Are you happy with the generation that you were born into? Do you like and identify with your generation (e.g. boomer, Gen X, millennial etc)?.

[PutitDownandReadaBook]

I was born in the late 70’s , so I was on the tail end of Gen X. I completely identify with my generation, not just the things that many of us enjoyed at the time (ravesbritpop etc), but also I have heard us called the Peter Pan generation who never grew up. I really identify with that. I’m late 40’s and I have missed many of the milestones that most adults would have achieved by my age. Luckily there are lots of people around me, my age, who are the same age.

I think I would have been happy if I was born a generation earlier and was a boomer. They had a freedom that generations before them didn’t, and they had rock and roll. I also like the principles of the millennials, although I don’t think I would have fit into that generation very well.

what do you think about your generation? Would you have preferred to be part of a later or earlier generation? I’m happy that I was gen x ….but sometimes I really wish that I had the wisdom of the millennial generation, who seemed to know more about life than their age.

I hope this question doesn’t come across like stereotyping people. I’m just fascinated by how the times influenced people.

High mortgage rates of the past are not too different to what we have now because 15% of a low number won't necessarily be dissimilar to 6% of a low number. This seems to get forgotten

the sexism we put up with at work was terrible and I'm pleased to see how things change

Sexism is less overt but i'm not sure it's gone anywhere

I've seen huge changes. Maybe because I moved sectors to ones where the men aren't such dicks (law firms to engineering).

You don't "identify " with your generation you just ARE one! Ffs.

I look at my generation and see a lot of differences within that generation - as clearly there are a lot of people in that generation. Each with their own opinions, behaviours, upbringing etc

So it's stereotypes.

Really? The Times were writing about Gen X in the late 80s/early 90s. Nearly weekly.

I was born in 2004 - Gen Z - and I feel like that fits me, but I also feel like there’s nobody my age on here

Born early 1950s so I'm a Boomer but we're such a diverse bunch (like all age groups) that it's hard to say whether I like or identify with them. I definitely don't have political affinity with the right wingers in my generation and the Daily Mail/Telegraph readers but plenty of us read the Guardian and vote Labour/LibDem. There are also sexists and snobs amongst us but that's probably a feature of all generations. I do love the music of my youth eg The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cream, Free, Jefferson Airplane and although as a youngster I didn't like Motown, I do like it now! I also love Beyonce and P!nk. Overall, it's not age groups that I identify with mostly, it's more people's political, social and environmental views that I have affinity with.

I’ve only got a small house too! Equality was somewhere in the future for us as young mums, but we had the 1960s with the clothes and the music which were amazing. I’m an early boomer and we had some tough times, rationing was still in place in my childhood. We didn’t all get to buy a council house in a lovely area that made us a fortune! I have friends of different ages, how they are is more important than how old they are.

I don’t constantly harp about the good old days, and I certainly don’t miss having no central heating, no shower, no car, no freezer, no auto washing machine, or black and white tv, two channels only. I count my blessings.

I wasn’t reading the times in the 80s/90s that’s for sure. But point taken

I’m a millennial and I feel it in my bones 😆

Very happy to be a part of a generation that seems to really connect with social consciousness whilst not being a complete snowflake, and who experienced the benefits of technology early enough in life that it’s been an asset to my career without having had a childhood surrounded by social media and parents glued to their phones.

Gen X and yes I think I’m shaped by the time I grew up. I don’t agree with the Peter Pan thing. I think we all grew up pretty quickly- parenting was so much more light touch then, especially late teens, and housing fairly affordable so there were push and pull factors that facilitated fledging. We did party harder than millennials or Gen Z but still turned up to work on Monday.

Gen X for the win!!

I’m a 90s kid. I have no idea what term that is, they are all ridiculous.

Ditto

I think Victoria Coren Mitchell wrote about Generation X in her weekly column in the Telegraph back then. It was her generation and she was still at school. She has mentioned her early writing career and how it all started by winning a competition.

I am a millennial. I looked for my first job in London when the UK just voted to leave the EU but was also fortunate to e the last cohort to benefit from eu law as dh's masters in a European country (and i moved there after graduation) meant we could move back to London as early 20s newlyweds and only pay 60 quid in visa fees. If I had been a few years younger, I would have had to pay 10k. Like many millenials I was obsessed with home ownership and worried about never owning a home in a way the boomers didn't understand, so saved very hard (and lived with inlaws) to buy a 1930s tiny 2 bed London flat. I also value experiences over possessions and still don't own a car, picked going on holiday multiple times a year, often on ryanair. I think at my peak I had 14 holidays/ weekend breaks in a year (post covid and pre pregnancy).

Like many millenials who have smaller families, also one and done. I didn't have a smartphone until I was 16 and I had a pink sony MP3 which was my most prized possession. My pride and joy was the Sony Ericsson Pink flip phone! I also watched michelle phan on YouTube to learn how to apply makeup, followed Caroline Hirons for anti aging tips in mh 20s (dont rate her anymore) and started off with drugstore makeup and only started buying luxury brands after I bought my flat (very different from the Sephora kids!)

