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January 15 In defence...... Every now and then an article comes out bagging out "my generation." I think i've mentioned it before, i know i've had many a discussion with my oldest sister about it; i think the two of us like to discuss it because we both like to label people. Mum always said that was a bad trait i had, that i had to label everyone, to put them into a box. It's probably true. Maybe i've grown out of it a bit though, i don't find myself grouping people in my head so much anymore (i do find myself being overly critical, and giving out fashion advice in my head, like someone has installed Trinny and Sussanah in there.....) But anyway... A couple of weeks before Christmas the Herald sun ran an article about the differences between the generations, using the same stereotypes that these articles always use, grouping people based on about three characteristics based on the year they were born. For those of you who don't care about this stuff the way i do, here's the run down for you. Baby Boomers: People born in the post WWII days, when war was over and people had lotsa sex. According to Wiki, and thats according to the US census, they are born between '46 and '64 (small note, there is SO MUCH arguments over where generation dates begin and end, and what constitutes a generation. generally its like 20 years, and there's milestones in those periods of time that binds these people together as a group, i'm not getting into it, its too complicated and i don't care that much) These people lived through the 60's and 70's, and came into adulthood during this "experimental" and "free love" time. This is then equated to a more relaxed approached to things than the generations that came before them, less rigid, more of a feel that they can change things. Then comes Generation X: '61 to '81 born, very different from the generations either side of it. Probably best described as conservative. They came to adulthood in the recessions of the 80's. They knew it was hard work, they faced the AIDS crisis, the cold war and the commonality of Divorce. Then comes us (or me), Gen Y. I hate descriptions of gen y. the start date of my generation is one of the hotly debated topics on Wiki, mid seventies to early 80's to about the year 2000. But then, just like every generation, there seems to be two groups, and early group and a late group. Like someone born in 85 (like me) is very different to someone born in 2000. (case in point, i spoke to my year 7's last year about 9/11 on the anniversary, i remember it clearly and horrifically, they remember it in vague terms, something that disrupted their ABC Kids viewing, or the simple fact that they've always had the internet, or don't remember dial up). Gen Y are the children of the Baby Boomers. Those relaxed bastards are the reason we get such a bad rep. Coz you see, they were relaxed and indulgent, so we're relaxed and indulgent. We're coming into adulthood now, or for about the last what, 10 years? See, here's the article that the herald sun ran, here and this is how they describe us "Gen Y is characterised by its "all about me" attitude. Gen Y-ers are notoriously selfish, live for today and spend big." oh goody, and wait, they're examples of our generation are really good too..... Britney and Paris. That totally sums up everyone i know. So here comes the part where i defend my generation. You see, the one thing that i keep hearing about my generation is that we've had it so good. We never had to struggle for anything, we had it easy. Unemployment is low, economy was good. Yeah yeah, i get it. We've had it easy. sure. But think about that for a moment, have we really? Getting into Uni isn't as easy as it used to be. ENTER's go up all the time, and on top of that so do HECS. Sure, so did Gen X have a debt, some of them. But as high as ours? And on top of that, when all my friends around me are finishing up uni and entering working life, what have we got? Oh yeah, a recession like all you Xers went through when you were entering the work force. I have friends who are engineers, who's jobs in these industry's are at risk all the time when they've just started them. I'm one of the few people who are secure in their employment, coz i'm a teacher. You know, one of those jobs that just screams "selfish and Me! Me! Me!" On top of that, more and more of my friends are finding that they have to do multiple degree's to get anywhere near what they want to do in life. Most people i know grew up in families that had financial troubles. They remember the heated arguements between parents, the silence and the tears. The fact that both parents had to work to make ends meet. The continual divving up of money just so we could go on school camp. The fact that we didn't have an oven for a couple of years. We didn't have idylic childhoods. Sure, most girls i know love to shop, and yeah, we can be selfish, but i pretty much think thats a human trait, selfishness. I don't really see many people 20 years older than me being less selfish. I don't see them giving up their time or their money anymore than my generation does. It just annoys me that my generation get blamed for many traits that we have, traits that are a product of the way we were raised or the examples we see from the previous generation. So there's my rant. TrackbacksThe trackback URL for this entry is: http://heartoverhead.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!ADDCC479B0CC4657!1162.trak Weblogs that reference this entry
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