I feel seen - thank you! I just squeaked over the line from Boomer, so I got the FULL Gen X experience. We were the kids expected to be out of the house all day, amusing ourselves and coming home when the streetlights came on. We ran behind the mosquito-spraying trucks and caught the carbon monoxide backdraft as we bounced around the "way back" of the family station wagon. Discussions began and ended with our parents saying "because I said so". We walked to school by ourselves, starting in first grade and rode bikes with no safety gear except an orange flag mounted on a long antenna. And we had all the best toys and crafts, most of which involved melting plastic in some form or another. Wouldn't change a thing. 😊
We didn't have mosquito spray trucks where I lived, and thought people who did were dumb. But "the way back" was awesome -- pile up your friends like cordwood! And I'm always enraged at the lineup of cars blocking the road past the elementary school twice daily; FFS, let the kids walk alone, or at least go and walk with them!
I grew up in the suburbs but now live in a rural community. The busses stop at every driveway and I'm always amazed at how many parents DRIVE their kids - and wait with them - at the end of said driveways, even in nice weather!
Driving your kid to the school bus on your own property?! Whatever happened to rural toughness? My BFF walked to some place the bus stopped kinda-sorta near her house when she lived rural. I walked a block down the street and stood by myself waiting for the bus... just before dawn in winter, sometimes several degrees below zero. Those kids would evaporate if they had to do that.
as a PROUD GEN Xer this made me chuckle and tear up. we feel seen --
"And now, for funsies, Gen LMAO watch serial killer documentaries. They’ve watched so many that I’m pretty sure half of them could qualify as a paralegal, not to mention could get away with 12 different ways to hide a body." -- and also called out.
we're also the last generation that has real fucking manners.
We were out all day, drinking from hoses and just supposed to know when supper was and be on time. No one knew where we were ir What we did. Running from following cars - check. The serial killar thing too and the manners. Why don’t anyone think manners matters anymore? We are also the last generation to grow up as kids without internet, social media or online games. If you said or did anything hurtful - you would notice. And last but not least even before men-on-pause if you Did anything remotely not great to my kids the Mama-bear wrath would ensue, as the doctor found out being a little superior and off when my son had a open fracture. He was reeeeally Nice after that.🤣🤣🤣
Kicked the can, drank from the hose, rode my bike everywhere without a helmet, laid in the grass and watched the clouds float, built snow forts, cut the grass for cash, bought record albums, my first vinyl was Van Halen One, endless air guitar and air drumming. Went to the library and used the card catalog system to look up a book. Oh there’s so much more that our generation of Gen x experienced and survived. Your article deserves an award. Thank you for seeing us and knowing who we are. I’m a Super Proud Gen X’r 🙌🏽💙
Yes. 🌼 However you 🙌🏽 highlighted the struggles we endured that made us stronger and more resilient. Which provided us a foundation to go forward, turning our trauma and pain as fuel, to move towards the future. 💙🌻 You Rock 🤘🏼 🎤
The only kids I ever heard of who wore helmets were the "special" ones, IYKWIM, or those with extremely over-protective parents.
Snow forts and snowball fights, buying vinyl, all good. Summers where you ran out of the house after breakfast to climb things and play kickball (in the street), only popping in to someone's house for lunch, your own house for dinner, and went back outside till it was absolutely pitch dark.
And learning how to amuse yourself when there wasn't 24/7 media on tap is a lost art.
One thing you didn't mention, inherited from the Boomers, was the ever present nagging possibility that the Soviets would nuke us all to hell, at any second. That warped us, and when it didn't happen, most of us had no life plans beyond 1989.
Came here to say this. I used to legit have nightmares about "you've got 30 minutes to live, the bombs are on their way" when I was 12 years old. It definitely shapes your worldview.
Cutting edge GenX here - 100% agree. The normal day to day feral-ass nofukstogive shit we got up to... filching chemicals, flinging projectiles, flaming petrochemicals, firework modding to IEDs, daredevil construction site hijinks, rock fights (dirtlumps were for wusses), irrigation canal swimming, high rooftops, barbed wire fencing vs 60 mph snowmobile charges..... Just shake my head and wonder how in the hell more of us didn't die.
Then I recall those of our cohort that were weak and/or excessively stupid did die. Horribly.
They are remembered thus - "HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. "Dumbass! You're deeeeeeaaaaad!" HAHHAHAHAHAHHA." Without a shred of mirth or a tear shed.
