Somewhere in the U.S. now as I write this, perhaps give or take a minute or two, there is a child being born. My question is simply this: What is the official/unofficial name of the generation they belong to?
I fit comfortably into the Generation X margin. I don’t have any children. But if I did, I guess that would make them “Generation Y”. I heard that once considered, perhaps half-seriously, as a name for the generation after “X”. But what generation do people born now belong to? And indeed, I guess my next question is, Is there any name for the present generation (though please offer names even if they are not widely known or accepted)?
The timespan of a “generation” is pretty flexible. When I was a kid, before the marketers took over, it was roughly three generations per century. Then it seemed to increase to about five.
Then once the demographers and marketers saw a definite bulge in the birthrate from 1946-1964, that got defined as “baby boomers.” Which meant the next generation had to be 18 years, as well, and the generation after that. That takes us up through Generations X and Y, and the 2000-2002 time period.
Of course Gen X’ers are still having babies, but if you don’t want to call them Gen Y, I’d suggest the term “Millenials.”