Why Gen X is the way it is

And if you don't like it, frankly we don't care

I had a whole different newsletter keyed up to go today, but then a friend posted a question on Facebook:

What events can you think of that caused generational trauma to Gen X? My first suggestion is the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger. What else?

Gen X has a reputation for not giving a shit, for being forgotten by everyone, as we’re sandwiched between the two giant Baby Boomer and Millennial generations. Everyone remember this CBS graphic?

But we experienced our fair share of stuff, so today’s newsletter is dedicated to all things Gen X.

You’ll think of something…

about generational trauma

To start, I’m not sure I’d call it generational trauma, which is trauma passed down from generation to generation. I think it’s more the traumas that affected Gen X. I mean, true they are being passed down in that the events shaped us and therefore shaped the way we raised/are raising the generation we’re raising. So, Gen Z, I’m sorry for the ways our trauma has f**ked you.

about traumas of our generation

The Facebook answers about our traumas were both accurate and expected: The AIDS crisis. The Day After. (Fun fact: The day after watching The Day After, a neighbor friend who lived a block away and I made a pact. We were told we’d have 20 minutes from the warning until nuclear impact, and we agreed if we were about to be nuked, we’d have time to get to one of our houses and have sex because we didn’t want to die virgins.)¹ The explosion of the Challenger space shuttle (which so many of us watched live when our teachers decided to pull a TV into the classroom to let us watch the launch). The hostage crisis. The assassination of John Lennon and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. And of course, simply Ronald Regan. While I don’t have many clear memories of it, Watergate was definitely a presence in our house and memorable for me because it was the only time in my childhood that the TV was on during dinner. We had Three Mile Island and then Chernobyl. (Although the resulting Pepsi Syndrome on Two Mile Island was enjoyable.) Adam Walsh. The list goes on.

But really, every generation has had traumatic events that have shaped them. (Gen Z is post 9/11. Gen Zers, what’s the trauma that shaped you? Covid?) For Gen X, though, I think it’s the smaller things that had the effect. We lived in a free era that suddenly wasn’t free. Trick or treating? Watch out for the razor blades in apples (and we had no Snopes to disprove that rumor). Have a headache? Be careful! The Tylenol could be laced with cyanide! Bullying? Eh, who cares. (In The Bad News Bears, everyone bullied everyone—HOLY F**K! I was going to link to the trailer, but I just rewatched it, the one that played on TV, and the N word is dropped! So no links to the trailer.) We were told simultaneously that we had to lose our virginity as quickly as possible (virginity as a competition in Little Darlings; Blue Lagoon, needs no comment because it’s simply the Blue Lagoon; sex, sex, sex in Porky’s²) and that kissing the wrong person could mean a virus for life (and this is before AIDS; herpes had us terrified almost a decade earlier).

We were the original free range kids, playing on construction sites (we had tons of those in South Miami in the 1970s), buying from the ice cream truck on credit (seriously! Alberto trusted us to come in a day or two with the money and we always did), going where our parents said not to go because how would they know? (I was under strict orders that if biking to elementary school without my friend Kevin, I was to go the long way because the short cut was too dangerous to go alone. I took the long way. Once. It was really long.) We were latch key kids, coming home to empty houses. I didn’t each lunch at school for pretty much all of high school because I didn’t have the money to buy lunch and I wouldn’t make a lunch because that was such a pain.³ No one cared whether or not I ate. Or if I’d done my homework. I was required to be out of the house during the summer, but whether it was a summer class or job or whatever that was up to me to suss out. I just wasn’t allowed to sit at home.

When I was ten, a neighbor was desperate: She had plans and no babysitter for her seven-year-old daughter and two-year-old son. She asked my mother if I could stay with them and my mother said sure. Did I mention I was ten? And I had never babysat? I remember chasing the naked toddler around the house with a diaper because he refused to stay still enough for me to put it on him. Is it any wonder I grew to refuse all babysitting opportunities, and I mean to this day, I leave it to my daughter—who was trained at a hospital on infant CPR and first aid when she was in middle school—and the husband to take care of any and all babies, including my nieces and nephew when they were young. When my in-laws were over, I’d happily volunteer baby girl or the husband to diaper/entertain/feed while I sat in the living room with a glass of wine.

about what I am was reading

Flowers in the Attic. God did I love that series. I eagerly awaited each sequel as it came out. For those unfamiliar with it, it was about four children locked in an attic by their mother, because the mother hoped to win back her father’s inheritance and he doesn’t know she has children. It has all the winning elements: An overly pious and cruel grandmother. Incest. Child abuse. I think the universal love we had for Flowers in the Attic pretty much sums up Gen X.

The Washington Post’s Carolyn Banks review of Flowers in the Attic on Nov. 21, 1979.

Other seminal books of my young Gen X years? Forever by Judy Blue, which led to Wifey by Judy Blume⁴. Daughter’s of Eve by Lois Duncan. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous. The Stand by Stephen King. The World According to Garp by John Irving. Which books am I forgetting?

about what I am was eating

Ohmygod, does anyone else remember Food Sticks? The energy food that went to space?

And what high school party was complete without a few six-packs of Bartles & Jaymes?

I’d love to cover more Gen X highlights, but I’m visiting my parents, and my father, Peter Brown, refuses to let me write this in peace. I went into another room for some quiet, and he followed me, narrating every aspect of what he’s doing. Perhaps another day, I’ll revisit the topic, when I’m not being trailed by family.

about Bailey

Bailey is so not amused by these Gen X musings and wishes someone would simply bring her a treat.

All right, Gen Xers, what favorites did I not mention? (And Gen Zers—particularly the ones I birthed—I’m sure you’ll let me know all the things about Gen X that annoy you.)

Until next time, make good choices.

jennifer

P.S. See that little heart button below? It helps a pal out—if you enjoy my newsletter—to click on it.

1. Another fun fact: I used to worry that what I wrote might bother my parents. I no longer worry about that. Now, I’d say I worry that what I write might bother my kids, but worrying about it is unnecessary because I know for a fact that it bothers them and I’m a massive embarrassment, but hey! What can you do? Annoying your kids is a perk of parenthood.

2. Another fun fact: In Porky’s 3: Porky’s Revenge, the drawbridge the barge runs into is the Venetian Causeway in Miami Beach. The same Venetian Causeway I lived on in 1985, the year the film was released.

3. Luckily, I had breakfast every morning. My sister, Tweeds, is three years younger. She seemed to care about getting to school on time, but unfortunately, as a freshman, she depended on me, a senior, to get her to school. She not only had to wake me up—multiple times—but she had to have my diet Coke and peanut butter sandwich made if there was even the slightest hope that she’d make it to class before the first bell rang.

4. When I went to check Wifey out from the library, the librarian said firmly, “This is not a children’s book,” to which my mother responded, “I do not censor my daughter’s reading.” I think I was in sixth grade. To be honest, most of the novel was over my head.