or It’s a Little Late in the Game to Be Learning Who You Are
I recently learned I can no longer identify as a Boomer.
Bummer. In spite of disparaging opinions of the younger generations trending on social media, I rather liked being a Baby Boomer. I admit a certain smug superiority. I can actually spell and use a typewriter, write beautifully in cursive, and know all the words to the national anthem and pledge of allegience. I also know better than to throw away good money on ripped jeans and overpriced coffee.
The article I chanced upon while scrolling through social media on my Gen Z smart phone claimed that those born between 1954-1964, once the tail-end of the Baby Boomer generation, were actually members of a Generation Jones. The article, whose credentials I questioned until I Googled and found the term and designation on several other websites, went on to further label us late Boomers as the “Lost Generation,” caught somewhere between the real Baby Boomers (1945-1954) and Generation X (1965-1980).
The only “Lost Generation” I had ever heard of was the famous American ex-patriots a la Gertrude Stein, a set of writers and artists the ilk of Scott Fitzgerald, Papa Hemingway, e. e. cummings, and Pablo Picasso, with whom I am not disgruntled to be aligned. Show me what’s in your wallet.
Still. I’m not THAT old. (It takes my breath away, though to realize those “jazzy young things” of the 1920s were 100 years ago. I’ll say that again and spell it out, for my own benefit: one-hundred-years-ago.
Let me sit down and catch my breath a minute. Ok. Moving on, slowly.
The aforementioned article further defined Gen Jones (sounds like some girl I know…) as those growing up with television (though I personally didn’t, thanks to my mother’s disapproval), too young for the Viet Nam War protests of our older siblings (thankfully, I didn’t know a single soldier who came home in a body bag), and inheritors of the sexual revolution (again, no; thanks, Mom).
We are discounted from the “Leading-Edge Boomers” whose “Greatest Generation” fathers were veterans of World War II and came of age to a booming economy and unprecedented American opportunity and optimism. Seems the subsequent Watergate fiasco, oil crisis, and stagflation had a dampening effect on we Jones’ enthusiasm.
I do remember the Carter years particularly as being rather depressing.
I don’t remember any “Jones,” in particular, other than that name being the most common surname in America, at least during my lifetime. There was “keeping up with the Joneses” and “jonesing” (i.e. craving) for drugs (again, you know–Mom), but both seem rather lame reasons for labeling an entire dispossessed generation.
I feel rather like Pluto. Not the dog. The sometime planet. Which, by the way, happens to be associated with my Zodiac sign. We Scorpios often get mislabeled and misunderstood, not unlike the late, great Boomers. That is, Joneses.
It’ll take a while to get used to my new name. United (tied, hitched. shotgunned…) rather reluctantly with a group of other affronted “newlyweds,” so to speak, I think I’d like to keep my old name. My maiden name, as they used to say, back in the good ol’ Boomer days.
I’m too old for a divorce.
–Rebecca Luttrell Briley, Ph.D.
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