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"Yes, they are stressed — and some really struggle with mental health issues, and many are pissed off at older generations for the messed up state of the world they’ve been handed — but in my view, those reactions aren’t signs of fragility or entitlement, but very rational responses to the reality of their incredibly complicated and often threatening world. If anything, we should be applauding their resilience and drive."
I'm holding onto this quote to reread on days when I feel like such a failure. Living in neverending societal stress is really, really hard.
This resonates with me. I was a Sophomore when Columbine happened and starting my first year of college on 9/11. I was out of grad school and working in politics by the time we got to Sandy Hook. If the murders of two dozen first graders wasn't enough to galvanize ANYTHING to address gun violence, nothing will. And yeah, I'm super pissed at my elders who let us get here and myself for not fixing it before Sandy Hook.
Because I spend my days as a volunteer working in GVP world, while there's so much that hasn't been done -- there's so much that we've all accomplished. I know this reads as pollyannaish, but i just want you to know that hope isn't lost. We *will* end GV.
One of the things that has frustrated me is the constant seemingly warm sentiment that non-younger people express when asked what gives them hope: "The young people today are so smart/savvy/insightful/hard-working/etc. that they'll be able to figure it out. That gives me hope." It's all true! I volunteer at the high school and am consistently blown away by the teens there, especially their self-knowledge. But it's frustrating that it often feels like older generations' (including mine; I was born 1976) main hope is what younger people will bring to the table. What about what we can bring for them? Shouldn't we fight at least as hard for their futures as we expect them to fight? It's not just burdening them with saving the planet, or at least keeping it habitable for humans, but burdening them with everyone else's hope, too, which seems extra unfair.
That's a bit rambly. Thanks for sharing this! Wonderful interview; I always like to read smart pushback against whatever version of "kids these days" is popular at the moment.
I am a little old for "Generation Disaster" having graduated college a year before 9/11 and my kids born in the middle 00s are bit younger than what the author is talking about but these descriptions of "societal stress" are spot on. The cycle that I find them most exhausting is: something huge and terrible happens, everyone says this will change everything, then the only changes that stick are ones that don't help resolve the reasons the terrible thing happened in the first place so we're right back where we started except maybe a little worse.
And oh wow that quote from the mom born in 1975 really resonated with me! My kids are in high school and I want to be hopeful and exited about their futures - they're such great kids; smart and thoughtful, brave and kind, better people all around than I was at their ages - but I just feel so so sad when I think about all that they've had to deal with and all the problems they'll be facing. Sometimes they talk about hypothetically having their own children someday and I don't think I should say it to them, but I honestly hope they choose not to - even though they'd probably be great parents if they wanted to. I struggle with whether I should try to keep them on the traditional path towards college, etc. or if there is a better way to prepare themselves for the world in this time.
Yes! I relate to your final point and something I keep pushing my husband and I to discuss. The rules have changed for our kid and college might not give him the tools to play within those rules.
Fully acknowledging her right to define the generation how she wants, as an "elder millenial" (born in 1984), I'd like to join Gen. Disaster, because my high school years were bookended by Columbine my freshman year and 9/11 my senior year. Hurricane Katrina was the weekend I started senior year of college. I have just started to take it easier on myself and not blame myself for having anxiety and all its symptoms because WTF I have had adrenaline in my veins non stop for 25 years.
I completely agree (with the full bias of someone born in 1985). I also grew up outside of DC, so we had the sniper attacks when I was a junior, in addition to having to face the very real aftermath of 9/11. I think our years get sort of muddled in the middle, because it's true that I can remember a life before cell phones (I started taking my mom's to school pretty immediately after Columbine), internet everywhere, and lockdown drills. But at the same time, I also very distinctly remember the first Gulf War, the first trade center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, knowing the phrase "Peace in the Middle East" at an astonishingly young age, etc. It's a weird place to be in, and there's something to be said about the trauma of remembering a "before," and having something to compare the current state to, vs. not having that baseline at all.
Born in 1987, and I kept coming back to this too — I remember when my school started doing lockdown drills post-Columbine and it was such a weird, foreign concept. Was it better to have had those years without them? Probably (and they were way less intense in the 90s than what my teacher friends describe today). But the switch of "this is a thing we do now" at school, at the airport, at the mall... that moment of change is definitely burned in.
Yep. Born in 1987 - Columbine was my 6th grade year, 9/11 my freshman year of high school, Hurricane Katrina my freshman year of college. Huge country-altering events happened each time I began a new level of school with distinct losses of innocence (school shootings, war, climate change)!
