# The concept of "generations" as defining peer groups is broken **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760 "2024-07-25T02:54:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/21 "2024-07-25T22:29:20Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t take generational theory too seriously, but I do think there is validity in it when applied to large populations of people and not individuals. The differences in growing up 20 (or whatever) years apart are enough for there to be marked differences between generations and how they perceive and interact with the world. I totally agree that 20 years later things are different. But I don’t see 2 generations there: before and after. I see 20 generations. If not 200. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/22 "2024-07-25T22:31:37Z")
I can see it less finely, or extremely finely. Twenty years is a reasonable compromise for me. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/23 "2024-07-25T23:06:21Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The differences in growing up 20 (or whatever) years apart are enough for there to be marked differences between generations and how they perceive and interact with the world. Yes, but drawing the lines is the hard part. What makes 1963 different than 1968? They’re worlds and social experiences are very similar. What makes 1977 different than 1084? Why are they in different groups? “Millennials” is a confusing term some use to refer to those becoming adults around 2000 while others for people born around 2000. The fact that we have to dream up transition groups (Generation Jones, Xennials, etc) shows the brackets are to large. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/24 "2024-07-26T00:50:40Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > “Millennials” is a confusing term some use to refer to those becoming adults around 2000 while others for people born around 2000. That’s an odd one. I’ve never heard anyone refer to the generation known as Millennials as those born around 2000. Yes, the brackets are large, but I think of it as a fuzzy gradient that blends from the center point of one generation to another. It works well enough for me in a general sense. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/25 "2024-07-26T01:03:08Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > They refer to edges of generations as “cuspers” and even separate out, for one example, Generation X into “Atari-Wavers” and “Nintendo-wavers” depending on when in the generation you were born. Surely those would be subcategories of Millennials, not of Xers? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/26 "2024-07-26T01:12:48Z")
Nope. In Strauss and Howe’s book _13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?_, the early cohort of Xers (which they defined as 1961-1981), the early birds were Atari-wavers, and the latter Nintendo wavers. I was born in 1975 and was definitely a Nintendo waver. While I remember Atari and it being introduced, my main school age and high school memories are all Nintendo. My brother was born in 1981, so, maintaining the consol analogy, I would consider him situated square between Nintendo and Playstation. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/27 "2024-07-26T01:17:46Z")
Whereas I was born in 1973 and am an Atari-waver. In fact, around here in the mid-2000s-mid-2010s there was a place called “Old School Pizza” whose logo was a stylized Nintendo controller, and I was like “dude, that may be nostalgic, but it’s not _Old School_”. It didn’t help that they pedaled up and down the street in an advertising trike: the combination of the annoying logo and ads made me not try them out. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/28 "2024-07-26T01:19:07Z")
Some people born a few years before me might be “Pong”-wavers: I remember people playing it when I was a young child but I never remember getting to play the dedicated home version personally. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/29 "2024-07-26T01:29:47Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Some people born a few years before me might be “Pong”-wavers: Born 1968 and I remember when my step-brothers (1966-1967) got the Pong console game in ~1975-1976. It was pretty exciting - a black and white game you could play on the TV! However the console game was an Atari I believe, so probably counts as such. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/30 "2024-07-26T01:47:40Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > Personally, I feel too young to be a boomer, too old to be Gen-x. I think the 1962-68 babies are their own thing, and don’t really belong to either of the sandwiching generations. Well, kinda- they have a new tag- Generation Jones- 1954- 1965. I guess that makes me a Jones, but I dont care for that- or most generation names. [quote=“Irishman, post:15, topic:1004760”] How long is that “generational” group? [/quote][What Generation Am I? A Guide to Generations by Year](https://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/style/generation-names-and-years-a-cheat-sheet-for-parents/) 24-45 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/31 "2024-07-26T01:48:24Z")
