I am perplexed by terms like “Boomer”, “Gen X”, “Gen Y”, “Millennial” and so on. The problem is that I just don’t know which term is supposed to apply to me.
I was born in 1967. My parents were born in 1941 and 1942. My wife was born in 1970. Her parents were born in 1947. My sister was born in 1971. My kids were born in 1990 and 1995.
So, where do we fit in all those generational nicknames?
You are smack in the middle of Boomer and GenX as am I. GenX technically starts in 1966 (depending on whom you ask). People born in the 60s are sometimes called Tweeners because we don’t quite fit in either category.
Born in 76, So I’m generation X
My husband was born In ‘84
I’m 8 years older than him
Our child was was born 2004
I was 27 when I had her, he was 19.
I would say Gen X.
GenX
Sometimes called the Silent Generation
Also GenX, along with your sister
Boomers
Millennials
hajario is correct in what he/she says.
I’ve used these demographic concepts in marketing and consumer research and there is no “official” definition of what specific year they start or end. The specific years are different depending on who talks about them and they’ve shifted over time. (Originally Gen X “started” in 1962, but now people talk 1966).
The terms are used to “roughly” define generational cohorts. “Baby Boomers” are simply children born after WW2. “Generation X” are the children of those children and so on.
Consumer researchers found commonalities in attitudes and behaviours of the generations of people born in those time frames. They just applied made-up names to them so everybody in the room knew the age group they’re talking about. The media picked up on it and the terms became part of pop culture.
If you want to know where you fall, focus less on the year you were born but do some research on the attitudinal & behavioural commonalities or the different cohorts and see where you line up.
My wife was born in 1980, which technically makes her a Millennial (according to most charts I’ve seen), but she identifies more with GenX. I’ve heard the term Xennial bandied about for people like her.
I’ve never seen any chart that defines Millennial as starting in 1980. 1981 is the earliest I’ve ever seen, and I usually see 1983 or 4.
There’s overlap between the groups. My sister (born 1974) was a Millennial, until she decided that Millennials were the cause of all the world’s troubles, but I had a college roommate (born 1980) who was definitely a Gen Xer.
Well written. (I’m an advertising strategist and researcher, so I work with the cohort/generational descriptors at times, as well.)
There are few hard-and-fast universally-accepted definitions of the start dates and end dates of the generations; about the only one that is pretty close to universal, I think, is that the Baby Boom started in 1946.
Anyway, the generations, and the rough ranges for their birth years:
Greatest Generation: 1901-1924
Silent Generation: 1925-1945
Baby Boom: 1946-1964
Generation X: 1965-1980
Millennials: 1981-1996
Generation Z: 1997-2012
As I mentions before, we have the between generations people that don’t quite fit into either. The Xennials, The Tweeners and The Notch (between Silent and Boomers).
There was a while there when those of us born in the early 80s were called Generation Y.
Honestly, I can’t cite anything. Alls I know that in the past, when my wife and I have had this discussion, there was conflicting info found as to what generation she fell into, until we found something that defined that very early 1980s period as falling sort of between the two gens.
It’s all just for entertainment purposes, really. It comes down to what broad generational mindset you most readily identify with. I remember when they were talking about Gen X the way they talk about millennials now, we were the cause of all the problems in the world and didn’t show boomers the proper respect.
The generation from 1954 to 1965 have also been called Generation Jones.
These were the kids at the tail end of the baby boom who did not go through the ‘classic’ formative experiences of the baby boomers. For example, I was born in 1963, so I am slightly too young to remember Beatlemania, Woodstock, the early space race, Vietnam (mostly), the Summer of Love, etc. But I was too old to get caught up in the Gen-X stuff. I’ve never really felt like part of either of those generations.
I was also born in 1963. I vaguely remember Viet Nam but I wasn’t affected by it so I really didn’t have the Boomer experience. One of the major characteristics of Gen X is growing up with a computer (not internet) in the house or at least in school. My entire freshman college class went to school with an electric typewriter. Five or six years later, everyone came to school with a PC or Mac.
I was born in 1966 and my siblings are 11 and 12 years older than me. They clearly have very different generational attitudes than me, they remember TV shows like Clutch Cargo and Roy Rogers and they’re music is very much boomer music. My brother is old enough that he was worried about being drafted to go to Vietnam.
Generations have to do with shared experiences of peers. You don’t remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the moon landing, or what you were doing when JFK died. You probably composed most of your college assignments on a computer instead of a typewriter. Kurt Cobain’s death, I’m assuming, hit you harder than John Lennon’s. Generation X all the way.
I’m just embarrassed that I used they’re instead of their in my above post, that’s so Gen X.
That’s because it’s the only one with a specific event that started it. That event was the end of WWII and all the veterans coming home and starting families. The end of the Baby Boom also has an event, but it’s not quite as definite. That event is the introduction of the pill and the dramatic drop in the birth rate. The pill was actually invented in 1959, but it took a few years to get into widespread use, so at least at one time, the end of the Boom was always given as 1963 or 64.