mix of male and female voices, all with MidWest U.S. childhood experiences in spite of living in different places now. These answers are in response to the question, “Do you feel that you are a Gen Xer?”

Yes. I am part of a group of people that is the first generation in quite a while to not do better financially than their parents. We also have less of an identity in terms of the label of our generation.

Yes. After the reading the info on Wikipedia, I saw that those were all of my reference points.

Yes.  I am much more open to free thought and expression, much more tolerant of other cultures and beliefs. I feel that life experiences are more valuable than tangible items.

I don’t know. This is a somewhat silly, arbitrary designation without meaning for me.

Perhaps? In some ways, yes. My parents are significantly older and in some ways I relate more to a generation before the X because I didn't have the same experiences of the typical generation Xers. I was not a latch key kid, did not grow up with cable TV and electronics in the same way that others in my age bracket did. I've never defined myself as fitting into a generation box.

No, not really. I don't like to think of myself as being a part of anything, let alone a marketing concept.

I guess I have to be part of some generation so it can be noted in the history books.

Yes, based on age demographic of myself and peers.

Loaded question . . . I believe morally I relate to Boomers more than most Xers. I am very conservative in my beliefs; I do not trust big government and am a Christian.  Because the dates that supposedly define this “generation” are rather large, 1965-1981, I am seven years older than the youngest and nine years younger than the oldest Xers.  Being in the middle of this generation, places me in a unique position regarding issues like homosexuality, abortion and such. I always favor what the Bible says, although I have friends who have both experienced both and are living life styles of one. My “older” friends tend to be more Boomer-like, and my younger friends and sibling tend to be more Generation Y-Like…  So, outside of my birth year, if the standard is that I feel conflicted and lost as a generation, sorry for people around me and their choices? Do I believe that we are a “neglected generation” as data suggests? Yes.

Yes. Probably the most direct comparison is to the Baby Boomers. I've had conversations with Baby Boomers who have reflected on their formative years - say, teens and twenties, and a lot of them tend to get this excited look in their eyes, because anything seemed possible at the time. They can still feel the zeitgeist of the era in a fairly visceral way. But I don't think Gen Xers feel that way. When we came on the scene, anything had already seemed possible, a lot of new and strange things had been tried, and people were tired. We sort of came up in a society that just wanted to feel normal again.

I feel like I fit the GenX mold in most ways, and like many others born in the 70s, I find myself still tilting at windmills and still having an "anything is possible" outlook on life. Oddly, I've always felt that Gen Xers have been most defined by our attachment to 80s music & 80s culture. Our parents were the hippies and free-thinkers, and I feel like I'm part of the collective result of that and have benefitted from it.  One way in which I am NOT similar to Gen Xers, though, has always stuck out in my mind: GenXers were always thought to be aimless wanderers, unmotivated, unable to commit to a career path -- the ultimate slacker generation. That piece of the GenX model has never fit me.

I've thought about this question for a while and can't really answer it. I'm sorry.

Yes. We are a generation of change and expression, in my opinion. We are the postmodernists. We seek answers and do not take things for granted usually; in other words, we understand truth is connected to many other variables. We also understand traditions and new ways of thinking. One may ask, do we fulfill self-imposed definitions of our identity though? If Gen Xers were defined as a group as something other, would we try to uphold that definition?

*Some definitions of Gen X start with birth years as early as 1962 and go through 1985. I asked people in these extended years the same question. The people born before 1965 each identified with Boomers. No one born after 1981 responded.

I’ll let the voices of others echo as I pause the Gen X journey for the day.

Question: Other voices? Gen X or otherwise? Thoughts? You’re welcome to chime in! I’d especially love to hear from young Gen Xers.

This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

Why X=Cynic

What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. That's what we learned of Shakespeare in high school.