I get why she chose the years she did because these events started in elementary school for 1989ers but it's shocking to think about how extra hopeful childhood seemed growing up in a decade of prosperity like the 1990s.
I was born in 1988 - very middle of the Millenials.
I identify as a "Millennial wing Disaster" (speaking in enneagram terms), or a "Millennial / Disaster cusp" (speaking in astrological terms).
I'm tempted to say I belong in Generation Disaster; I was young enough to be shaped massively by the same events. But in my mind, the defining feature of being a full-fledged member of Generation Disaster is not having enough runway in childhood before 9/11 to comprehend what an inflection point it was at the time.
As a middle-class white person in the 90s, I grew up with a general sense of prosperity and ease. I remember bad things happening - particularly the Oklahoma City Bombing and Columbine - but they felt like shocking, one-off events that could be explained away by extreme mental illness.
The 2000 election coupled with 9/11 was a one-two punch that changed my world view (in 7th and 8th grade). I read voraciously about both events, formed strong opinions, participated in a walk out over the Iraq War, and started developing a sense of political consciousness. I felt MAD about what was happening, especially at our government and institutions.
These events impacted me very differently than my little sister, born 3 years later in 1991. As adults, we have arrived at similar points ideologically / politically, but the 3 year age difference is subtle and substantial on an energetic level. I have an understanding of "the before times" that she simply does not have.
I confess to being frustrated by the elision of Gen X in this interview. (Stipulating that I was born in 1976, which makes this perhaps a predictable and narcissistic objection!) Particularly in the final answer, Vermeulen talks about the " between emerging adults and Boomers – for the young because of all of the dismissiveness and hostility some have internalized, and for the old because they’re depriving themselves of the opportunity to learn from these tenacious and thoughtful emerging adults." As an academic, I work with students (both undergraduate and graduate) who fit squarely within Generation Disaster, both chronologically and characteristically. Most writers who embrace such generational descriptions--which I don't love in general, I confess--elide the existence of Gen X, and my students follow suit, making assumptions about my financial circumstances, my political commitments, and my worldview that are ahistorical and inaccurate. I was 14 when H.W. Bush's military invaded Kuwait, and I was arrested protesting the second Gulf War in graduate school. I'm not objecting to Vermeule's focusing on the particular experiences of this younger cohort, but rather pointing out that her narrative has to generalize--and overlook--a lot in order to make its claims.
I hear all of this — but will also say that Vermeulen herself is Gen X, and in the book in particular, thinking through her/her generation's relationship to this generation is very present. I'm going to email her now to see if she has more to add here!
That's interesting--I should of course read the book before assuming I understand the extent of her engagement with that question. And of course every writer has to define for themselves the parameters of their project, and "why isn't your project some other project that you could have done instead?" is not an especially useful critique/prompt!
I know how hard it must be for Gen Xer's to feel continually excluded from these larger generational conversations, so I'm very interested to hear Karla's take on this, too.
I'm in a similar situation to you, and I think one key is that phrase "the empathy gap"--because I think that I see a lot of empathy and support from many gen x folks for gen disaster/gen z/kids these days and their ideas/etc--many of us, like you, remember that many of the things folks say about this generation were also said about us, and know that many of us were pushing for these things and just not being heard--maybe it is because there weren't as many of us or maybe it is because there wasn't social media and internet connectedness in our teens and twenties the way it is here now? I don't know, but I wonder, and I think there is something to what you're saying.
At the same time, I also really like the way the author explained their generational focus, definition and what they weren't including. I do think there is something peculiar about the ways that generation disaster and the boomers have been pitted against each other that is different from the rest of us.
Hi Kasey - yes, as Anne Helen notes, I'm a ride-or-die Gen Xer, born in 1969, so I understand being primed to have our generation's impact ignored. Fun fact: We were originally referred to as the "Baby Bust Generation," demonstrating how overshadowed we've always been by Boomers – due to their sheer numbers relative to ours more than any great accomplishments they've made.
In my experience, with my own students and in my research, Generation Disaster's (and Millennials') animosity is targeted fully at the Boomers, and if they recognize us as a distinct cohort, the perception is pretty much "meh, they're not so bad." And I completely agree with your hesitance about broad-sweeping generational characterizations - I still share that personally despite writing this book, but one of the things I tried to capture is that the commonality is in the stressors they've all experienced, not in any resulting universal personality traits. They're an incredibly diverse group, all coping in their individual ways.
