My tweets

[the_gneech]

• Sat, 12:28: Generation X Grows Up http://t.co/LTjUnlfDp9 (Ping @balsamicvinager)
• Sat, 12:55: Excerpt from the Esquire @prattprattpratt story, including fitness turnaround. http://t.co/j8mqTytxLp
• Sat, 13:03: It's Alive! It's Aliiiiiiiiiiiive! http://t.co/c0V6iyNAAU
• Sat, 14:44: For all your elevator music needs. http://t.co/kxQIK08Uuu
• Sat, 18:39: Broke down and bought Skyrim since it was on sale cheap. Good Lord, is this game brown.
• Sat, 18:39: Well, not ALL brown. Some of it is gray.

Comments

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

It's kind of telling, the flood of articles and opinion pieces recently, clutching at pearls like they're going out of style and breathlessly fretting that These Kids Today just won't Grow Up, or alternately gasping in bewilderment when those same people seem to be able to exhibit maturity anyway.

The line between generations having letters as their label vs lofty or at least descriptive names (The Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers.... Gen x, y, 'Millenial' is a just a fancy name for a number) seems to also be the location of a generational rift in culture. Boomers don't get it, their kids paid attention growing up, and the lessons those kids learned spelled out really clearly that the previous generation's values and expectations and ideas about how things like commerce and finance and careers and relationships Just Plain Didn't Work.

The modern day June Cleaver wasn't the black and white TV show Housekeeper Archetype from just a generation and a half ago, she's now a single mom who had been fired, downsized, or let go from multiple dead-end jobs, has crushing college debt from a degree she may not have finished, and isn't sure if she can have milk and bananas for the kids tomorrow or not.

Meanwhile the previous generation that could use a summer job to afford an entire year's college tuition, and who paid less for their house than a new car costs now, tisks and wonders why June just Can't Get Her Act Together, and why the overwhelming message from Modern Day Media Icons is a message of "hey, let's put off this 'growing up' horseshit we got sold, because, well, it's so obviously a pile of horseshit."

I guess nobody likes it when they get told, "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Just imagine how they're going to react when they also get reminded "By the way, we're the ones picking your retirement homes."