The Lost Generation
Sharyn’s post from yesterday set me thinking, a difficult job for me since I’d much rather be shoveling black licorice into my mouth and re-watching the same three episodes of Firefly over and over again.
Are we younger in our 30s than our parents’ generation?
Sometimes I convince myself that freedom of choice, emotional self-indulgence, the increased velocity of culture, and higher standards of living have increased adolescence by 10 years or so. Sometimes, I think that this phenomenon is limited to people of my own age and we’ll forever be known as a lost generation (I take some comfort in that because at least they wont be calling us Generation X.)
Usually, I think that the vast majority of people are unsatisfied with the state of their lives when they realize they’re no longer young, but recent generations have the knowledge (or myth) that there are always new choices to be made.
What do you think?
January 25th, 2006
January 26th, 2006 at 10:27 am
As you know, Joe, I’ve been thinking of this very thing a lot lately. When I think of where my parents were when they were my age, yeah, I feel a little behind. But then I pay attention to the baby boomers for a few minutes and what I see is a group of women who got married and had kids young, and who are now looking to Oprah for guidance on how to feel more fulfilled. I see men going through midlife crises and doing drastic things like dating women significantly younger than they are. Will our propensity to wait for grown-up rites of passage like marriage and procreating prevent this kind of thing? Who knows? But I’m sincerely hoping that my own “quarterlife crisis” at 29 precludes me from freaking out again when I’m 49.
January 26th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
I think about this all the time. Forget our parents–just watch Thirty-Something from the 1980s. At 35, those characters seemed like they were living lives that were way more “grown-up” than I am at 35 right now (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it’s fiction, but you know I’m talking about!). The jokes about how 30 is the new 20 speak truth in their jesting. There have been some great articles out there lately about why this is totally true. It has to do with the economy not allowing many of us to own homes or save for the future; medical science allowing us to live longer and wait much later to have children; and culture promoting personal choice and self exploration, which is a great thing, but while we’re all sitting around constantly contemplating what would make us happy, seeking out or dream jobs, and attempting to define ourselves through our every move, we’re still getting older.
This is not to say I want to be some 1950s house wife with absolutely no choices whatsoever, but sometimes I wish things were that black and white. Sometimes I wish I didn’t feel like I still need a permission slip from my parents for everything I do. And the grown up rites of passage–like being married and having a fairly responsible job–don’t seem to be propelling me in to grown-updom. Maybe it’s because I’m really only 25…
January 31st, 2006 at 6:33 am
We had a 401k meeting at work where the financial planner tried to scare us all into socking away more money now because life expectancy has increased so much, and we’ll all have longer retirements barely surviving (all without social security benefits). Apparently actuaries are predicting that a baby girl born in the U.S. today, to middle class parents, will live until 127. So that really would mean that the 30s are still adolescence…
February 2nd, 2006 at 5:56 pm
i’ve been thinking about this post for days now. i want to say something smart in response, but damn if i can think in a straight line about this. i can’t tell if i’m having my mid-life crisis early, or what the hell is going on. i’m certainly not a grown-up, but i’m not a teenager anymore either.
when i start feeling shitty about the way my life is vs. the way i thought it would be, i just watch some mary tyler moore show. when i moved mom kept singing the theme song, and you know what, mary was 30 when she started her life all over again. i’m two years behind that!