There was a recent news article about a Millennial MP in New Zealand replying to one of her fellow MPs: "OK Boomer." I admit that I didn't read the whole exchange or understand what it was about. It was just one of the thousands of news bytes that I passed over in my trolling of the Internet. Until a fellow member of one of my book groups brought it up as we were discussing generational attitudes and tastes.
As a Boomer, born in 1952, I am now three generations away from being "with it" I guess. Since the Boomer generation, those of us born between 1946 and 1964, there have been Gen X, born between 1965 and 1976, Millenials or Gen Y, born between 1977-1995 (my daughter's generation) and, currently, Gen Z, iGen, Centennials, born from 1996 to ??? (my grandchildren's generation.) And the generation that preceded us Boomers is lumped into a category that is called Traditionalists or the Silent Generation, 1945 or before. It's an odd lumping because I would certainly not consider those who are currently 74 to be in any way like my parents, who were born in 1911/12, were. (These categories are all from https://genhq.com/faq-info-about-generations/ by the way.) Still, I have always known I am a Boomer and that my sister, who was born in 1942, was somehow not.
What causes society to create generational divides? Well, according to the website I quoted above, it's commonalities--ways of communicating, shopping, motivation, trends such as radio, TV, online, mobile.... I thought that was a really interesting thing to think about this morning as I ponder generations.
My first thought is the difference in attitudes toward transportation. My grandparents' generation, born in the 1880s, saw great changes in travel but travel was undertaken strictly for major life events, like emigration or illness. Ships began crossing the ocean in days, not weeks/months by the time my grandparents were in their teens. Although loads of emigrants left Ireland during the Potato Famine, emigration/immigration increased as travel became less expensive and faster I think. Most of my Irish great uncles came to the US or Canada. My great grandfather came to Canada with one of his surviving sons although another son and daughter remained in the UK. I believe my grandparents still communicated from Canada with the family they left behind in the "old country" in the same way as had existed for centuries, i.e., written letters. Unlike some families, my grandparents didn't keep those letters, they burned them, sadly. So there is no peek into family relations or my grandparents' writing style. Nor my parents for that matter, they didn't keep any personal letters either.
Now we have email, a change that occurred just before the Millennium. Though there are still folks who write letters, I think there are fewer and fewer. Like Christmas cards, I don't send any and I receive very few. My mother DID have quite a collection of Christmas and birthday cards that she kept but my father got rid of them all in a move. Truthfully, I can't fault him, I wasn't sentimental back then. Now I wish. . .but, then, why would I be interested in cards from people I didn't know? There IS a limit to genealogical interest :)
Cars. I don't think any of my grandparents ever drove a car although I know my great uncle, born in 1889, loved to drive and was devastated when he was told, as he was about to turn 80 in 1968, that he wouldn't be able to drive anymore. My relatives were convinced that contributed to his having a stroke in June of 1968 and dying. My father drove before there were actual drivers' licenses. Never to my knowledge had an accident in all the years he drove. He voluntarily gave up driving at the age of 85 I think.
My mother never drove. My father tried to teach her but she was too nervous to learn. She actually had quite a few phobias--afraid of animals, claustrophobic, a nervous flyer--although she was always considered a very happy go lucky person. One of the oddities about her that I never got explained. Anyway, her sister, who was only a few years younger, did drive.
My sister, born in 1942, learned to drive when she was 18 at her own insistence (my father taught her.) And bought a Volkswagen Bug with her earnings as a secretary when she was 19. My sister was always determined to do things her way but I don't know if that was her generation?
One aspect of the driving/not driving is that many people who live in big cities with good transportation just don't bother. Although I and my friends all drive now--unthinkable not to be able to--very few of us got our licenses at 16, while I know that in the US, outside of New York City, getting your license at 16 was a rite of passage. Living in Montreal, what was the point of getting a license?
And I think too in my case, it was because I could always be driven by a boyfriend. Which brings me to a very important part of the generational thing--views on women and their "place." Female independence was hard won in generations previous to my sister's, the so-called Traditionalist/Silent. Get a man and, while life would still be hard, still consist of not having a voice, at least you had it better than so many women who were dependent on parents or, when those parents died, a legacy or the kindness of siblings (think about Sense & Sensibility, things didn't change a whole lot for women until World War 2.) The idea that women should be cared for by a man was very prevalent. My sister did her bit, married her high school boyfriend at age 21, had two children (would probably have had more but she couldn't) and stayed at home with them. But, when they moved to the U.S. in 1968, she discovered that many young women her age were going to work once their children were in school. And they were standing up for themselves, wanting to have marriage be more "equal" and to have a career outside of the house. And that to compete with them, to feel "as good as" they were in terms of being taken seriously, she would need a college degree. My parents hadn't believed in females going to university unless the family were wealthy, which we weren't. So she went to college, got a degree and was very successful career wise until her early death.
