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