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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)?.

180 replies

PutitDownandReadaBook · 14/03/2025 00:16

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.

OP posts:
MarkingBad · 14/03/2025 09:12

ComeAsYouAreAsAFriend · 14/03/2025 08:55

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.

Edited

Of course we are influenced by the things going on around us but to the extent it creates personality types is akin to believing all Aquarians are super friendly and clever.

WaryCrow · 14/03/2025 09:12

It’s not a revolutionary idea to suggest that people are shaped and indeed made by the culture and economy they grow up in. That’s the whole point of a culture, that’s what it means! And of course we all are.

The new culture is one in which I fear for my children’s survival - and that includes fears for a female in an increasingly violent male world. That has not changed, nor will it.

SparklyGlitterballs · 14/03/2025 09:14

I was born in the final two years classed as "boomer" but feel I fit more into the Gen X category. I don't think a lot about the generational labelling but I'm glad I grew up before social media arrived and had a fun childhood playing outdoors and using my imagination, rather than being reliant on screens. I think because we were allowed to play out, didn't have mobiles etc, people my age are a lot more resilient.

Summer2025 · 14/03/2025 09:15

ComeAsYouAreAsAFriend · 14/03/2025 08:50

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

Edited

I can identify with your teens. I felt if I didn't do well in school and save money in my 20s, I would be living in economic precarity in my 30s, no savings, unable to afford rent or a child and having to live with my parrnts long term.

So I made the decision to live with inlaws in my 20s when we were dinky with max ability to save and we thought of going to Dublin or vancouver to live in our early 20s. Dublin is my favourite city in the world so I would have loved it. But we stayed in London cos we were halfway through saving for our deposit and even though we knew our flat wouldn't appreciate in value, it didn't have the issues of many leasehold flats (cladding, greedy freeholder as it is 1930s and residents bought the freehold) and we bought it on a 2% mortgage in our 20s. It felt almost like if we postponed it, we wouldn't have been able to buy as the pandemic happened soon after and then the higher interest rates even though the prices fell in real terms

It provided us with a stable place to live even when our incomes hadn't risen, when I lost my job, when dh was on sick leave , when I became pregnant. Our mortgage did rise by 300 quid when we remortgaged after 5 years but dh's salary alone was the same as our household income 5 years ago.

People we knew who moved to other countries (other than those who moved to tax havens like dubai and singapore on high salaries) but who moved there just because, weren't so lucky. In fact a few had to boomerang to parents and inlaws in their 30s including with a child in tow.

OopsIDidItAgainSeriously · 14/03/2025 09:16

Generation X here.

I think my generation was very lucky. We had good education, student grants still (the loans were just starting to come out). House prices were lower and plentiful (not BTL really outwith the cities when I was young).

I did graduate from uni start of nineties so straight into a recession so first few jobs were crap but eventually a few years later I started to get better jobs. Wasn't easy though.

I think alot of children brought up in sixties/seventies had mistreatment from parents that was largely ignored (thanks mum and dad). Hitting was okay and parents could be abusive and violent and there didn't seem to be anywhere to turn to as a child. Nobody batted an eye and it was viewed fine to treat your kids how you wanted. It still felt like adults were very important and kids should be seen and not heard. That may just have been my experience though (both parents with poor mental health brought up during WW2)

I am very grateful to have made it into Generation X and not later. I grew up without phones or computers but had first mobile about 20 (the brick kind that only made calls) and we didn't have internet at home (dial up) till I was about 28. I feel that was the best of both worlds. We got our teenage years not being filmed or being addicted to social media but we were young enough to easily learn internet/smart phones etc. I used telephone banking in my early twenties which was the 'new thing' and then later on of course internet banking with ease.

Our boyfriends as teenagers were the usual 'boys trying it on' but thankfully were mostly restricted to top shelf magazines and the odd video while their brains were developing. I feel very worried for young girls today surrounded by all this violent online porn.

I also seemed to have timed it well - women were just starting to go to university and not just straight into being nurses/secretaries/shop workers etc (not that there is anything wrong with these jobs just more options were opening up). Our men were still protective and manly enough but very much 'women need to have orgasms too' and 'we need to share housework too' generation.

So apart from abusive parents I think I was lucky.

Didn't stop me making plenty of mistakes of my own (divorce, poor property choices etc, destructive choices. This was more to do with my upbringing though rather than the way the world was.