I kind of fell into a career but that's not part of this particular blog. I want to stick to this generational idea.
Planes. Oh, wow, have they changed everything! Where my grandparents thought crossing an ocean in a week was amazing, now we cross in 7-11 hours, depending on which part of the coast we live on (and whether flights are direct, delayed or cancelled.) We take our vacations in planes in the same way that my parents took a vacation in a car. We travel to places our parents would never have imaging going to unless they were emigrating. I have been to South Africa, to Australia, Europe several times.... And I don't travel as much as several of my friends do. Planes have made that possible. The price of traveling vis a vis how much we have saved in retirement--or what middle-class people currently earn--has made exotic traveling possible.
And, finally, (because I have to close this off because there are so many other things to write about, such as my delayed summary of my most current European trip), communications. My grandparents wrote letters, my mother thought her wired-to-the-wall phone was her best friend, I carry my smartphone everywhere although there are many people of my generation who have very mixed feelings about them. I don't actually talk on the phone much though, I text and I email. There is a lot of angst currently about people being shut off because they focus too much on electronic media. Well, part of that is due not so much to electronic media but to the breakdown of small communities, to people no longer participating in a shared work life (everyone has their own terminals), church life, neighborhoods.... Has electronic media helped with that breakdown? Ummm, way too complex a subject for my blog. I do know that I spend a lot of time communicating electronically but when I was younger and there was no electronic media I spent a lot of time reading books or watching TV. It's a function of being an introvert and there are a lot of us out there, always have been.
Anyway, I am going to wind up today's musings with this quote that I think reflects the eternal conundrum of generational change:
As a Boomer, born in 1952, I am now three generations away from being "with it" I guess. Since the Boomer generation, those of us born between 1946 and 1964, there have been Gen X, born between 1965 and 1976, Millenials or Gen Y, born between 1977-1995 (my daughter's generation) and, currently, Gen Z, iGen, Centennials, born from 1996 to ??? (my grandchildren's generation.) And the generation that preceded us Boomers is lumped into a category that is called Traditionalists or the Silent Generation, 1945 or before. It's an odd lumping because I would certainly not consider those who are currently 74 to be in any way like my parents, who were born in 1911/12, were. (These categories are all from https://genhq.com/faq-info-about-generations/ by the way.) Still, I have always known I am a Boomer and that my sister, who was born in 1942, was somehow not.
What causes society to create generational divides? Well, according to the website I quoted above, it's commonalities--ways of communicating, shopping, motivation, trends such as radio, TV, online, mobile.... I thought that was a really interesting thing to think about this morning as I ponder generations.
My first thought is the difference in attitudes toward transportation. My grandparents' generation, born in the 1880s, saw great changes in travel but travel was undertaken strictly for major life events, like emigration or illness. Ships began crossing the ocean in days, not weeks/months by the time my grandparents were in their teens. Although loads of emigrants left Ireland during the Potato Famine, emigration/immigration increased as travel became less expensive and faster I think. Most of my Irish great uncles came to the US or Canada. My great grandfather came to Canada with one of his surviving sons although another son and daughter remained in the UK. I believe my grandparents still communicated from Canada with the family they left behind in the "old country" in the same way as had existed for centuries, i.e., written letters. Unlike some families, my grandparents didn't keep those letters, they burned them, sadly. So there is no peek into family relations or my grandparents' writing style. Nor my parents for that matter, they didn't keep any personal letters either.
Now we have email, a change that occurred just before the Millennium. Though there are still folks who write letters, I think there are fewer and fewer. Like Christmas cards, I don't send any and I receive very few. My mother DID have quite a collection of Christmas and birthday cards that she kept but my father got rid of them all in a move. Truthfully, I can't fault him, I wasn't sentimental back then. Now I wish. . .but, then, why would I be interested in cards from people I didn't know? There IS a limit to genealogical interest :)
Cars. I don't think any of my grandparents ever drove a car although I know my great uncle, born in 1889, loved to drive and was devastated when he was told, as he was about to turn 80 in 1968, that he wouldn't be able to drive anymore. My relatives were convinced that contributed to his having a stroke in June of 1968 and dying. My father drove before there were actual drivers' licenses. Never to my knowledge had an accident in all the years he drove. He voluntarily gave up driving at the age of 85 I think.