Still, I stand by the empathy gap between Generation Disaster and the Boomers, and it runs in both directions, to both sides' loss. And good lord, the judging the younger group perceives! I asked my national survey participants to use "one word to describe how others most commonly describe your generation" and the top results, in order of frequency, were: lazy, entitled, stupid, selfish, dumb, crazy, lost, ignorant, spoiled, and bad. That's a heck of a lot worse than the banal "slacker" label we grew up with. Even worse, some 40% rated those negative descriptions as accurate, which I find just heartbreaking.
Karla (if that's not too presumptuous), thanks so much for taking the time to respond and elaborate! Honestly, as I reflect, I think that my frustration about not seeing a place for Gen X in this narrative is probably a symptom of a larger sense of disenfranchisement: how to do my job, and raise my kids, and live in the world in an ethical way when that world seems to be falling apart around us. (Not that I'm claiming this sense of disenfranchisement as unique to Gen X!)
I absolutely defer to your sense of the real empathy divide being a Boomer-Generation Disaster one. Purely anecdotally, as a middle-aged person working in an environment with members of both generations (senior academics and graduate students, for example), I've spent a huge number of hours trying to mediate between the two in ways that are consistent with the gap you describe. I can't count the number of times I have tried to talk a student off of a (metaphorical) ledge after they've been on the receiving end of insensitive or dismissive rhetoric and assumptions from senior faculty. (Often, these dismissive comments revolve around identity categories such as race, gender, or sexuality, and the faculty member is either unaware or dismissive of a distinction or category that is vital to the student's self-understanding.) On the other side, I find that the students are often unaware of the history of marginalization and activism experienced by the older generation: senior women faculty who were never granted maternity leave, for example, or were denied raises because they "didn't have a family to support"; or queer faculty who were ostracized for both their domestic arrangements and their scholarly attention to queer issues.
TL;DR: my anecdotal experience, however limited its value, fully supports your claim about the profound empathy gap between Boomers and Generation Disaster. And I really appreciate the value of your effort to understand what unites GD without minimizing the diversity of experiences within that cohort.
Soooo many good points here, Kasey! I've been trying to figure out my next big project, and my current very unformed fantasy is to develop some kind of programming that encourages cross-generational perspective taking. The academic examples you give in both directions are exactly the kinds of life experiences that I wish each cohort could just take a beat and try to understand about each other.
Kasey, yes! I feel like such a mediator between these groups--recognizing some of the very legitimate issues while also not wanting anyone to "throw the baby out with the bathwater." (side note: that phrase has always disturbed me a bit, but I don't know what a better one might be)
perhaps a tangent, but I just finished reading Casey mcquiston's "One Last Stop" which is in one sense a queer romance novel, but also deals with some of this--the main character (a young 20-something) is dealing with their trauma-filled upbringing and ends up meeting someone who fell out of the late 70s. It was very good and it didn't occur to me until today that it is basically a story about a late boomer and an early gen z (or possibly late millennial? I didn't do the full math). I highly recommend it!
The "Generation Disaster" descriptor really fits my kids who are still in high school. I'm looking forward to reading the book. The reaction to COVID in our communities and our nation is one more black mark against the adults in the world and their ability to do the right thing, in my kids' minds. There's a real anger and distrust of "the authorities," especially the Boomer generation. They know the world is messed up and that conscious choices led to it being messed up (and are impeding meaningful efforts to fix things).
I will say that my Gen X background, I think, helps. While their existential dread covers a wider range of topics, I never remember, as a kid, not worrying about a nuclear holocaust (at least, not after I was 5 or so and old enough to understand roughly what would happen). I remember the anger about the ridiculous adult posturing while the world was in peril. I also do remember, though, the relief of the fall of the Soviet Bloc and the hope that all those worries were over .... I don't know whether it's good or bad that I really don't think my kids will ever have a halcyon moment like that when it feels like maybe everything is going to work out pretty well.
Here's an anecdote from 7th grade that I now find almost comical. We lived near enough to a nuclear power plant that we were within the "no evacuation zone" (or "primary plume exposure pathway")--meaning that in the event of a reactor meltdown, the fallout would reach us before we could get out of range. (Physicists will note that the above sentence probably doesn't even make sense; I was 12, and it's been a minute, so please accept this as the fantastical premise that it was rather than any kind of scientific reality.) Our English teacher assigned us the following essay prompt (paraphrasing from faulty memory): The Soviet Union has dropped a nuclear bomb on the Seacoast Power Plant, causing a total reactor meltdown. What do you do with the last hours of your life before you are overcome by radiation sickness?
