To which generation do you belong? | Pad Patter 01.21.23

Another Gen-Xer here! I snuck in right at the tail end... 1978! But when I read the characteristics of the generations, I most definitely relate more to the Gen X way of thinking and doing things!

 

Gen X, and my mom was always there with tea and cookies.

 

I'm a Gen Xer, came in when the street lights came on. We road our bikes everywhere and didn't seem to have a care in the world.

 

I'm finding this thread fascinating! I'm technically a Gen-X, but I definitely fit the idea of the "Geriatric Millennial." I actually took a computer programming class in fifth grade (I was born in 1969, so that would have been about 1980). Of course, NO ONE had computers at home - we still had a party line telephone line! I was a "kind of" latchkey kid - mom worked, part-time, out of the home, but I also had a LOT of after school things I was involved in, so she often picked me up at school to take me to lessons, etc. When we were home together, I had a LOT of time to myself - but I wasn't really feral as there really weren't kids in our neighborhood all that often. I would wander the woods behind the house some, but that was entirely safe. And in the summers, when I was home alone, I had a list of chores that kept me busy enough to stay out of trouble. I wasn't a trouble maker; I WAS an only child. I remained intrigued by computers and that only intensified when I met my husband - his dad was an electrical engineer and VERY involved in computers, etc. When I went to college, the first year I had to use the computer lab OR I typed my essays. The second year on, I had a PC (thanks in large part to my future FIL, who helped me build it.) I didn't use a computer lab again until the mid-90s, working on my PhD, because they had access to "the Internet." I'd used many online bulletin boards and inter-office communication systems, but the world-wide web was a HUGE game changer.

I do have friends of my own exact age who are not technically inclined. My college roommate, a landscape architect, still can barely send emails. My best friend from high school is still challenged a bit by cell phones. It always amazed me that we grew up in the same generation with similar backgrounds, etc.

 

@ArmyGrl I often say that I had the best childhood. We had great music, fashion was a little suspect (big hair and very tight jeans, lol) and we seemed on the cusp of things. We had our innocence a little longer I think and definitely good freedom.

 

Gen X although my mom was ALL the time at home, she was in her own planet, with her friends a few houses far from our house, or cooking and cooking for the whole week or even for future months, placing the food in tuppers and in the freezer, and letting that TV, computer and gameboy would take care of us. I received my first computer when I turned 5 y.o. and my mom used to send to us to all kind of extra classes, like painting, dancing, the scout's camp, etc, whatever mad thing, I remember that once my sister and I went to a "summer safari" in Finland, we visited some zoo and watched all kind of exotic birds and that was all, my sister and I felt disappointed of the safari, we expected to watch at least a lion, lol. She organized trips to all the possible museums and summer theaters, holiday cottage of her friends, that was always fun, but the rest for us, being kids always was like a torture. Because here the libraries organize summer activities for children, we knew that for sure we would spend a lot of our school holidays in some library listening to somebody reading a funny or a complete mad story, lol. When I turned 15 y.o. it was like officially I turned to be an adult, and I was able to travel and do whatever with my life, and then mad thing, I missed all those extra classes, museums trips, etc., but soon the discos, dance and friends filled up that empty space. To my mind the GenX was the best, or I love how my life has been developed.

 

Gen x and I was always home alone.