My wife was born in 1965 to a WWII veteran and his wife. Her mom was born in 1927 and her dad in 1923.
Her dad was older than mine and I was born in 1964. She insists that she is NOT a baby boomer because she wasn’t born in 1964 (the traditional, yet arbitrary cut off age). I’m sure she has more in common with me as a baby boomer than a GenXer.
I insist that because she was a child of WWII parents, she is a baby boomer.
Is there some website that can test her experiences and affiliations to see if she is more baby boom, than X’r?
Something like:
“Do you know who Kaptain Kangaroo is?”
“Star Trek…original series or TNG?”
“Who is the first president you remember?”
Then tally the scores and determine which catagory she most identifies with.
My father was a WWII veteran, my mother was in HS during the war. My brother was born in 1947. he is a baby boomer. He had all the boomer experience - the “idyllic” childhood in the 50s as is used as shorthand for the boomer life.
I was born in 1961, 14 years after my brother. If someone had started early, I could practically be the child of a post-war baby. My childhood was nothing like my brothers. My life was shaped by the 60s and 70s.
But yet, I am classed as a boomer. Someone born in 1964 could easily have a parent who was a boomer (born in 1946, would be 18 in 1964). How do they belong to the same “generation”? It is not logical!
Happy Days, American Grafitti, the Big Chill/Secaucus Seven, those are my brother’s life, not mine. I’m too young to be a hippie, too young for Woodstock, too young for 'Nam, but too old for GWI or GWII. My generation wasn’t from the free-love flower-power 60s, no, we were the brown flannel 70s. But I’m definitely not Gen-X.
They can say whatever they want, but I have nothing in common with boomers. I am of the tweeners. The forgotten generation.
Wikipedia on Gen X states that 1/3 of the younger boomers (56-64) identify as GenX so your wife isn’t alone. I personally think that location and education weigh greatly in ones perception of generation. I was born in the mid-70s, but I am not a GenXer- I am a millenial more than a GenXer, based on one fact. I have been on the internet since 4th grade, I built my own computer in middle school, I’m fully capable and functional around computers and the internet to an extent that other parents at my kids’ school are not (and I’m not a coder nor a gamer). I was in the first 5,000 on Facebook, gmail, Linkedin(maybe), Friendster, classmates, etc. and left all except gmail and LinkedIn because they became antiquated and moved on to new things. I owned the first iPod- I still think Firewire would have been better than USB! I cut cable by never subscribing for more than 3 months, cut my landline 15 years ago. I was subscribed to both Walmart’s and Blockbuster’s DVD rental programs before they bellied up (and never paid a penny). I was a millenial before the term was invented! I am 40 and have never owned a car - contemplated it but Car2Go and ReachNow solved any lasting need.
So as a Millenial that is nearly 10 years too old, I say that generation labels are a bunch of lies! (Don’t get me started on what I think of the “greatest generation” and their legacy of debt and hate and pollution and …)
You’re both right. By the traditional demographic definition, she is not a Baby Boomer. But she probably has more in common with a Baby Boomer than a GenXer. If you Google “Baby Boomer Quiz” you’ll find dozens of tests that can help you determine if she has the specific cultural knowledge generally associated with Baby Boomers. Even if she does, that doesn’t make her a Boomer, just a fellow traveler.
I was born in 1963, and have never thought of myself as anything other than a Boomer, even though my experience wasn’t the same as someone who was born 10 years earlier. I remember the war in Vietnam as a current event, rather than history; I remember being concerned about the draft, even though I was not old enough to register (and the wrong gender, but as a feminist that wasn’t a big issue for me); and Watergate was the event that first defined my political outlook.
She is mistaken to think there are clearly defined ‘cut-off dates’. It just doesn’t work that way. There is always a grey-area overlap between generations. There has to be (people are constantly having kids, societies don’t follow definitive, exclusive ‘breeding cycles’). My father fought in WWII, my mom was in high school during it, but I was the last of seven kids, so I was born in 1965. I definitely identify as a Gen-X’er, *not *a Baby Boomer, as I have absolutely no memory of:
[ul]
[li]it being the 1960s (started kindergarten in 1970)[/li][li]of The Beatles being a going concern (or even them breaking up)[/li][li]of the country being ‘at war’ in Vietnam[/li][li]of us owning a B&W TV[/li][li]of the first landing on the Moon (I kinda remember the last mission but I have no memory of Apollo 13 happening)[/li][/ul]
At the same time so-called ‘Gen-X’ is just a convenient label. Growing up I did not ever feel ‘left out’ or alienated in terms of missing the 60s or with my generation not having a ‘cause’. Personally I think the 60s are ridiculously over-remembered as being significant in terms of the ‘kids’ changing anything. Hippies were just a fad of the 60s, the same as Yuppies were a fad of the 80s…
These are really media classifications, ways to categorize some common experiences. I do know someone born in 1946 whose first child was born in 1964, and obviously they aren’t the same generation. But they are the same “media” generation. These
generation generalizations are just handy ways to categorize. If you need to categorize.
I came from a family where people married like-aged people, and with a couple of exceptions all my parents’ generation had me and all my cousins within a 10-year period, so the generation thing seems obvious to us. My husband came from a family where people married with big age discrepancies, so his cousins were 30-some years older and 15-some years younger. Not so easy to categorize, but they have to be the same generation, from a family tree perspective.
It works the other way as well. I was born in 1945, exactly three months before the first official Boomer, yet I’ve always identified myself as a Boomer. Although I remember the '50s, I truly came of age in the '60s. My brother, who’s three years older than I am, was much more a child of the '50s, and in some ways it’s like we’re a generation apart.
Yeah, that was my generation.
That’s because you don’t remember how different the '60s were from the '50s.
I insist that because she was a child of WWII parents, she is a baby boomer.
Yes, your wife is a Baby Boomer since she is the product of post-WW2 parents and the **economic prosperity **that followed, and the prosperity that generation benefited from. Hence the “Boom” description. Boom as in economic boom, and that provided the means for all the babies.
My Dad was also born in 1923 and although he was a young, late entry into the army he served in post-take-over Japan.
My mom was also born in 1927, however you cannot be married to my younger sister since she remains fully dead at this time. Unless my younger brother had a sex change, I haven’t talked to him in a few years.
Your wife is a delayed reaction full Baby Boomer. Oops, I’m 40 years old and pregnant, it happens. But she is still a product of the economic boom.
watchwolf,
nah, I’m at the trailing edge of the Boom, and consider myself a Boomer (remember watching the Moon Landing! Yay!) and I’m pretty sure there won’t be any retirement bennies left for me.
Especially since the retirement age has been pushed back and I won’t qualify til I’m older than most Boomers who qualified.