This is (for me) an interesting breakdown, but kind of how I think of it, though with much more fuzz. (I may disagree a little about some of the years, but it shows you how I conceptualize it.) You have a “core” generational group, and then a fuzzy transition to the generations on either side. [![](https://i.redd.it/0r3vpu55z1wa1.png) ](https://i.redd.it/0r3vpu55z1wa1.png) Whether this is useful or not, up to you. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/32 "2024-07-26T02:28:26Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I was born in 1975 and was definitely a Nintendo waver. Whereas I was born in 1977, and my first console was an Atari (and I was jealous of my friends who had better Ataris). Though I did then go on to buy an NES as a teenager. I guess it depends on when one thinks of the video-gaming ages as. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/33 "2024-07-26T02:46:55Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > Back when everybody got married at 16 and was done reproducing by 25, > > When was that? Women can be fertile without medical intervention into their 40s, and men can into their 70s. At least. And it’s historically unusual for women to have their first child at 16. You need to be very well fed as a teen to be fertile that young. Typically, women start having babies in their mid twenties. For instance: > **[Mother’s Age at First Birth | Blogs | CDC](https://blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/2007/07/19/80/)** > > CDC - Blogs - NCHS: A Blog of the National Center for Health Statistics – Mother’s Age at First Birth - Featured Topics from the National Center for Health Statistics > # Mother’s Age at First Birth > > Posted on July 19, 2007 by NCHS > > One of the interesting demographic phenomena is the steady upwards creep in the age of women when they give birth to their first child. > > In 1940 the age at first birth was 23.0 years. It dipped downwards to 21.5 in 1960 and was at 25.2 in 2004. It’s currently about 30 in the US, which is high, but not historically unique. For instance, this article about trends in maternal age at childbirth [https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/population/have-kids-settle-down/](https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/population/have-kids-settle-down/) Says: > …But the average age of women at first birth today (29.6) is not very different to what it was in 1938 (29.0), and fertility among women in their forties was higher at the start of WWII and during the 1940s than it was in 2010. > The average age of women at first birth was lower at the end of the 1960s than at any other point since 1938… ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/34 "2024-07-26T02:52:04Z")
Yeah. Atari for me is still pretty early memories. When I think of my childhood, I think of my Commodore 64 and Nintendo. Atari I don’t remember very well. But I remember spending many hours in front of my Nintendo grinding through Dragon Warrior and Ultima IV. Or playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out at my best friend’s house before I got a Nintendo. For me, my core childhood memories mainly span from somewhere around middle school to the end of high school. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/35 "2024-07-26T13:25:41Z")
I once read a book about TV cartoons, written by a couple of Generation Xers, who noted the difference between those who grew up watching _Space Ghost_ and _The Herculoids_, versus those who grew up watching _The Super Friends_. Similar to the Atari versus Nintendo thing, but with TV. I was definitely a _Super Friends_ kid. I was born in 1967, which makes me Generation X. I remember being very resistant to that label when it was first coming to prominence. I can remember once filling out some kind of survey about it, where one of the questions was “Generation X is \_\_\_\_\_\_” (fill in the blank). I rather cheekily (I thought) answered “something that exists only in the imagination of the media.” ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/36 "2024-07-26T13:35:32Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > What makes 1977 different than 1084? Why are they in different groups? Access to electricity? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/37 "2024-07-26T13:45:19Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I was definitely a _Super Friends_ kid. Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog, or Zan, Jayna, and Gleek? ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/38 "2024-07-26T13:49:24Z")
All of them. I remember Wendy and Marvin, and the hour-long stories where the enemies were always misguided folks who didn’t really mean any harm. I have more coherent memories of the Wonder Twins, and I was very resentful of the fact that they didn’t have an origin story. They were just suddenly _there_. Why? ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/39 "2024-07-26T14:13:35Z")
Going back to the Silent Generation, as some others inferred, those kids were too old for all of the childhood touchstones of the 1950s. They grew up with the remnants of the old childhood culture which are not remembered today. Then they went off to college, got into folk, and folk wound up being obliterated by rock. A lot of their experience, as consumers, is not much remembered today. On the other hand, the members of the big 1960s rock groups were almost all war babies, not boomers. They were a few years older than the fans, and really of a different generation. I suspect it was a lot easier to be the “cool older kid” when there are a lot more younger kids than there are peers. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760/40 "2024-07-26T14:18:18Z")
When it comes to classifying groups of people, the edges are almost going to be fuzzy. I’m on the younger side of Generation X and in a lot of ways I’m not so different from older Millennials. I probably have more in common with them than I do with the older Gen Xers born in 1969. I don’t think the concept of generations is broken, it’s useful in the aggregate, but it’s not perfect and that’s fine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-generations-as-defining-peer-groups-is-broken/1004760.md?page=3)