Self-reply to say that I'm still not totally sure what to make of this assignment, which strikes me as pretty morbid even for the already-prone-to-drama tween set. But one conclusion could be that the threat was hypothetical enough that our teacher thought she could use it as the premise of an imaginative exercise without traumatizing all of us. Which is to confirm what @Donna B says above: that Gen X had its anxieties and threats to contend with, but that they were punctuated by moments of relief and hopefulness.
I'm an elder millenial (born in 82, definitely prefer the "oregon trail generation" designation) and my brother is the oldest of this "generation disaster" being born in 89. I didn't realize the impact of 9/11 on his, and his peers' psyche, until the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. For me and most of the people I knew it was the closing of a long chapter which had been sort of in the background for a while, lost in the midst of wars which we thought were unjust, the great recession, an election in which the loser ended up with the presidency, among other things. But for him and for his peers, it was so significant -- it was the death of the boogey man who had shattered their innocence. I could not relate. Columbine or the Oklahoma city bombing would be the only events of this scale, but as they were internal threats which could be explained away with "mental illness" and they didn't have the same foundational impact. But for him the threat was so existential that even though we shared the same upper middle class, left leaning upbringing (his in many ways more secure than mine as my parents were older and more financially secure), I was so struck that we had such different experiences. That's all to say that this "generation disaster" designations resonates a lot with how I understand my brother!
This is so interesting to hear re: Bin Laden and your brother. I was born in '99, so the other side of "generation disaster," also to an upper middle class liberal family. I can remember hearing about the Bin Laden assassination at my 6th grade bus stop from a kid whose family always watched the morning TV news (we had cell phones, but nobody in my cohort had smart phones yet and very few of us were on Facebook). I remember the teachers being sort of urgent and serious that day in school, but (I'm ashamed to say) the kids all just thought it was funny that we could just break out into chanting "USA! USA!" whenever we wanted and nobody would stop us. Bin Laden truly was just some guy to us; without an actual memory of 9/11, it was something we knew to be serious about, but also totally unreal. No grown-up ever really explained the national understanding of the events of, oh, 2001-05 to us because they didn't realize that they had to. Terrorism never felt like a real threat to people I knew because it was such a diffuse and distant fear. Hence, I am more confused by the world's reaction to the military withdrawal from Afghanistan than anything else, since the emotional investments I have in the problems defining my generation are all related to the more recent domestic stuff I really clearly remember: Sandy Hook, Parkland, the wildfires in the West, Trump, George Floyd.
Yes! I'm another '89 baby and the assassination of Bin Laden was significant to me too! I'd never thought about it that way, but I vividly remember watching the briefing, alone in my room, in university and feeling like something important had shifted in the world.
I came to Canada for university and never left, so an interesting dynamic of being from the American Disaster Generation for me is that my cohort in the country where I've lived my emerging adulthood is shaped differently, by a less severe version of the stressors of 9/11 and forever wars, financial crisis, and gun violence.
I have been really struggling with how to talk with my (university) students about 9/11 this year. I don't always because I'm not always teaching on the day and because of the subject matter I am teaching. I'm also acutely aware of how regular these memorials and discussions have been for them.
but since this marks 20 years, I really wanted to discuss it in some way. this is perfect in so many ways & I'm going to share the online version of this interview and open some discussion with them about it. I deeply appreciated the interview and this way of thinking
This interview touched on so many things that have been weighing heavily on me lately. I was born in 91, so I’m on the older end of the cohort. I’m a parent with two really young kids, and I’m worried about the world they are growing up in and the world they will become adults in. The most recent report on climate change really shifted a lot of things for me. I want to feel hopeful, and sometimes I am. But any hope I feel is also kind of muted by our current political reality and how impossible it feels to make meaningful change happen…
Wow, this is me and my siblings! I was five when 9/11 happened, and we used to have a memorial for it every year in school. That line about "the nation being involved in distant wars for complicated and confusing reasons is just the norm for them" really resonated with me. I appreciate the idea that we're resilient and realistic about the dangers of the world - I really do think/hope that's true.
My husband (bless him!) planted almost 200 bulbs last fall, and the thing that made it possible was a garden augur drill bit. You put it on an electric drill and use it to dig the hole for each bulb, which saves your hands the labor of digging over 100 holes with a spade.
Ack, I wrote this in the wrong thread! This was supposed to be in the Friday thread where Anne Helen wanted to learn about planting tulips. Sorry, friends!
"Yes, they are stressed — and some really struggle with mental health issues, and many are pissed off at older generations for the messed up state of the world they’ve been handed — but in my view, those reactions aren’t signs of fragility or entitlement, but very rational responses to the reality of their incredibly complicated and often threatening world. If anything, we should be applauding their resilience and drive."
