If you were born between 1965 and 1979, congrats! You’re part of the badass, often forgotten, sandwich generation know as Generation X. We’re the middle child that was ignored and left to fend for themselves, both in and outside the home. The good news is growing up Gen X gave us mad life skills. Since this is the month we openly give thanks, I thought I’d impart some reasons to be grateful you’re a Gen Xer.
MORE FREEDOM: Stranger Things is spot on. There was no adult supervision in the 80’s. We played outside. By ourselves. The one rule: get your ass inside when the streets lights come on. Oh, and if you did something bad, you’d better believe your parents would find out because neighbors actually knew each other and talked.
GREATER ADVENTURES: Since parents weren’t constantly watching us, we could be more adventurous. Back flip off of the swings at maximum height? No problem. Three-hour long hikes in the woods to discover abandoned cars shot up with bullets? Just another day as a kid. Slides were taller. Playgrounds were more dangerous. Everything was more fun. No one wore helmets or knee pads or cared there might be pee in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese. Scraped elbows and broken bones was a right of passage that confirmed you as a badass.
BETTER COMMUNICATION SKILLS/ASSERTIVNESS: I hadn’t heard of a play date until I had children. Our parents didn’t coordinate play dates. If you wanted to play with friends, you knocked on doors until someone could come out to play. You also needed to stand up for yourself. If you had a disagreement on the playground, you worked it out. You didn’t run home offended or sporting a boo boo, tattle tailing to mommy and daddy. It just didn’t happen. We mastered comebacks like, “I know you are, but what am I?” and “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out!”
MISTAKES ALLOWED: The internet didn’t exist in our pre-teen and teenage years. Once cell phones did exist, they were huge and no one had them. The best part of growing up a Gen Xer was no social media. We could make mistakes (and boy, did I made a lot of them) without the entire world knowing about it and following you around for the rest of your life, even to job interviews.
LESS DETRIMENTAL BULLYING: There was no cyberbullying that could reach you 24 hours a day with no relief. If you got bullied, it was the old-fashioned way – in person (and I was on the receiving end several times).
DELAYED GRATIFICATION: I’m not claiming to be patient BUT I do think growing up Gen X forced us to learn patience. We had to wait for things. Nothing was instant except your mom’s Hungry Jack mashed potatoes. You couldn’t fast-forward through commercials. You couldn’t call a friend and talk to them when they were at the mall. You had to wait a week after dropping film off at the photo shop to see how your pictures turned out. You waited until Saturday morning to watch cartoons and it made HeMan and SheRa’s battles all the more gratifying.
SUPERIOR RESOURCEFULNESS: You had to use the Dewey Decimal System to locate a book, the Yellow Pages to find a phone number, and if you wanted to hear the latest pop song, you had two choices. 1. Save up your money then beg your parents to drive you to Sam Goodies so you could buy a cassette tape of an entire album just to access the one song you wanted to hear 2. Listen to the radio all day long waiting for your song to come on, then quickly press record on your cassette player to make your own single.
GREATER RESPONSIBILITY/LIFE SKILLS: Many of us were fondly referred to as latchkey kids, which I took to mean adult-like. After all, you got yourself home after school, let yourself into the house, let the dog out, made Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and managed to keep your siblings alive until your parents got home. You were adulting before it was even a thing.
When it’s your turn to share what you’re thankful for this Thanksgiving, don’t forget to mention how grateful you are to have grown up Generation X.