Oh and we also had plenty of doctor appointments/ NHS dentists etc although I suppose medical advances were less. As a child I cracked my head open falling off at the playground. Mum took me to local gp surgery where a nurse stitched my head up. No xrays or MRIs done. Sent home with stitches in head and that was that. Blood pouring out back of head and nobody seemed to think I perhaps should go to hospital which to me seems quite strange. Or perhaps that was just my mum not being very good. She couldn't drive and had to get a neighbour to take us to GP surgery. I had a free brace on teeth but got it too late and teeth were better than before but still quite squint and gappy. Nobody seemed bothered (again that might just have been my parents not being great).

I do feel sorry for the youngsters. I do think they have easier childhoods in some ways and more medical advances of course but high house prices and online porn is not what I would want for my children.

My parents had a council house (which as a child you don't really think about or appreciate). I remember it was freezing cold with ice on inside of windows but of course as a kid you just think it's a big adventure. We also had the blackouts and had to use these lamps with oil of some kind in them. Must have been a giant pain to the adults but a great adventure for us. No microwaves, no dishwasher, mum had top loader washing machine, no tumble dryer, no central heating and we had to get dressed huddled in front of the livingroom electric fire.

Lots of chest infections as a kid probably from the damp cold house. Parents who smoked round us and no seatbelts in cars for us in the back. In fact we often were in the boot like where dogs go nowadays. We were booted out in the morning and nobody worried about us. Food was pretty bad. Mum was stay at home housewife but we lived on tinned hotdogs, scotch pies and our vegetables were few and far between. Again this may just have been my childhood. We did get home made soup and mince with vegetables. Very little real meat or fish. We were all skinny and hungry although I do remember getting an egg followed by a banana for lunch so I guess that was healthy on those days.

BrownPapery · 14/03/2025 09:17

I’m a late Gen X (so I suppose I could say Xennial but I don’t like that word- always sounds like you’re in denial about your age). Feel very lucky to have grown up pre-phones and social media, lived all over Europe in my 20s, bought a flat when they weren’t so crazily expensive (although at the time we thought they were because prices had already risen a lot) and had my own children before screens were everywhere. Gen Z have it a lot harder.

Summer2025 · 14/03/2025 09:19

MarkingBad · 14/03/2025 09:12

Of course we are influenced by the things going on around us but to the extent it creates personality types is akin to believing all Aquarians are super friendly and clever.

Stereotype that millenials prize experiences over possessions. Believe the cheap ryanair flights in contrast to high house prices particularly for 3 to 5 bedroom houses in most of the UK contributed to this. I live in London and hardly anyone my age I know lives in anything bigger than a 3 bed house (and that person lives in zone 6). Most people I know live in 2 beds..there isn't much place to store stuff lol. The one person I know who is a millennial and has a 4 bed house married a 56 year old but they have to sell the house now as they are sadly divorcing.

So everyone I know are avid travellers :)

loadalaundry · 14/03/2025 09:19

@whosaoife04 There isn't! I've said this on other threads but the Mns user is way older than the media image suggest.

loadalaundry · 14/03/2025 09:23

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*

That's because it is harder. Financial security is harder to reach & for those without a family safety net education is the only way really. I think they feel they can't make mistakes

ZiggyZowie · 14/03/2025 09:23

I was born in 1958 and had a lot of outdoor fun as a child, never went home unless hungry .
School was strict but we learnt to spell correctly.
I became a teenager in 1971 at 13 and enjoyed the music ,Pink Floyd,Led Zeppelin, then punk when I was 18 ,1976, finally disco in1978/1979.
Left school at 16 with 2 0 levels to work in an office.
I sometimes think I'd have liked to be born in the 1930s so could experience birth of rock n roll, however then there was the war which wouldn't have been great.
But ultimately I'm glad I was born when I was.

Mellivora · 14/03/2025 09:23

I’m older Gen X, house prices were more affordable, Uni tuition fees didn’t exist, you could consume without guilt and not worry about some polar bear sat on a melting ice cap. Women were getting more rights, children could be disciplined more , there were less crowd control issue like now in schools, no mobile phones so out at all hours without parents keeping tabs. Huge raves, I went on the anti criminal justice bill March in 1994 that was partially because of them, which was the biggest rave ever though it ended up in an actual riot. No bloody social media to deal with. Video gaming was on the rise when I was a child which I loved and still do. Being actually offensive is obviously bad but you didn’t have to censor every single sentence to a microscopic degree. Didn’t have to deal with online dating. I think being young now is shit for them.

MarkingBad · 14/03/2025 09:25

Summer2025 · 14/03/2025 09:19

Stereotype that millenials prize experiences over possessions. Believe the cheap ryanair flights in contrast to high house prices particularly for 3 to 5 bedroom houses in most of the UK contributed to this. I live in London and hardly anyone my age I know lives in anything bigger than a 3 bed house (and that person lives in zone 6). Most people I know live in 2 beds..there isn't much place to store stuff lol. The one person I know who is a millennial and has a 4 bed house married a 56 year old but they have to sell the house now as they are sadly divorcing.