The culling we could do, without breaking a sweat, to todays whining candy-assed jamtart thumb-strong myopic neck-craning legless mobile phone clutching pasty faced incel face-smaking pukes....
There was a vacant lot at the end of my street where they'd piled up construction debris AND there was a small algae-filled irrigation ditch running along one side, with an insanely slippery narrow wooden bridge of 2x4s over it. It was heaven. And you could get into the fields by climbing through the barbed wire fence. And there were all sorts of little frogs and garter snakes to catch. A muskrat fell into our basement window well once and dad had to build a little ramp for it to get back out and then cover all the wells. This was in suburbia, not out in the country!
No wonder the kids today are so stressed, not having these advantages. I didn't know anybody who died or was even more than slightly sick or injured doing all this. Tetanus shots, band aids, and rubbing alcohol took care of it all.
“Raised like feral barn cats”? Feh. We were raised to be Gila monsters: spending 95 percent of our time underground, emerging only to suck eggs and devour baby bunnies, and wearing bright coloration as a warning for our venomous bites, which we inflict by grabbing an extremity and chewing for hours. (My parents finally got the hint that I moved 1500 miles away from them for a reason when they started nagging me again about when I was going to move “back” to northeast Wisconsin, a xenophobic hellpit to which I moved 40 years ago this August and which I moved from nine months later. I finally dropped the H-bomb in the only way they would understand: “I’ll move back the moment the Dallas Cowboys win a shutout World Series pennant, and not a second before.” Between that and my not giving them the 248 grandkids they expected, thus breaking a seven-generation tradition for eldest sons, the last three years have been BLISS.)
OMG this is hilarious! Describes my husband and some of my friends with older siblings to a T. Born in the last gasp of the 70s, and as the oldest child in my family, I can’t claim to truly identify with Gen X. Xennial is a whole ‘nother thing (split personality, anyone?) Toughness of X but also emotional sensitivity of millennials… I’m constantly conflicted. My husband thinks I’m a softie because I bring feelings into the parenting equation 😂 I definitely remember a childhood of just wandering around the neighborhood with no parents in sight, however. Those were different times!
The bear really has been poked. I actually thought about putting a line about that in the article, but I didn't want to make it political. Thought I'd give people a break from that. But y'all are representing out there fiercely! :)
I'm a mid-gen Boomer who raised two early Millennial sons — pretty much according to what you lay out as Gen X parenting standards. They're both successful, fully functional adults, thanks mostly to their own initiative and my not getting in the way too much. And I wouldn't suggest fucking with either one of them.
I feel seen - thank you! I just squeaked over the line from Boomer, so I got the FULL Gen X experience. We were the kids expected to be out of the house all day, amusing ourselves and coming home when the streetlights came on. We ran behind the mosquito-spraying trucks and caught the carbon monoxide backdraft as we bounced around the "way back" of the family station wagon. Discussions began and ended with our parents saying "because I said so". We walked to school by ourselves, starting in first grade and rode bikes with no safety gear except an orange flag mounted on a long antenna. And we had all the best toys and crafts, most of which involved melting plastic in some form or another. Wouldn't change a thing. 😊
I'm glad you liked it Heidi. Omg I forgot about the bug-spraying fumes y'all huffed 😆😆.
We didn't have mosquito spray trucks where I lived, and thought people who did were dumb. But "the way back" was awesome -- pile up your friends like cordwood! And I'm always enraged at the lineup of cars blocking the road past the elementary school twice daily; FFS, let the kids walk alone, or at least go and walk with them!
Super Elastic Bubble Plastic, anyone?
I grew up in the suburbs but now live in a rural community. The busses stop at every driveway and I'm always amazed at how many parents DRIVE their kids - and wait with them - at the end of said driveways, even in nice weather!
Driving your kid to the school bus on your own property?! Whatever happened to rural toughness? My BFF walked to some place the bus stopped kinda-sorta near her house when she lived rural. I walked a block down the street and stood by myself waiting for the bus... just before dawn in winter, sometimes several degrees below zero. Those kids would evaporate if they had to do that.
Or "Easy Bake Ovens" that used a light bulb not to bake, but to dehydrate tiny flour things to the consistency of a hockey puck.
😆😆 I had one of those, and the accompanying pucks.