Still, I’m not crazy about the name Gen X. The name was OK back when I thought it sounded kind of mysterious. You know, Zorro, the masked rebel hero had his Z; we, the teenagers who had big hair, have our X . . . kind of different and intriguing. When I realized we have an X because no one could think of anything better, the name lost its adventure. Then I encountered other names we’ve been called based on how older generations have seen us: the whiny generation, the tuned-out generation, the numb generation, the generation of gripers, the generation adrift, the Busters, slackers. Maybe our particular rose smells a little sweeter with the name “Generation X.”

Speaking of Shakespeare’s writings, during Gen X’s childhood, a writer who likely affected our upbringings topped Shakespeare on the American best-seller list in 1976. Pediatrician/professor, Dr. Benjamin Spock, who had been embraced as he told parents in the 1950s to trust their instincts by openly loving their children found himself on trial in 1968 in official courts for conspiracy of counseling young people to avoid the draft and in the court of public opinion for somehow having undermined patriotism by encouraging permissive parenting. In 1976, when his American book sales were surpassed only by the Bible, he wrote that his previous books had been sexist and that fathers actually should participate in parenting.

The way Gen X (born between 1965 and 1981) was raised was reflected in other names we were given over the years: The Latch-Key Generation and the MTV Generation. Many of us were raised by single parents, divorced parents, or two-parent working families, which meant that, for a chunk of our childhoods, many of us lacked quality time with parents. Preschools and daycares hadn’t really come on the scene. Adults in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s seemed to be preoccupied with matters other than children: the Vietnam War, jobs, marriages, politics, the price of gas, telephone conversations, protests, soap operas, bills. We were sent to school or told to play outside while our adults tried to move up in the world, do better than the neighbors, find themselves, put food on the table, or do something they enjoyed for a change. Frankly, many Gen Xers more or less raised ourselves and each other. And we didn’t leave our teenage years looking like we’d particularly done a stellar job, which is no surprise. If you’ve ever read The Lord of the Flies, which American generations since the Boomers probably had to read at some point, you know that little good can come of children being left to fend for themselves.

We weren’t exactly alone. We had babysitters. We had 80's pop culture that grew into the 90s. We watched lots of television with reruns, commercials, and some cartoons. Many of us, at some point, lived with or visited people with cable TV that brought us HBO and MTV. Plus many of us either owned or knew someone who might let us play their Atari or Nintendo game systems. And eventually we grew old enough to become the babysitters, old enough to move from bicycles with banana seats to old cars our parents let us drive or that we paid for ourselves. 

From teachers, we heard that we didn’t meet up to standards set by the older crowd we knew as hippies or Mom and Dad (depending on the age of our parents) who cared about society, who wanted to make things better, who had a bigger sense of their world than what they saw in movies. We were told to vote, to be more involved, to care more . . . but we didn’t understand why we should care for a society that didn’t seem to care about us.

Around the time of Whitney Houston’s hit recording of the “The Greatest Love of All,” in 1986 and Hirsch’s Dictionary of Cultural Literacy in 1987, America looked at those of us trying to imitate drugged-up hair bands, and realized that society may have just lost out on the opportunity to effectively guide a generation of children. America started trying to figure out how to change, to make things better for the next generation.

In 1999 Movie Fight Club (a movie I haven’t actually seen), character Tyler Durden apparently tries to explain how Gen X felt stepping into young adulthood, “Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War . . . our depression is our lives . . . we were raised on television to believe we’d all be millionaires, movie gods, rock stars, but we won’t. And we’re starting to figure that out. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

In Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X, Tom Beudoin cites Rob Nelson and Jon Cowan’s list of 100 harshest facts for Generation X in which the following trends were noted as greeting Gen Xers in young adulthood: “a decline of real wages . . . and an increase in the length of the average workweek; an increase in young adult poverty and a concomitant decline of real income; the devastation of AIDS . . . ; the continued socioeconomic crises of many minority communities, particularly of young African American men; continuing crises of divorce and suicide; overqualification of college graduates for available jobs; unacceptable levels of violence in schools and neighborhoods; a steady drumbeat of drug abuse; and a high percentage of young adults without health insurance.”