I'm holding onto this quote to reread on days when I feel like such a failure. Living in neverending societal stress is really, really hard.
This resonates with me. I was a Sophomore when Columbine happened and starting my first year of college on 9/11. I was out of grad school and working in politics by the time we got to Sandy Hook. If the murders of two dozen first graders wasn't enough to galvanize ANYTHING to address gun violence, nothing will. And yeah, I'm super pissed at my elders who let us get here and myself for not fixing it before Sandy Hook.
Because I spend my days as a volunteer working in GVP world, while there's so much that hasn't been done -- there's so much that we've all accomplished. I know this reads as pollyannaish, but i just want you to know that hope isn't lost. We *will* end GV.
Thank you, Wren, that means the world to me.
One of the things that has frustrated me is the constant seemingly warm sentiment that non-younger people express when asked what gives them hope: "The young people today are so smart/savvy/insightful/hard-working/etc. that they'll be able to figure it out. That gives me hope." It's all true! I volunteer at the high school and am consistently blown away by the teens there, especially their self-knowledge. But it's frustrating that it often feels like older generations' (including mine; I was born 1976) main hope is what younger people will bring to the table. What about what we can bring for them? Shouldn't we fight at least as hard for their futures as we expect them to fight? It's not just burdening them with saving the planet, or at least keeping it habitable for humans, but burdening them with everyone else's hope, too, which seems extra unfair.
That's a bit rambly. Thanks for sharing this! Wonderful interview; I always like to read smart pushback against whatever version of "kids these days" is popular at the moment.
I am a little old for "Generation Disaster" having graduated college a year before 9/11 and my kids born in the middle 00s are bit younger than what the author is talking about but these descriptions of "societal stress" are spot on. The cycle that I find them most exhausting is: something huge and terrible happens, everyone says this will change everything, then the only changes that stick are ones that don't help resolve the reasons the terrible thing happened in the first place so we're right back where we started except maybe a little worse.
And oh wow that quote from the mom born in 1975 really resonated with me! My kids are in high school and I want to be hopeful and exited about their futures - they're such great kids; smart and thoughtful, brave and kind, better people all around than I was at their ages - but I just feel so so sad when I think about all that they've had to deal with and all the problems they'll be facing. Sometimes they talk about hypothetically having their own children someday and I don't think I should say it to them, but I honestly hope they choose not to - even though they'd probably be great parents if they wanted to. I struggle with whether I should try to keep them on the traditional path towards college, etc. or if there is a better way to prepare themselves for the world in this time.
Yes! I relate to your final point and something I keep pushing my husband and I to discuss. The rules have changed for our kid and college might not give him the tools to play within those rules.
Fully acknowledging her right to define the generation how she wants, as an "elder millenial" (born in 1984), I'd like to join Gen. Disaster, because my high school years were bookended by Columbine my freshman year and 9/11 my senior year. Hurricane Katrina was the weekend I started senior year of college. I have just started to take it easier on myself and not blame myself for having anxiety and all its symptoms because WTF I have had adrenaline in my veins non stop for 25 years.
I completely agree (with the full bias of someone born in 1985). I also grew up outside of DC, so we had the sniper attacks when I was a junior, in addition to having to face the very real aftermath of 9/11. I think our years get sort of muddled in the middle, because it's true that I can remember a life before cell phones (I started taking my mom's to school pretty immediately after Columbine), internet everywhere, and lockdown drills. But at the same time, I also very distinctly remember the first Gulf War, the first trade center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, knowing the phrase "Peace in the Middle East" at an astonishingly young age, etc. It's a weird place to be in, and there's something to be said about the trauma of remembering a "before," and having something to compare the current state to, vs. not having that baseline at all.
Born in 1987, and I kept coming back to this too — I remember when my school started doing lockdown drills post-Columbine and it was such a weird, foreign concept. Was it better to have had those years without them? Probably (and they were way less intense in the 90s than what my teacher friends describe today). But the switch of "this is a thing we do now" at school, at the airport, at the mall... that moment of change is definitely burned in.
Yep. Born in 1987 - Columbine was my 6th grade year, 9/11 my freshman year of high school, Hurricane Katrina my freshman year of college. Huge country-altering events happened each time I began a new level of school with distinct losses of innocence (school shootings, war, climate change)!
I get why she chose the years she did because these events started in elementary school for 1989ers but it's shocking to think about how extra hopeful childhood seemed growing up in a decade of prosperity like the 1990s.
I was born in 1988 - very middle of the Millenials.