So everyone I know are avid travellers :)

Sorry I'm not sure why you quoted me.

DooWapDooWap · 14/03/2025 09:28

I have no idea what generation I am nor do I care.

loadalaundry · 14/03/2025 09:29

I have no idea what generation I am nor do I care.

Why care enough to post on the thread then? 😆

Whoarethoseguys · 14/03/2025 09:31

I'm happy . I'm a boomer .
What I don't like is the hatred and vitriol directed against us from other people. And the stereotypical characteristics.
No one generation can possibly share all the same characteristics.
All my boomer friends are kind, thoughtful ,liberal thinking tolerant people trying to give something back to society we all help our children financially and with our time. None of us came from affluent backgrounds and some of us experienced real poverty when we were growing up and we saw how the war has affected our parents. A couple of us were the first in our family to go to University or get any qualifications at all.
We are not the selfish ultra rich generation that some people think we are.

Whatevershallidowithmylife · 14/03/2025 09:34

I was born in 72. I have no idea what to stupid group this means i belong to. I just got on with life instead of caring about labels.

garlictwist · 14/03/2025 09:35

I was born in 81 which I think makes me a millennial according to Google. I don't really have an opinion as it's not something you get to choose but I always thought my parents' generation (both born 1950) looked mega. They had so much fun and freedom in the sixties and seventies and then had a kids at a time when there was nurseries, childcare, appliances etc so easy to carry on with a career.

WaryCrow · 14/03/2025 09:35

We are not the selfish ultra rich generation that some people think we are.

Save it for the tourist. As a group, you are culpable for the destruction of society. There are individuals who are less so. To be fair, the stage was set with the destruction of miners’ way of life. But your generation, as a group, has been given compensation for that via the sell-off of everything the nation owned and the sell off of housing. Generations behind them have just been met with the attitude of ‘tough. Work more’. We’ve never stopped working for your age group, and at my age, I never will.

loadalaundry · 14/03/2025 09:35

We are not the selfish ultra rich generation that some people think we are.

Does anyone actually think this? I know they are a wealthy generation but obviously that doesn't apply to all but I thought the accusations were more about the fact that some don't recognise they were luckier in some aspects? Same with the selfish cries, isn't that because more were likely to vote Tory & Brexit? I might be wrong though

WaryCrow · 14/03/2025 09:37

‘Does anyone think this’ yes, because I lived through the change and see the results daily. Like I said, there was only 5 years in it to make the change. People 5 years older had it easy.

loadalaundry · 14/03/2025 09:38

@WaryCrow so are you angry at them for existing or angry because some aren't aware of the luck they had & refuse to acknowledge that future generations don't have some of the same opportunities?

Cattery · 14/03/2025 09:38

Glad I’m a boomer. I think we had the best of the education system. Reading, writing and arithmetic. Discipline in schools. Straight into a job after. Look at the state of it all now

loadalaundry · 14/03/2025 09:39

@Cattery why do you think they were the better educated generation? I'm not sure about that.

ElbowsUpRising · 14/03/2025 09:42

DD was born 2001 but I think is a gen Z which makes me laugh because surely if you're born around the Millennium you should be a Millennial, doesn't make sense!

She is the epitome of someone who prioritises experience/travelling over settling down. She's just back from Asia, is off to Europe for a month's hostelling next week, then off to Asia for a month, then off to North America for 2 months. She has no job. She worked for a year after uni, got made redundant and decided she was too burnt out to look for another job. Me and dh saved up quite a lot of money for her as a child with the intention it would be a house deposit, saved nearly 30k...she's burning through that. It makes me sad because I wish we hadn't bothered saving it for her....I could have used that money for holidays but instead she gets the holidays!!!

Echobelly · 14/03/2025 09:44

Putting aside that these labels are obviously imagined and generalisations... 😉

I'm a late Gen X, happier being that than a boomer, who seem to get blamed for everything wrong with the world (not entirely fair but not entirely unfair either).

I do cringe a bit at some of my peers on social media dunking on younger people being all 'We're the generation that doesn't give a fuck, and our parents would let us out unaccompanied all day and you little snowflakes wouldn't have lasted a second doing that!' As though we were doing an SAS endurance march rather than just larking about in a park 10 minutes' walk from home 🙄

We're a bit 'forgotten' as the generation between boomers and millenials though.

My kids are officially Gen Z, although some definitions say my youngest falls into Gen Alpha.