Me too 👋🏼
I never had an Easy Bake Oven. I got the Betty Crocker baking set, instead, which required the use of a grown-up oven to bake said pucks.
Ha! My parents wouldn’t have wasted money on EZ Bake oven. I used the real oven.
https://images.app.goo.gl/ioF7oqa4U2z9aFvL8
Truth, every word of it. 👍👍👍
as a PROUD GEN Xer this made me chuckle and tear up. we feel seen --
"And now, for funsies, Gen LMAO watch serial killer documentaries. They’ve watched so many that I’m pretty sure half of them could qualify as a paralegal, not to mention could get away with 12 different ways to hide a body." -- and also called out.
we're also the last generation that has real fucking manners.
🤍
haha sorry for calling you out. I knew I'd catch some of you with that one ;) Glad you liked it though.
That’s true! X-woman here lol
We were out all day, drinking from hoses and just supposed to know when supper was and be on time. No one knew where we were ir What we did. Running from following cars - check. The serial killar thing too and the manners. Why don’t anyone think manners matters anymore? We are also the last generation to grow up as kids without internet, social media or online games. If you said or did anything hurtful - you would notice. And last but not least even before men-on-pause if you Did anything remotely not great to my kids the Mama-bear wrath would ensue, as the doctor found out being a little superior and off when my son had a open fracture. He was reeeeally Nice after that.🤣🤣🤣
I'd also make a pretty decent pathologist tbh. Serial killer docs + Patricia Cornwell = I can tell what killed you 😉
Proud GenX'er here, raised on hose water and neglect like the rest of us. FAFO indeed. 😁
'raised on hosewater and neglect' is friggin perfect 😆
Kicked the can, drank from the hose, rode my bike everywhere without a helmet, laid in the grass and watched the clouds float, built snow forts, cut the grass for cash, bought record albums, my first vinyl was Van Halen One, endless air guitar and air drumming. Went to the library and used the card catalog system to look up a book. Oh there’s so much more that our generation of Gen x experienced and survived. Your article deserves an award. Thank you for seeing us and knowing who we are. I’m a Super Proud Gen X’r 🙌🏽💙
It sounds pretty idyllic when you put it that way :)
Yes. 🌼 However you 🙌🏽 highlighted the struggles we endured that made us stronger and more resilient. Which provided us a foundation to go forward, turning our trauma and pain as fuel, to move towards the future. 💙🌻 You Rock 🤘🏼 🎤
The only kids I ever heard of who wore helmets were the "special" ones, IYKWIM, or those with extremely over-protective parents.
Snow forts and snowball fights, buying vinyl, all good. Summers where you ran out of the house after breakfast to climb things and play kickball (in the street), only popping in to someone's house for lunch, your own house for dinner, and went back outside till it was absolutely pitch dark.
And learning how to amuse yourself when there wasn't 24/7 media on tap is a lost art.
One thing you didn't mention, inherited from the Boomers, was the ever present nagging possibility that the Soviets would nuke us all to hell, at any second. That warped us, and when it didn't happen, most of us had no life plans beyond 1989.
Oooh good addition!
Came here to say this. I used to legit have nightmares about "you've got 30 minutes to live, the bombs are on their way" when I was 12 years old. It definitely shapes your worldview.
Cutting edge GenX here - 100% agree. The normal day to day feral-ass nofukstogive shit we got up to... filching chemicals, flinging projectiles, flaming petrochemicals, firework modding to IEDs, daredevil construction site hijinks, rock fights (dirtlumps were for wusses), irrigation canal swimming, high rooftops, barbed wire fencing vs 60 mph snowmobile charges..... Just shake my head and wonder how in the hell more of us didn't die.
Then I recall those of our cohort that were weak and/or excessively stupid did die. Horribly.
They are remembered thus - "HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. "Dumbass! You're deeeeeeaaaaad!" HAHHAHAHAHAHHA." Without a shred of mirth or a tear shed.
The culling we could do, without breaking a sweat, to todays whining candy-assed jamtart thumb-strong myopic neck-craning legless mobile phone clutching pasty faced incel face-smaking pukes....
Amazing examples Lee. I too am wondering how you didn't die.
That final line though, chef's kiss 😆😆😆
Lordy Robin, skin was torn, bones were broken and blood was spilled.
Didn't tell the parents. Didn't squeal to teacher either.
