but you are certainly not a part of of my generation–you did not grow up with the muppets, and free to be you and me, and latchkeys, and star wars, and the breakfast club. you didn't have the highest suicide rate ever recorded while you were in high school, and you don't have the second highest suicide rate in the country now that you are middleaged. my generation will still be killing ourselves until the very last of us, at 100 finally is broken too. we aren't nomads, we PTSDs–america's saddest generation, we gave america google, facebook, myspace, youtube, blogging, forums, and skype–and america gave us incessant insults and an overwhelming desire to die.

from what i can tell, the authors of this site have met very few baby busters in real life–and how could they, we only make up 16% of the population. one snarky guy with a blog (and people who blog are snarky in general. protip–snarky people of any age are drawn to blogging–it's not a generational thing, it's a snarky-thing), plays into these guys' confirmation bias about what people from my generation born in 1970s are like.

Generation X began in 1961 and carries to the year 1975. Most of the first and second wave Xers came of age in the 1980s, including Obama, who turned 20 in the year 1981, when most first wave Xers entered their 20s.

The period of 1975 to 1981 is a Post-Xer generation, not quite “millennial,” but they relate to late-wave Xers born in the 1970s. They came of age in the 1990s.

Generation Jones (1953-60) is a post-boomer generation that was too young to take part in the counter-culture revolution of the late 1960s. That generation came of age in the 1970s, when Gen Xers were still children in elementary and high school.

The whole lie of Boomers being born from 1946-64 is just that – a lie designed to make the Boomer generation “feel” younger than they really were. This generation is scared to death of aging and always has been. Remember, the Boomers were the generation that coined their tern, “Don't trust anyone over 30.” When they turned 30, what to do? Not trust yourself?

Boomers were born during the Second World War and I have their dates from 1939 to 1953 – a 14-yr. period of time. The Boomers have had their time as the establishment (1993-2011) and that time is now coming to an end. They lost their clout, and they know it. That's why they've been on a tear to destroy everything in their path from A to Z in society, politics, economics, education, etc., etc., – and we can all see that they've done a bang up job on the world. It is time for them to go…

Generation X is about to become the new establishment – without all the hype so characteristic of Boomers. There's a lot for Gen X to do: not only providing a vision for the future, but in cleaning up, and clearing out of the total mess the Baby Boom generation left behind.

From the time that Gen X enters as the new establishment in 2011 to the time that it should complete its job as the nomadic generation, it should be the year 2030.

This means that after all is said and done, Gen X will have truly “saved the world” if the generation stays on course in getting the job done without the fanfare, total incompetence and rampant cynicism so typical of the Baby Boomer “me generation.”

I have to say I disagree with the labeling by Strauss/Howe of the 3 present active generations, baby-boomer, 13th, and millenial. All of the previously named generations are named with an adjective; silent, G.I., Lost, missionary, etc. The current 3 are named with random numerical designations that seem designed to make the prophecies self-fulfilling.

Case In Point:

The baby boomer label is representative of the generation's sheer size.

The 13th is nothing more than the number of the generation that has seen the U.S. flag. “13″ hinting at an unluckiness.

Millenial is related to being at some early stage of life when a major milestone year clicks over marking time from the birth of Christ. A positive notion hinting that it is “once in a thousand years”. (what, do non-christians who follow a diffent calendar lose out? )

By rights, for fairness, the Millenials should just be referred to as the 14th generation, and the boomers nothing more than the 12th. Or, some other consistent naming convention used to look at each one objectively until their archtype personality truelly manifests itself.

Surely, the baby boomer one has reached this stage by now. Has there been any consensus as to what that is ( I have never heard it, and nobody ever calls it “Generation W”).

Thanks,
Dave

(PS- I believe Xers have the early/late thing too, mybe just harder to see)

I'm not sure where you get that from, or what you're referring to, but Mr. Howe is a Boomer, and his work is one of relatively few sources that place the line as early as he does. If, as I believe, X runs from about 64/65 to 82, that's 18/19 years – hardly a major truncation. It's about average.

I'm not sure where you get that from, or what you're referring to, but Mr. Howe is a Boomer, and his work is one of relatively few sources that place the line as early as he does. If, as I believe, X runs from about 64/65 to 82, that's 18/19 years – hardly a major truncation. It's about average.