Do we sound like whiners? Yes, I think we likely do from the perspective of other generations who had big trials such as the Great Depression, World Wars, Vietnam, etc. But our experiences are our experiences. The way a generation is raised affects the way it approaches life. And we are living as Generation X, whatever that means, and up to this point, we have been a cynical bunch.

So yes, we can be sarcastic, non-participating naysayers who throw movie quotes and song lyrics around, but I like us, and I hope to show you our good side another day. I also hope to look a bit at the generations we stemmed from so as not to have you believe I’m promoting discontent between parents, children, and grandchildren. In fact, I'd wager that most of us GenXers are actually much more pleasant and loving than descriptions of our generation depict . . . in spite of that cynical-something inside us. 

Question: Gen Xers . . . are you just going to lurk out there, reading this, and say nothing to defend us? Or perhaps you can add more insight into our common psyches?


This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

Gen X: life, death, sexuality, and cynicism

The Ultimate Tease

Enticed by seductive rhythms,

Yet sensing the senseless, we

Strive for something—some

Reason for living, loving, dying

All.

Witnessing birth and death, the burst

            Of beginning and end, we

Perceive whispered promises,  

Issued visions from somewhere

Beyond.

Tempted to believe we possess power we

Press for fulfillment

Almost touching always

Baited by

Provocative Elusions we

Tremble at the Strip-Tease of life.

Desire. Approach. Refrain.

All

Ways the yearning denied.

Born not on our own we Die

All alone

Grasping for dreams induced by

Chanced glimpses of More that

Keeps

All most

Coming.
                                 -Me

I also found this poem I wrote as a young adult (back when I was especially annoyingly optimistic to my friends) words that pull together what I’ve been talking about, crazy as it is may seem . . . life, death, sexuality, and cynicism pulled together in the mind of the earlier Gen Xer who was me:

I’ve hit on death and sex and intend to move on to more of what characterizes the Gen Xers amongst us. In a word, what has characterized our lives is cynicism.

As for me, I have been a PollyAnna Sunshine in the midst of cynical friends. I’ve had to step lightly through the minefield of cynicism from college on in order not to overly annoy those of my friends and peers who prefer to see the glass half empty. I may be an optimist in a pessimistic generation, but I’m pretty sure people from other generations see my sarcastic and morbid bent more vividly than do my peers . . . I'm often told as much by the looks I get. "HEY!" I want to say, "I'm the hopeful one! Don't you know?!"

Today, a midlife Gen Xer, I mourn the death of an aunt who often stepped in as a mother to me. I’m thankful to have been blessed through her life. Sorry about bringing up the death subject again; it’s just where I find myself this morning.

Blessings to you all. Until the next time, when I will attempt to understand the cynicism of Gen X  . . .

This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

Let's Talk Gen X and Sex

In my house, I’m the one who talks about sex. One of our boys, during the very first talk, responded by putting pillows and then his hands over his ears, which was hardly an effective way to absorb parental guidance. We finally managed to push on through the event with him standing in the living room, facing away from me with a crocheted blanket draped over his body. I pretended that I was talking to a blue Cousin It from the Munsters.

Most recently, when I brought up something related to sex in breakfast conversation, the same boy, now a teenager, paused during a bite, stared at me blankly and then bellowed for his dad with a mouth full of chocolate chip pancakes I’d just made him, “WHY ARE YOU LETTING HER TALK?!”

Be warned, such reactions encourage me to laugh and cover the subject in greater depth.

Today, I ponder Gen X and sex. I know that the “X” in Gen X was settled upon because no one could think of an applicable term for us; as opposed to previous living generations, we appear to be difficult to define. So, our name, given by one of our own in a novel, is an unknown variable “X” as in un an algebraic formula. Still, I see the X and think “X-rated;” it’s just where my mind goes, perhaps because I see more references to “X” ratings than to algebra, or maybe I’m depraved, or more likely, I’m a product of my generation.

Several (but not many) authors have published insights into how U.S. GenXers have been shaped as sexual beings. This is every published thing I’ve found, all of it buried in pieces on related subjects. I’ve attempted to arrange the list in a fairly chronological way.