I identify as a "Millennial wing Disaster" (speaking in enneagram terms), or a "Millennial / Disaster cusp" (speaking in astrological terms).
I'm tempted to say I belong in Generation Disaster; I was young enough to be shaped massively by the same events. But in my mind, the defining feature of being a full-fledged member of Generation Disaster is not having enough runway in childhood before 9/11 to comprehend what an inflection point it was at the time.
As a middle-class white person in the 90s, I grew up with a general sense of prosperity and ease. I remember bad things happening - particularly the Oklahoma City Bombing and Columbine - but they felt like shocking, one-off events that could be explained away by extreme mental illness.
The 2000 election coupled with 9/11 was a one-two punch that changed my world view (in 7th and 8th grade). I read voraciously about both events, formed strong opinions, participated in a walk out over the Iraq War, and started developing a sense of political consciousness. I felt MAD about what was happening, especially at our government and institutions.
These events impacted me very differently than my little sister, born 3 years later in 1991. As adults, we have arrived at similar points ideologically / politically, but the 3 year age difference is subtle and substantial on an energetic level. I have an understanding of "the before times" that she simply does not have.
I confess to being frustrated by the elision of Gen X in this interview. (Stipulating that I was born in 1976, which makes this perhaps a predictable and narcissistic objection!) Particularly in the final answer, Vermeulen talks about the " between emerging adults and Boomers – for the young because of all of the dismissiveness and hostility some have internalized, and for the old because they’re depriving themselves of the opportunity to learn from these tenacious and thoughtful emerging adults." As an academic, I work with students (both undergraduate and graduate) who fit squarely within Generation Disaster, both chronologically and characteristically. Most writers who embrace such generational descriptions--which I don't love in general, I confess--elide the existence of Gen X, and my students follow suit, making assumptions about my financial circumstances, my political commitments, and my worldview that are ahistorical and inaccurate. I was 14 when H.W. Bush's military invaded Kuwait, and I was arrested protesting the second Gulf War in graduate school. I'm not objecting to Vermeule's focusing on the particular experiences of this younger cohort, but rather pointing out that her narrative has to generalize--and overlook--a lot in order to make its claims.
I hear all of this — but will also say that Vermeulen herself is Gen X, and in the book in particular, thinking through her/her generation's relationship to this generation is very present. I'm going to email her now to see if she has more to add here!
That's interesting--I should of course read the book before assuming I understand the extent of her engagement with that question. And of course every writer has to define for themselves the parameters of their project, and "why isn't your project some other project that you could have done instead?" is not an especially useful critique/prompt!
I know how hard it must be for Gen Xer's to feel continually excluded from these larger generational conversations, so I'm very interested to hear Karla's take on this, too.
I'm in a similar situation to you, and I think one key is that phrase "the empathy gap"--because I think that I see a lot of empathy and support from many gen x folks for gen disaster/gen z/kids these days and their ideas/etc--many of us, like you, remember that many of the things folks say about this generation were also said about us, and know that many of us were pushing for these things and just not being heard--maybe it is because there weren't as many of us or maybe it is because there wasn't social media and internet connectedness in our teens and twenties the way it is here now? I don't know, but I wonder, and I think there is something to what you're saying.
At the same time, I also really like the way the author explained their generational focus, definition and what they weren't including. I do think there is something peculiar about the ways that generation disaster and the boomers have been pitted against each other that is different from the rest of us.
Hi Kasey - yes, as Anne Helen notes, I'm a ride-or-die Gen Xer, born in 1969, so I understand being primed to have our generation's impact ignored. Fun fact: We were originally referred to as the "Baby Bust Generation," demonstrating how overshadowed we've always been by Boomers – due to their sheer numbers relative to ours more than any great accomplishments they've made.
In my experience, with my own students and in my research, Generation Disaster's (and Millennials') animosity is targeted fully at the Boomers, and if they recognize us as a distinct cohort, the perception is pretty much "meh, they're not so bad." And I completely agree with your hesitance about broad-sweeping generational characterizations - I still share that personally despite writing this book, but one of the things I tried to capture is that the commonality is in the stressors they've all experienced, not in any resulting universal personality traits. They're an incredibly diverse group, all coping in their individual ways.
Still, I stand by the empathy gap between Generation Disaster and the Boomers, and it runs in both directions, to both sides' loss. And good lord, the judging the younger group perceives! I asked my national survey participants to use "one word to describe how others most commonly describe your generation" and the top results, in order of frequency, were: lazy, entitled, stupid, selfish, dumb, crazy, lost, ignorant, spoiled, and bad. That's a heck of a lot worse than the banal "slacker" label we grew up with. Even worse, some 40% rated those negative descriptions as accurate, which I find just heartbreaking.