I guess where I am different is I married very early (though that was in big part due to abusive parents and visa restrictions) and follow a religion which is more common in older generations.

I was born in 1976 so I am influenced by how the world was at that time. I think (but I am obviously bias) that it was a great time to grow up. It was pre mobiles, internet etc but people were starting to have a bit more money in their pockets so were enjoying life. I grew up in Dublin, Ireland was starting to shake off the shackles of the catholic church which was slowly losing its grip on society so more freedoms, more money and the country was coming out of recession so my generation unlike the one before me didn't feel the need to emigrate. The music, nightlife and also the start of the freedom to travel as prices came down made for a great time. Me and my peers all worked for summers in the states and did our year in Australia, lived abroad for a time but were able to come back and have careers as the economy started booming in Ireland.

I have teens now and they don't seem as free to have fun now as we did, there seems to be so much more pressure on them to perform at school, not to let their guard down with their pals, they seem restricted in some way but that comes from them, definitely not me. Hard to explain exactly what I mean

I have no idea what generation I am and don’t really care. Was born 1983.

Karl Mannerheim first came up with generational theory in the late 1920s. The ones who came up with the idea of boomers etc al were William Strauss and Neil Howe published in 1991.

This Strauss and Howe theory became a basis for generational marketing strategy in the US and later spread thanks to the internet. This in turn was caught up by the media to create false division between generations. The timings for these generations keep changing and sometimes their proposed traits change too depending upon the writer.

The idea that two or more people born in a particular generation have a similar world view simply based on 1 point of similarity is just ridiculous.

For example Jacob Rees Mogg is Gen X.

And people believe this shite?

But surely we are all influenced by our surroundings and how the world is at the time we are growing up? Of course it doesn't mean we all think and act the same that is ridiculous, but we only know what we know at that time so we are influenced by the trends of the time, the fashions, the music, society, technology etc.

Gen X but at the later end. Married to a millennial. We had free childhoods, growing up in the 80's, could wander far, lived our summers outdoors, etc.. I don't relate to the Peter Pan comment I think we are all very self sufficient. We benfitted from 100% mortgages and got on the property ladder straight after uni and worked hard/ played hard. We definitely drank/ partied too much in the 90's but calmed down and started raising kids in the late noughties. I still feel young and am horrified when someone at work was born after the year 2000..... Surely that can't be possible, it only seems like yesterday!

I am paying 4.37% and had 5 years of paying it off at 2%. Also we had a 15% deposit and most people's deposits are much larger (in london). My flat didn't increase in value at all but we had 40% equity when we remortgaged last year..

I think it's hard for renters as the btl landlords didn't anticipate their mortgage costs doubling and are on interest only mortgages so the payment can really only go up from rock bottom interest rates not down.

I’m one of the ‘Xennials’ too, just 5 years older than the millennials and sharing their experience of life - everything being pulled down in front of our eyes and destroyed. If I’d been just 5 years older myself I would have had the baby boomers experience and social contracts. 5 years is all it took to destroy the economy for all those coming after - 5 years to begin serious austerity punishing everyone who was born poor, making housing totally unaffordable, creating a new ‘rentier’ economy based on a few super rich owners and the rest of us impoverished souls having to pay, almost for the air we breathe. I’m sure they would have charged us for that too if they could.

So it’s that straightforward old choice of whether you’d like to be put up against the wall or one of the bastards doing the putting. I’d much rather take the third choice, ensuring we all had the same chances under the old social contracts to actually work and gain a living. Not only has it been much harder for me to live than my parents, despite all my extra work, it’s been hard to watch society being destroyed and my home region be taken over by drug gangs and all the evils of poverty.

What are the descriptors you are using for the generations? I've found some articles but none with much detail for me to decide whether I fit with mine or not. I'm end of gen X

I was born in 84, so I'm an older millennial. I feel more GenX.
I went to university when tuition fees were only £1250 a year, so graduated with minimal debt.
I graduated in 2006 when work opportunities were abundant and tech hadn't had its impact yet. Email was barely being used in 06 - we still used faxes a lot of the time!
I only had to walk down the high street with printed copies of my CV, and hand them out to physical recruitment offices, to get a job. And employers offered - practically PUSHED - training opportunities. And the working world was more relaxed - it was still the norm to go to the pub with your boss on a Friday lunchtime and watch him sink 3 pints in an hour! 🫤
DH and I bought our first flat in 2010, just before prices exploded. We benefitted from years of low interest rates to overpay our mortgage, and did up several properties when tradesman were affordable and abundant (pre Brexit). I was very influenced in this by Sarah Beeney and Kirsty Allsopp! Sarah was very much my poster girl growing up and I wanted to be just like her!