·      Gen X was the first generation of babies adults took pills to prevent.

·      We were born and raised during a time with a growing number of divorces and an increasing number of single parents in a society (where such living arrangements were not particularly accepted and certainly not the norm).

·      We, as a generation, had our first sexual experiences at earlier ages than older generations in our society.

·      AIDS came on the scene (and was focused on heavily in the media) during our teenage/elementary-aged years.

·      As older teens and young adults, our generation produced an increasing number of unmarried mothers, (more than our country had seen before).

·      During our young adulthood/teen years, U.S. opinion polls showed an increasing acceptance of sex outside of marriage.

·      Throughout our lives, we’ve had an easier accessibility to porn than older generations, (and we’ve viewed a lot of it).

·      In our early young adulthood/teen years, the US culture shifted radically in regards to homosexuality.

·      As a generation, we married later than previous generations, meaning that we’ve had more dating relationships than previous generations.

·      Throughout our young adulthood and into the age we are now, more of us have sought and pushed on through infertility treatments (unavailable to previous generations).

·      (Many of us have dated and have married people we met online.)

·      (Those smiling Viagra commercials started airing during our young adulthood.)

·      By the time we reach our 40’s Gen X women have, on average, had four sexual partners, and men have had eight.

·      At the start of midlife, one in four of us who have been married have been divorced.

·      Women may hit their sexual peak during midlife and also go through menopause, which may decrease sexual pleasure. (I summarized this to my husband as, “Women get 5 minutes to peak.”)

·      Men find themselves on the sexual decline in midlife.

·      Single women and couples can still have planned or unplanned pregnancies during midlife.

Confession . . . I couldn’t get through the list without adding just a few of my own comments. (Parentheses are thoughts I added.) I can think of much more to say, but I'll stop for now. You're welcome to add to this before I come back to it.

Questions: How would you alter or change the report? How have these experiences impacted our lives? How are we shaping future generations in response to the way we’ve been shaped? What other thoughts came to you as you skimmed the list? Do children in your lives hide under blankets when you talk to them?

This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com

Into the valley with the promise of sexier days

Last weekend, my husband and I discovered that two people can simultaneously be logged into the same Facebook account and make separate posts as the same person. Long story short . . . I allowed him to post something that reached beyond the borders of what I normally say on my wall (or elsewhere) in the name of humor which ultimately appalled some of my friends. The post garnered many more comments than usual, some friends posting at length in response to the portion of the post that said, “I’ve hit my sexual peak.” Appalling or intriguing as the statement may have been, sex is simply more fun to read about than the subject I chose to start my blog with: death. Do I know how to pull people in or what?! HA! Unlike death, sex is just so . . . sexy! I’m going to have to promise a future post about GenX, midlife, and sex (promise I won’t talk about my own sex life whether true or fictional) because I’m turning back to grief for one more moment before moving on.

Yesterday, I portrayed mourning as a powerfully positive part of life to be embraced. I have experienced the most difficult deaths in my life as times when deep sadness met great love, so I know first-hand that one can encounter the divine through death. But I also know that the strongest human experiences and emotions exist in polarities: love/hate; pleasure/pain; excitement/fear; etc. The facts are that some deep relationships are intertwined with difficult and less-than-positive complexities, that we each come at death from different places, and that some modes of death are harder for us to accept than others. Even mourning that can be embraced unfolds as a process.

Death, grief, and mourning cannot be covered as briefly as I’ve attempted. My point yesterday really was to name death as an important life experience all people encounter, to identify it as an experience that increases as adults live through midlife and beyond, and to encourage those of you who are searching for joy through sorrow from my heart that has found life, hope, and God in the midst of heartrending valleys.

If this topic hits you where you are right now and you haven’t checked out the Hospice site, you might want to click here and read more from folks who are trained to walk with people through death and dying.

Hmm . . . well . . . apparently I’ve promised to create some kind of sex talk next time around. We’ll see how THAT goes . . . another day.

For now, though, I wish you peace.

This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com