Dear Baby Boomers and Generation X,
Quit telling us we're not special.
Believe us, we bloody well know.
Earlier this month, Wellesley high school teacher David McCullough, Jr., delivered what was perhaps the world's first commencement dirge to a crowd of teenagers on the first day of distinction many of them have ever experienced. Graduation from high school, he informed them, is a shiny induction to the hordes of mediocrity.
I would encourage Sierra to keep following through on this. She is beginning to see, in her comments, the basic structure that Gen-Xers had to RAISE their own Boomer parents which then led part of the Gen Xers to create a situation in which their children are as dependent on them as their parents were. The basic gist is that Boomers are the most over-privileged generation in the history of the United States. They were taken care of by their parents and then when they got kids, most were taken care by their own children who were far more responsible than their parents. But this then leads the first wave of Xers to being over-responsible for their own children. The second wave of Xers was raised mostly by the second wave of Boomers. These boomers were over-privileged but a tad more responsible than the first wave Boomers. Generations are always interesting to study because you can have so many generations contemporaneous with each other so that second-wave Boomers raising second-wave Xers are being inlfuenced by First-wave Xers raising Millenials. You can call this generational cross-pollination.
