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.

And if it is, why is it only when it's aimed at older people do people seem to care?

because there are more older people here.

The improvements in UK literacy rates suggest otherwise.

I was born right at the end of the 1970s. My old flatmate always described me as “born too late”, described himself the same way. We both preferred how things used to be (from descriptions from parents etc).

My year were the first to have university tuition fees instead of loans, so I didn’t go as couldn’t afford to. I wish I’d been able to have an existence like in ‘Man About the House’; rent of £24 pm in central London, cheap housing (to buy), plenty of jobs….

My ex’s sister was about 4/5 years older and bought her first flat in London for £55k in 1998. She sold it two years later for 3 x that. The housing ladder was effectively cut off for me before I even started full time work. I started f/t at 18 but in a low paid civil service job and couldn’t even get a credit card (as no history), let alone a mortgage!

I’d also be closer to retirement, had I been born ten years earlier 😂.

Geriatric millennial here. Also known as a xennial. Analogue childhood, digital adulthood.

I feel I probably do identify with parts of X and Millennials. I have a mortgage but it's very high, and didn't get a house until I was in my 30s. Friends that are a few years older than me definitely had it easier in terms of getting on the ladder. Those younger are struggling.

I'm tech savvy. I'm the person my boomer and Z colleagues call on for IT queries. I can adapt to new software quickly and am not afraid to click things to see what they do. I'm also able to think critically about information I see online. I don't trust online sources in the same way that I think both Boomers and Z tend to do.

I’m gen x but living a millennial life through my own stupid decisions…I did buy a flat in my 20s but it was in the northeast and then I moved to London in 2006, retrained into a lower paid career and took until 2018 to get back on the housing ladder so now have v high mortgage on small house. Also had children late so had small children during covid, everyone I see is a millennial as they have children the same age. I am very glad to have been in my teens/20s in the 90s as we had the best music, party scene etc. I did a lot of travelling. No tuition fees. No internet / mobile phones until I was sensible enough not to be stupid with it. More freedom, less pressure. I definitely marvel at how much my boomer parents had on just one salary.

I’m a parent to adult children. My parents have been dead for decades. I left school at 16, first bought a house at 21, had my mortgage paid off by 30. I’m a landlord.

I’m also a millennial. I do like avocados. I grew up with the internet and mobile phones. I’m in my 40s. I paid tuition fees.

I’m not talking about the 1800s. I’m talking about the 60s

I am and feel firmly Gen X. Being a child in the 80s and a teenager through the 90s was a lot of fun. Not sure I realised how much at the time. But now I have teenagers - they definitely don’t have as much fun or freedom. I hate the impact social media has on them.

Personally I don’t feel Peter Pan like - but I luckily met lovely DH who wanted to settle down and have kids at a sensible age and we managed to get on the property ladder.

I went to a 50th recently and many of my male friends could be described as Peter Pan like. Not married, no kids, serial relationships.

I also think the Boomers was a good generation to grow up in. I would have loved to live through the 60s!

I’m not sure we’ll get decades like that again? They all blur in to one.

They sound infuriating. I can’t imagine not wanting to help my children as much as I could financially.

I'm 55 and buckling under the weight of my grown-up worries, so I don't buy into this gen etc. nonsense.

I think stereotyping “boomers” in ways that are almost always negative is a form of ageism.

People do rightly care about negative stereotyping of other groups in society based on characteristics they can’t help such as colour.

But ageism has been raised on this thread rather than say racism or ableism because it is a thread about people of different generations and hence ages.

I think stereotyping “boomers” in ways that are almost always negative is a form of ageism.

Are you allowed to state facts & statistics though or are they ageist if negative?

I’m not talking about the 1800s. I’m talking about the 60s

😆😆😆😆

Yes of course & facts and statistics are objective.

But when people make subjective statements about Boomers being like this or like that as if they are all the same - that is ageist.

I also think it’s ageist to suggest that a huge group of people are snowflakes simply based on when they happened to have been born.

It is the first time I hear that Gen X = Peter Pan generation. Me and my peers have our heads screwed on, we worked hard to get we were are - and we are in no way wealthy, just comfortable.

@Twiglets1 I was accused of ageism for saying older people were more likely to vote for Brexit 🤷🏻‍♀️. it does seem some are not comfortable with certain truths.

But when people make subjective statements about Boomers being like this or like that as if they are all the same - that is ageist.

Generalising any generation is exactly that generalisation. Something can be a true in that it's a pattern but it doesn't have to apply to all eg not every older person will have voted Brexit.

I'm in my late sixties and I was heartbroken by Brexit. I also read Gransnet from time to time where I'd say the average age is about 65 (judging from the comments) and it is almost predominantly left leaning and remainer - like me. Most of my peer group irl are the same too. The Brexit vote was 51% leave to 48% remain so I don't see how you could single out a particular demographic to blame for a 3% shortfall. If anything, the general concensus is that younger people were so complacent about a positive outcome that they didn't turn out to vote.

Thank you for proving my ping

😆 point

The Brexit vote was 51% leave to 48% remain so I don't see how you could single out a particular demographic to blame for a 3% shortfall.

How does this negate the fact that older people were more likely to vote Brexit?

" In the Brexitt_ referendum of 2016, 73 percent of people aged between 18 and 24 voted to Remain in the European Union, compared with just 40 percent of people aged over 65."

It means nothing. We’ll be called boomers when we get to that age. Millennials are the brittle 30s obsessed with material things. Gen x think they’re cool and now it all but they are just the teenagers of old age. Kids will be kids, plus ça change and all that

Adult DD (Gen Z) talks with resentment about Boomers. by which she means anyone age 40+. That include a lot of people normally designated as "millenials"

Just to show how pointless these labels can be.

Ah, well now you're talking statistics. 73% of the percentage of young people who voted chose to remain. However, the turnout amongst age groups is as follows:
18-24: 36%
25-34: 58%
35-44: 72%
45-54: 75%
55-64: 81%
65+: 83%

If 73% of all young people had actually voted to remain, then we'd still be in the EU wouldn't we.

If 73% of all young people had actually voted to remain, then we'd still be in the EU wouldn't we.

Where did I claim otherwise?

I simply said "older people were more likely to vote for Brexit" which is a fact no matter how much you want to obfuscate