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[ # ] Third anniversary and the beginning of spring
March 20th, 2006 under Random learned stuff

So I’m in a meeting today with one of my favorite colleagues, a woman from the Theatre Department with lots of white hair and this fantastically loud voice that has a nice tone to it and never grates. Which I think is pretty impressive.

Anyway, she has the 16 year old son who is an underachiever. He had this big report to work on and instead of going out to buy a folder yesterday, he was going to try to buy one at school this morning. Theatre woman’s (TW) husband decided his lack of planning was sufficient to prevent said kid from getting his learners permit. TW wanted parenting advice. I tried to demur, as I am not a parent. Finally, I said that they shouldn’t prevent him from getting his permit. People often make bad mistakes while driving when they’re young. But when the get older and more sensible, they simply become really bad drivers. Honey calls it adult onset driving and she’s right.

TW then asked if she could make her son talk to her. I said no. And that I wouldn’t have talked to my mother at all as a sixteen year old, but because my mother is a force of nature, I couldn’t get away with not talking to her.

“He’s in trouble,” TW said.

“No more than anyone else. Besides, his not getting the folder just proves he’s part of the laziest generation. And besides, we’re all in trouble,” I said.

TW worried about my comment. She puts too much stock in what I say, I think. But I do think we’re in trouble, not because she and her late baby boomer cohort have raised a different kind of kid. Generations differ from one another. It’s a thing. In case you’re wondering…

Following the outline in William Strauss and Neil Howe’s Generations, the current “living” generations are:

The Lost Generation (born 1883-1900)
The G.I. Generation (born 1901-1924)
The Silent Generation (born 1925-1942)
The Baby Boomer Generation (born 1943-1960)
The 13th Generation (usually called X) (born 1961-1981)
The Millennial Generation (usually called Y) (born 1982-2000)

There’s a lot more to Strauss and Howe’s argument, about periods of awakening and crisis and about what generations fit which molds. Whether or not you agree with them (I see some merit in their arguments, but it’s too Anglo-focused for modern America), there is a difference between and among TW’s late Baby Boomer sensibility, my X-ie rejection of her idealism, and her son’s Y-esque deep connection to technology and the ennui it produces.

I am not the least bit confident that my generation is capable of leading or that the generation that follows is either. Boomers have a mixed record. Clinton was ok, W is beyond horrible. I was listening to AirAmerica this morning and Elaine Boozer, who was filling in for Stephanie Miller, kept calling W “the fishhead” which seemed so right. He’s so rotten in all the ways that he can be. She also mentioned that the President of Venezuela calls him “Mr. Danger.” Which is right too.

So, here on the third anniversary of a war that is wrong and has been wrong all along, I’ll quote (how lesbian cliched of me) Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls:

And they want to tell you
It’s a merciful sword.
But with all the blood
Newly dried in the desert
Can we not fertilize the land with something else?
There is no nation
By God exempted
Lay down your weapons
And love your neighbor as yourself.

I’m not crazy about the biblical reference in the last line, but she’s right on otherwise. And she’s another gay X-er from Atlanta, so go Emily!

My mother likes to remind me that my birthday coincides with the beginning of spring. She went in to the hospital in winter, she says, and came out in spring. The dogwoods were blooming. I’m very pro-dogwood, though the story gets a little old. Still, it has a nice nostalgia to it, I guess.

Since 2003, I associate spring and my birthday (which is Thursday, for those of you who want to send cards and letters), with the beginning of the current war.

It’s funny, really, that I allow that TW woman’s son should be allowed to make driving mistakes. Young men and women not much older than he are in harm’s way right now and I can’t stop it. And little mistakes cost them their lives every day. If spring is indeed the promise of the good to come, why is it that I think we’re in so much trouble today?

The dogwoods still bloom and I can still go home to my decent semi-suburban house. I make plenty of money and drive a car I like. I have a nice honey who loves me and who I love. The future looks good on a micro level. It’s the macro I’m worried about.

Happy spring anyway.

Read the Comments

[ # 196 ] Comment from scout [March 20, 2006, 9:10 pm]

I’ve never felt very much the gen-X type, so I’m really glad to know that I can alternatively claim to be part of the 13th generation. Still, I’m not sure how much stock I put in generational types. Certainly, parenting styles have changed over the years, producing different sensibilities, but I still think every generation will produce its leaders, its followers, its slackers, and its criminals. We can only hope the criminals don’t become our leaders.

[ # 197 ] Comment from bryduck [March 21, 2006, 3:08 pm]

I haven’t read Generations (it’s on my bookshelf because I bought it years ago thinking it looked interesting), but am glad that I’m not part of their Baby Boomers, as most of the other periodizing authors have placed me. I have so much less in common with my Uncle, born in 1949 or so, than I do with my 20-something colleagues, imho, and that’s a much greater split in age. (Of course, to them I’m probably an olllld man, but they’re just wrong.)
I think there is something to their concept, if only to the extent that people believe it to be true, reinforcing what behaviorisms might have existed objectively.
As far as your friend’s kid goes, I think you’re in the right, and I also believe that there’s little reason to strip the child of his driving privileges for this transgression. The ‘rents can always deny him the use of their wheels until his grades improve, if they want to encourage good behavior anyway . . .
(I believe in bribery; it’s really what makes the world go round, isn’t it? I mean, how many people would really, truly, go to their current jobs without the promise of a paycheck, even if all their worldly needs were already taken care of?)

[ # 204 ] Comment from Sha-non [March 22, 2006, 11:02 am]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETA! How could I forget? It being the same day as baby brother’s, and the ex-husband’s bro as well…having ingested lots of generational marketing reading lately, I’ve decided it makes sense only in light of the indignation I feel toward my one-day step-kids who, as Maria Bailey writes, “get pedicures and stop for $3 lattes on their way to junior high.” The middle child has had exactly half the year off from school this year for legitimate school holidays. Makes me say very grampa-ish things like, “In my day…” Oldness.

[ # 208 ] Comment from alice, uptown [March 22, 2006, 3:56 pm]

It is wise not to offer advice, however much solicited, to a parent. Face it: those of us who aren’t parents are going to tend to side with the teenager. Then again, we don’t have to live with the results.

I share your lack of confidence in my generations abilities — I’m a baby boomer, and I know all the drugs everyone took, all the people they slept with, and based on that behavior, I wouldn’t elect any of them dog catcher, much less governer (which is about to happen in my state).

It seems none of us knows where we are really going; the people who think they do are gifted in their delusions, which I, alas, do not share.

That lack of confidence? Big time. Micro vs. macro? Micro future glimpse, if at all. Othewise, I can’t say I think the future looks bright….

W’s educational theme is “No Child Left Behind.” Those who are literate don’t end their sentences with a preposition. Need I say more?

[ # 214 ] Comment from sporksforall [March 24, 2006, 8:01 pm]

Alice–
One of the big problems with No Child Left Behind (other than the dangling preposition) is that to be opposed to it is to suggest that you’re in favor of leaving children behind. As to the drugs, the boomers have it all over me and my pansy, never did anything wrong except get really drunk a lot in college ass.

Shan-non (and on)–
Step-kids seem like they would make me feel super old. Liek they come into your life and make you feel old and you didn’t even get the cute-baby benefit.

Hmph

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