# To what degree do you think generational titles are useful? Particularly Baby Boomers in comparison to others **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** fashion-clothing\ **Created:** [October 14, 2023, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565 "2023-10-14T14:25:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2023, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/21 "2023-10-15T20:09:16Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > It’ should be noted that some of the names one might think of when talking about what might be the definitional event for ‘Boomers’, the war in Vietnam and the opposition to the war, were from . . . the Silent Generation! Yeah, “some.” I was/am a boomer, and my friends and I had to fear the draft (the guys, anyway) and participated in anti-war activities rather intensively for years. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2023, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/22 "2023-10-15T20:16:51Z")
The boomers have never been that different from other generations, but they are so numerous that, whenever they reach a certain age, the activities of that age dominate the culture. (The phrase “like a pig in a python” is often used.) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2023, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/23 "2023-10-15T20:26:10Z")
I think the first thing that people can do is memorize the period covered by each of the standard generation names: Lost Generation 1901 to 1927 Greatest Generation 1901 to 1927 Silent Generation 1928 to 1945 Baby Boomers 1946 to 1964 Generation X 1965 to 1980 Millennials 1981 to 1996 Generation Z 1997 to 2012. Generation Alpha 1913 to present You merely confuse everything when you talk as if the divisions between the generations mean something, but you don’t even get the divisions right. Note that we currently have a U.S. President who belongs to the Silent Generation and a living ex-President who belongs to the Greatest Generation. Far too many people talk as if everyone older than them grew up in a similar way and everyone younger than them grew up in a similar way. A bigger problem is that the divisions are arbitrary. There have never been dates at which the culture changes suddenly. People try to get around this by talking about early, middle, and late parts of a generation. Just use the years you want to talk about instead of trying to get the generation names into your point in a sloppy way. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2023, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/24 "2023-10-15T20:27:50Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > The baby boomer generation started at the end of WW2, which was the biggest changed in society in modern history (from the instability of the great depression then WW2, to the stability) and is associated with a [spike in birth rates unlike anything](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/US_Birth_Rates.svg) seen since. So there is a well defined beginning (1945) and a fairly well defined end (when birth rates returned to their pre-war levels in the 1960s. Note that this means that the baby boom was not something created by the baby boomers but by their parents. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2023, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/25 "2023-10-15T23:01:55Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Lost Generation 1901 to 1927 > Greatest Generation 1901 to 1927 > Silent Generation 1928 to 1945 > Baby Boomers 1946 to 1964 > Generation X 1965 to 1980 > Millennials 1981 to 1996 > Generation Z 1997 to 2012. > Generation Alpha 1913 to present Sorry, I meant to write that the Lost Generation was 1883 to 1900. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/26 "2023-10-16T01:20:05Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Lost Generation 1901 to 1927 > Greatest Generation 1901 to 1927 I think I see a problem there… also: > [@](#): > > Generation Alpha 1913 to present That’s a seriously long generation. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/27 "2023-10-16T02:10:38Z")
I like Randall Munroe’s suggestion that the next one should be called Generation 💅. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/28 "2023-10-16T03:18:12Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Generation Alpha 1913 to present Sorry, another mistake, since it should be this: Lost Generation 1883 to 1900 Greatest Generation 1901 to 1927 Silent Generation 1928 to 1945 Baby Boomers 1946 to 1964 Generation X 1965 to 1980 Millennials 1981 to 1996 Generation Z 1997 to 2012. Generation Alpha 2013 to present I do this occasionally. I try to carefully copy what I want to write from some reasonably good source like Wikipedia. I write fast and I forget to carefully check what I’ve written. I’m too often tired as I write. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/29 "2023-10-16T06:33:55Z")
Naah, that’s cool. I do that too. I’m not sure I made the point I was trying to make very clearly. I was saying we folks who were called the “baby boomers” tended to think of ourselves as a generation and that there was a generation gap that distinguished us from the older generation(s). So it’s not just a label imposed from outside onto people who don’t define themselves that way. I mean, yeah, you could still say “thinking of themselves as such doesn’t make it so”, but it still acquires some meaning if enough people think of themselves as “a generation” and share at least a loosely defined sense of the borders marking them off. A bunch of us shared this self-perception. Not that there wasn’t cynicism about it, of course there was, a bit of ::rolleyes:: and all that, but as a notion it shaped how a bunch of people thought of themselves in the plural. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/30 "2023-10-16T09:04:33Z")