My mother never drove. My father tried to teach her but she was too nervous to learn. She actually had quite a few phobias--afraid of animals, claustrophobic, a nervous flyer--although she was always considered a very happy go lucky person. One of the oddities about her that I never got explained. Anyway, her sister, who was only a few years younger, did drive.
My sister, born in 1942, learned to drive when she was 18 at her own insistence (my father taught her.) And bought a Volkswagen Bug with her earnings as a secretary when she was 19. My sister was always determined to do things her way but I don't know if that was her generation?
One aspect of the driving/not driving is that many people who live in big cities with good transportation just don't bother. Although I and my friends all drive now--unthinkable not to be able to--very few of us got our licenses at 16, while I know that in the US, outside of New York City, getting your license at 16 was a rite of passage. Living in Montreal, what was the point of getting a license?
And I think too in my case, it was because I could always be driven by a boyfriend. Which brings me to a very important part of the generational thing--views on women and their "place." Female independence was hard won in generations previous to my sister's, the so-called Traditionalist/Silent. Get a man and, while life would still be hard, still consist of not having a voice, at least you had it better than so many women who were dependent on parents or, when those parents died, a legacy or the kindness of siblings (think about Sense & Sensibility, things didn't change a whole lot for women until World War 2.) The idea that women should be cared for by a man was very prevalent. My sister did her bit, married her high school boyfriend at age 21, had two children (would probably have had more but she couldn't) and stayed at home with them. But, when they moved to the U.S. in 1968, she discovered that many young women her age were going to work once their children were in school. And they were standing up for themselves, wanting to have marriage be more "equal" and to have a career outside of the house. And that to compete with them, to feel "as good as" they were in terms of being taken seriously, she would need a college degree. My parents hadn't believed in females going to university unless the family were wealthy, which we weren't. So she went to college, got a degree and was very successful career wise until her early death.
I kind of fell into a career but that's not part of this particular blog. I want to stick to this generational idea.
Planes. Oh, wow, have they changed everything! Where my grandparents thought crossing an ocean in a week was amazing, now we cross in 7-11 hours, depending on which part of the coast we live on (and whether flights are direct, delayed or cancelled.) We take our vacations in planes in the same way that my parents took a vacation in a car. We travel to places our parents would never have imaging going to unless they were emigrating. I have been to South Africa, to Australia, Europe several times.... And I don't travel as much as several of my friends do. Planes have made that possible. The price of traveling vis a vis how much we have saved in retirement--or what middle-class people currently earn--has made exotic traveling possible.
And, finally, (because I have to close this off because there are so many other things to write about, such as my delayed summary of my most current European trip), communications. My grandparents wrote letters, my mother thought her wired-to-the-wall phone was her best friend, I carry my smartphone everywhere although there are many people of my generation who have very mixed feelings about them. I don't actually talk on the phone much though, I text and I email. There is a lot of angst currently about people being shut off because they focus too much on electronic media. Well, part of that is due not so much to electronic media but to the breakdown of small communities, to people no longer participating in a shared work life (everyone has their own terminals), church life, neighborhoods.... Has electronic media helped with that breakdown? Ummm, way too complex a subject for my blog. I do know that I spend a lot of time communicating electronically but when I was younger and there was no electronic media I spent a lot of time reading books or watching TV. It's a function of being an introvert and there are a lot of us out there, always have been.
Anyway, I am going to wind up today's musings with this quote that I think reflects the eternal conundrum of generational change:
"Wisdom – that being the skillset of a critical mind and solid judgment – comes from consistently exposing oneself to new and novel situations, in turn developing greater understanding of the world, those in it and how to solve evolving problems. When you close yourself off to new ways of looking at things; when you become conservative in mind – that being, a preference to shut down conversation and the potential for progress associated – you become intrinsically less likely to hold the requisite open, critical and creative ability to tackle unprecedented, evolving socio-political challenges." (https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2019/nov/09/my-ok-boomer-comment-in-parliament-symbolised-exhaustion-of-multiple-generations)
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