🤪🤣 daredevil construction site hijinks … ah memories (at least I think they were, concussion or not)
There was a vacant lot at the end of my street where they'd piled up construction debris AND there was a small algae-filled irrigation ditch running along one side, with an insanely slippery narrow wooden bridge of 2x4s over it. It was heaven. And you could get into the fields by climbing through the barbed wire fence. And there were all sorts of little frogs and garter snakes to catch. A muskrat fell into our basement window well once and dad had to build a little ramp for it to get back out and then cover all the wells. This was in suburbia, not out in the country!
No wonder the kids today are so stressed, not having these advantages. I didn't know anybody who died or was even more than slightly sick or injured doing all this. Tetanus shots, band aids, and rubbing alcohol took care of it all.
FYI: boomers are Hell’s Grannies.
YEP
No argument there 😆
“Raised like feral barn cats”? Feh. We were raised to be Gila monsters: spending 95 percent of our time underground, emerging only to suck eggs and devour baby bunnies, and wearing bright coloration as a warning for our venomous bites, which we inflict by grabbing an extremity and chewing for hours. (My parents finally got the hint that I moved 1500 miles away from them for a reason when they started nagging me again about when I was going to move “back” to northeast Wisconsin, a xenophobic hellpit to which I moved 40 years ago this August and which I moved from nine months later. I finally dropped the H-bomb in the only way they would understand: “I’ll move back the moment the Dallas Cowboys win a shutout World Series pennant, and not a second before.” Between that and my not giving them the 248 grandkids they expected, thus breaking a seven-generation tradition for eldest sons, the last three years have been BLISS.)
As usual, you outdid yourself here. Gila monsters 😆😆.
I'm with you on disappointing the parents and not giving them the 72 grandkids they wanted.
Hahahaha! Boomer response “quiet, grownups are talking “.
😆😆 Yup, I heard that myself quite a bit too.
They forgot "okay, but we're listening, heh heh".
OMG this is hilarious! Describes my husband and some of my friends with older siblings to a T. Born in the last gasp of the 70s, and as the oldest child in my family, I can’t claim to truly identify with Gen X. Xennial is a whole ‘nother thing (split personality, anyone?) Toughness of X but also emotional sensitivity of millennials… I’m constantly conflicted. My husband thinks I’m a softie because I bring feelings into the parenting equation 😂 I definitely remember a childhood of just wandering around the neighborhood with no parents in sight, however. Those were different times!
So glad you liked it Rachel. And I'm glad I nailed it. You nailed the split personalities of xennials 😆😆 That's me too.
“If they wanted to prove their parents wrong, they had to walk to the library and then learn the Dewey Decimal System.”
This is very funny.
You should come on the genXy podcast and talk about this story with two genuine card-carrying GenXers. Or meet us behind the parking lot after school.
Your choice.
But..but...both of those sound fun 😆
Yesssssssssss! 😍
I could not stop laughing, crying, reading this article! I’m a Gen Xer through and through. So true so funny, love this!
And the bear has been poked! We are at these protests! We are fed up and on fire! And yes, we do have to be in bed by 10 o’clock! Lol
The bear really has been poked. I actually thought about putting a line about that in the article, but I didn't want to make it political. Thought I'd give people a break from that. But y'all are representing out there fiercely! :)
I'm a mid-gen Boomer who raised two early Millennial sons — pretty much according to what you lay out as Gen X parenting standards. They're both successful, fully functional adults, thanks mostly to their own initiative and my not getting in the way too much. And I wouldn't suggest fucking with either one of them.
Well mission accomplished then, they sound like awesome human beings!
Gotta say they are, not that I'm biased or anything.
they don’t need a safe space because they are the reason safe spaces were invented
😆😆 Exactly.
“If nuclear winter broke out, it would be just Gen X and cockroaches left.”
🤣🤣🤣
I’m a Gen X’er born in early 70’s & you better believe the dust-ups I got into - human and animal alike. Zen?
Yup.
Kind?
To a fault.
Drama?
No thanks.
Any fucks left?
Hell to the nope.
Don’t talk to me before the caffeine kicks in & don’t piss me off.
Ask me to help you and I’ll drop everything to assist you.
I’m unabashedly Gen X.
Boomer parent of one of these X wonders…yep, my daughter is tough as nails, smart as a whip, independent as a hog on ice, and she votes! Look out!
Sounds like you did a solid job!