> [@bump](#): > > For example, Gen-X was the first generation to grow up post-desegregation. Millennials were the first to grow up with computing technology/internet access from birth. Baby Boomers were the first to grow up during the Cold War, and so forth. > > It’s not very useful in terms of being able to collectively describe a group or predict their actions, but it’s useful to keep in mind when you consider the differences in outlook between groups. If generational titles were used substantially to distinguish between the lived experience of different generations they might be meaningful. In my experience however this is not the case. Overwhelmingly, generational titles are used to allege differences in outlook. And from the studies I have seen those differences are not particularly substantial and indeed are positively underwhelming. And certainly out of all proportion to the hype. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/31 "2023-10-16T12:01:33Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > we folks who were called the “baby boomers” tended to think of ourselves as a generation I never thought of it as a useful term, and I don’t remember anyone else except lazy journalists as thinking of it as such. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/32 "2023-10-22T03:16:10Z")
I guess the question I have is “useful to who beside marketers selling products targeted to people of different ages?” ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/33 "2023-10-23T22:10:29Z")
Not sure about the accuracy, because this is from a magazine article some decades back. The claim was made that the baby boom didn’t happen because people decided to have a lot of children. The boom happened when married couples with two children, who were feeling frisky, shrugged and went ahead with no birth control because they were doing well enough to afford three children, if a third child were to come along. In other words, there was a significant increase in the number of three-child households. I have no idea how to fact-check that. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/34 "2023-10-23T23:02:01Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > The third thing is to determine how or in what context such terms might be useful? Like all stereotypes, generational titles are most useful when they let me make reliable assumptions. They are least useful when the stereotypes are unfounded. For example I recently posted in a thread about U.S. law and data privacy. I made the assumption that the reader understands how when you make a phone call, the recipient number goes to the phone company which connects you to the recipient. Because back in the day, until electronic switching became the norm, there was a live operator. I have been told that people generally understood the role of an operator (live or automated) well into the late 20th century. I know this board skews towards Gen X and baby boomers. So when I quote an old court case that turns on the numbers being disclosed to the phone company, I don’t have to explain that background. If I was writing for a younger audience, I may have used a different approach, because a mental model based on today’s technology could be very different. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2023, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/35 "2023-10-23T23:23:09Z")
My assumption has been that many people held off having children because of the Depression and then World War II and then decided it was time to have children. The article I’ve linked to below says that what happened was that there was a post-war economic boom. I don’t really know what happened: > **[The baby boom (article) | Khan Academy](https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/postwar-era/a/the-baby-boom)** > > Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/36 "2023-10-24T11:18:49Z")
I can’t know the reasons, but we can see that (in the US), there was a uptick of 3 child mothers and downturn in 0 and 1 child mothers between the mothers born in 1910 and 1930 (don’t know why 1920 cohort isn’t present). At least according to [page 36 of this document](http://www-personal.umich.edu/~baileymj/OUP_fertility_9_30_15.pdf). ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/37 "2023-10-24T11:26:12Z")
Like most things we do in this society, I think it is definitely overdone. Now, we seem to be naming generations just because it has become stylish to do so. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/38 "2023-10-24T11:52:55Z")
There was a huge difference in Japan between children born before WWII and those born during and after. The government was completely different, the education system and society completely changed after the war. Japan had a much higher peak for Baby Boomers, and it really started the trend of two children. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Births_and_Total_fertility_rate_of_Japan.svg/1920px-Births_and_Total_fertility_rate_of_Japan.svg.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Births_and_Total_fertility_rate_of_Japan.svg/1920px-Births_and_Total_fertility_rate_of_Japan.svg.png) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565/39 "2023-10-24T12:52:35Z")
The generational titles accurately identify the years when people were born and the state of the world they grew up in. Of course people will try to establish generalized attributes for those people because apparently some people just can’t stop themselves from doing that but there’s no reason anyone has to buy into those conclusions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-what-degree-do-you-think-generational-titles-are-useful-particularly-baby-boomers-in-comparison-to-others/991565.md?page=1)