Karla (if that's not too presumptuous), thanks so much for taking the time to respond and elaborate! Honestly, as I reflect, I think that my frustration about not seeing a place for Gen X in this narrative is probably a symptom of a larger sense of disenfranchisement: how to do my job, and raise my kids, and live in the world in an ethical way when that world seems to be falling apart around us. (Not that I'm claiming this sense of disenfranchisement as unique to Gen X!)
I absolutely defer to your sense of the real empathy divide being a Boomer-Generation Disaster one. Purely anecdotally, as a middle-aged person working in an environment with members of both generations (senior academics and graduate students, for example), I've spent a huge number of hours trying to mediate between the two in ways that are consistent with the gap you describe. I can't count the number of times I have tried to talk a student off of a (metaphorical) ledge after they've been on the receiving end of insensitive or dismissive rhetoric and assumptions from senior faculty. (Often, these dismissive comments revolve around identity categories such as race, gender, or sexuality, and the faculty member is either unaware or dismissive of a distinction or category that is vital to the student's self-understanding.) On the other side, I find that the students are often unaware of the history of marginalization and activism experienced by the older generation: senior women faculty who were never granted maternity leave, for example, or were denied raises because they "didn't have a family to support"; or queer faculty who were ostracized for both their domestic arrangements and their scholarly attention to queer issues.
TL;DR: my anecdotal experience, however limited its value, fully supports your claim about the profound empathy gap between Boomers and Generation Disaster. And I really appreciate the value of your effort to understand what unites GD without minimizing the diversity of experiences within that cohort.
Soooo many good points here, Kasey! I've been trying to figure out my next big project, and my current very unformed fantasy is to develop some kind of programming that encourages cross-generational perspective taking. The academic examples you give in both directions are exactly the kinds of life experiences that I wish each cohort could just take a beat and try to understand about each other.
Kasey, yes! I feel like such a mediator between these groups--recognizing some of the very legitimate issues while also not wanting anyone to "throw the baby out with the bathwater." (side note: that phrase has always disturbed me a bit, but I don't know what a better one might be)
perhaps a tangent, but I just finished reading Casey mcquiston's "One Last Stop" which is in one sense a queer romance novel, but also deals with some of this--the main character (a young 20-something) is dealing with their trauma-filled upbringing and ends up meeting someone who fell out of the late 70s. It was very good and it didn't occur to me until today that it is basically a story about a late boomer and an early gen z (or possibly late millennial? I didn't do the full math). I highly recommend it!
Adding to my (very long) to-read list--thank you!
The "Generation Disaster" descriptor really fits my kids who are still in high school. I'm looking forward to reading the book. The reaction to COVID in our communities and our nation is one more black mark against the adults in the world and their ability to do the right thing, in my kids' minds. There's a real anger and distrust of "the authorities," especially the Boomer generation. They know the world is messed up and that conscious choices led to it being messed up (and are impeding meaningful efforts to fix things).
I will say that my Gen X background, I think, helps. While their existential dread covers a wider range of topics, I never remember, as a kid, not worrying about a nuclear holocaust (at least, not after I was 5 or so and old enough to understand roughly what would happen). I remember the anger about the ridiculous adult posturing while the world was in peril. I also do remember, though, the relief of the fall of the Soviet Bloc and the hope that all those worries were over .... I don't know whether it's good or bad that I really don't think my kids will ever have a halcyon moment like that when it feels like maybe everything is going to work out pretty well.
Thanks for mentioning this!
Here's an anecdote from 7th grade that I now find almost comical. We lived near enough to a nuclear power plant that we were within the "no evacuation zone" (or "primary plume exposure pathway")--meaning that in the event of a reactor meltdown, the fallout would reach us before we could get out of range. (Physicists will note that the above sentence probably doesn't even make sense; I was 12, and it's been a minute, so please accept this as the fantastical premise that it was rather than any kind of scientific reality.) Our English teacher assigned us the following essay prompt (paraphrasing from faulty memory): The Soviet Union has dropped a nuclear bomb on the Seacoast Power Plant, causing a total reactor meltdown. What do you do with the last hours of your life before you are overcome by radiation sickness?
It was a different time, sure, but still ...
Self-reply to say that I'm still not totally sure what to make of this assignment, which strikes me as pretty morbid even for the already-prone-to-drama tween set. But one conclusion could be that the threat was hypothetical enough that our teacher thought she could use it as the premise of an imaginative exercise without traumatizing all of us. Which is to confirm what @Donna B says above: that Gen X had its anxieties and threats to contend with, but that they were punctuated by moments of relief and hopefulness.
