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I was born in '62 so I'm technically a Boomer, but I don't identify with anything much with that generation, except I sure liked their songs. When I hear the things about Gen X, that is much more me.
A few years ago I attended a management course in dealing with the different generations in the workplace. In that course the generations were defined slightly differently, and in a way that seemed to better match reality. One of the points the instructor brought up was that the definition of "boomer" and "millennial" (IE Gen Y) changed somewhat to make Gen Y become the millennials by better aligning with the millennium. Because of this shifting, people who were culturally Gen X got shifted into the boomer generation even though they culturally were very different (much like the OP and their mother really being of different generations but getting lumped together.
That resulted in both the Gen X and the "forgotten generation" (those too young to be "greatest generation" but born before 1945; roughly 1927-1944) becoming smaller and being squeezed between the big three -- greatest, boomer, and millennial. In the course he used cultural markers rather than periods of time to differentiate the generations since it was the cultural differences that showed up in the workplace. In that scheme:
Boomer: End of WW2 to Space Age; roughly 1945-1960
X: Space age to end of Vietnam War: roughly 1960-1975
Millennial: End of Vietnam to end of the Cold War and early computer age; Gulf War 1; roughly 1975-1992
Digital Natives/Gen Z: Grew up with technology. Roughly 1993-2010.
Because culture doesn't change overnight, there are several years of overlap at each junction.
I find that the Boomer category is way too big. I was born in 1944 so that would make me some sort of a silent generation but that's not what I am. I was out there with the hippies protesting the Viet Nam War in college. I was and am an environmentalist back in the 1970s along with Earth Day. I remember the songs of the 60s and 70s as being the best although I liked some of the rock n roll stuff from the 50s too.
I'm not like the kids who were even a year ahead of me in high school. I'm more like what the younger kids were like back then. I wasn't born in boomer years but I'm what they call a boomer. There also seem to be two groups of boomers and I'm not like the younger boomers. We older boomers are not materialistic and we don't like McMansions or conspicuous consumption. Supposedly the younger group of boomers like those things. It gets complicated.
I was born in '62 so I'm technically a Boomer, but I don't identify with anything much with that generation, except I sure liked their songs. When I hear the things about Gen X, that is much more me.
That is not rare. People born in 1962, maybe even 1961, and later do seem to identify culturally as Gen X. The late writer David Foster Wallace, whose stories and novels are famous for striving to depict the essence of the Gen X perception of the world, was born in 1962.
I was born in 1960, and am a card-carrying member of the Boomer generation :-). I feel far closer to people born 14 years before me than to those born 5 years after me (or even those 2 years after me, like you). My late boyfriend of many years was born 7 years before me, and I certainly felt very strongly that we were the exact same big generation.
Those are mostly cultural categories, and many people born close enough to an earlier or later cultural category will identify with the generation to which they don't technically quite belong. I am sure Mick Jagger must be identifying closer with Boomers than with his own Silent Generation. Anyway, doesn't seem like a big deal.
That is not rare. People born in 1962, maybe even 1961, and later do seem to identify culturally as Gen X. The late writer David Foster Wallace, whose stories and novels are famous for striving to depict the essence of the Gen X perception of the world, was born in 1962.
I was born in 1960, and am a card-carrying member of the Boomer generation :-). I feel far closer to people born 14 years before me than to those born 5 years after me (or even those 2 years after me, like you). My late boyfriend of many years was born 7 years before me, and I certainly felt very strongly that we were the exact same big generation.
Those are mostly cultural categories, and many people born close enough to an earlier or later cultural category will identify with the generation to which they don't technically quite belong. I am sure Mick Jagger must be identifying closer with Boomers than with his own Silent Generation. Anyway, doesn't seem like a big deal.
Ditto for being born midway through 1959. I identify with other older boomers and feel much in common with them and not ashamed of it one bit. I like to think we are for the most part the children of the greatest generation.
Born in '59, technically I'm a Boomer. But I don't feel like, or identify with Boomers. I feel more like Gen X.
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