Oooops, sorry! Should read: "Vermeule focuses on the 'empathy gap between emerging adults and Boomers ..."
I'm an elder millenial (born in 82, definitely prefer the "oregon trail generation" designation) and my brother is the oldest of this "generation disaster" being born in 89. I didn't realize the impact of 9/11 on his, and his peers' psyche, until the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. For me and most of the people I knew it was the closing of a long chapter which had been sort of in the background for a while, lost in the midst of wars which we thought were unjust, the great recession, an election in which the loser ended up with the presidency, among other things. But for him and for his peers, it was so significant -- it was the death of the boogey man who had shattered their innocence. I could not relate. Columbine or the Oklahoma city bombing would be the only events of this scale, but as they were internal threats which could be explained away with "mental illness" and they didn't have the same foundational impact. But for him the threat was so existential that even though we shared the same upper middle class, left leaning upbringing (his in many ways more secure than mine as my parents were older and more financially secure), I was so struck that we had such different experiences. That's all to say that this "generation disaster" designations resonates a lot with how I understand my brother!
This is so interesting to hear re: Bin Laden and your brother. I was born in '99, so the other side of "generation disaster," also to an upper middle class liberal family. I can remember hearing about the Bin Laden assassination at my 6th grade bus stop from a kid whose family always watched the morning TV news (we had cell phones, but nobody in my cohort had smart phones yet and very few of us were on Facebook). I remember the teachers being sort of urgent and serious that day in school, but (I'm ashamed to say) the kids all just thought it was funny that we could just break out into chanting "USA! USA!" whenever we wanted and nobody would stop us. Bin Laden truly was just some guy to us; without an actual memory of 9/11, it was something we knew to be serious about, but also totally unreal. No grown-up ever really explained the national understanding of the events of, oh, 2001-05 to us because they didn't realize that they had to. Terrorism never felt like a real threat to people I knew because it was such a diffuse and distant fear. Hence, I am more confused by the world's reaction to the military withdrawal from Afghanistan than anything else, since the emotional investments I have in the problems defining my generation are all related to the more recent domestic stuff I really clearly remember: Sandy Hook, Parkland, the wildfires in the West, Trump, George Floyd.
Yes! I'm another '89 baby and the assassination of Bin Laden was significant to me too! I'd never thought about it that way, but I vividly remember watching the briefing, alone in my room, in university and feeling like something important had shifted in the world.
I came to Canada for university and never left, so an interesting dynamic of being from the American Disaster Generation for me is that my cohort in the country where I've lived my emerging adulthood is shaped differently, by a less severe version of the stressors of 9/11 and forever wars, financial crisis, and gun violence.
I have been really struggling with how to talk with my (university) students about 9/11 this year. I don't always because I'm not always teaching on the day and because of the subject matter I am teaching. I'm also acutely aware of how regular these memorials and discussions have been for them.
but since this marks 20 years, I really wanted to discuss it in some way. this is perfect in so many ways & I'm going to share the online version of this interview and open some discussion with them about it. I deeply appreciated the interview and this way of thinking
I think a lot of us here would love to hear how they respond!
This interview touched on so many things that have been weighing heavily on me lately. I was born in 91, so I’m on the older end of the cohort. I’m a parent with two really young kids, and I’m worried about the world they are growing up in and the world they will become adults in. The most recent report on climate change really shifted a lot of things for me. I want to feel hopeful, and sometimes I am. But any hope I feel is also kind of muted by our current political reality and how impossible it feels to make meaningful change happen…
Wow, this is me and my siblings! I was five when 9/11 happened, and we used to have a memorial for it every year in school. That line about "the nation being involved in distant wars for complicated and confusing reasons is just the norm for them" really resonated with me. I appreciate the idea that we're resilient and realistic about the dangers of the world - I really do think/hope that's true.
And now we're working on Generation Covid. Or when we look back will it be Generation Climate-Disaster?
My husband (bless him!) planted almost 200 bulbs last fall, and the thing that made it possible was a garden augur drill bit. You put it on an electric drill and use it to dig the hole for each bulb, which saves your hands the labor of digging over 100 holes with a spade.
Ack, I wrote this in the wrong thread! This was supposed to be in the Friday thread where Anne Helen wanted to learn about planting tulips. Sorry, friends!
I'm Gen x (born in '75) and it's been curious time to figure out how to "adult" in a post 9/11 world. More so, how quickly we were expected to adapt.