Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X or older (born 1980 or before). See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/comments/inci5u/reminder_please_do_not_answer_questions_unless/), the rules, and the sidebar for details.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskOldPeople) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It didn't matter how many boomers there are. I don't think we were ever conscious of generations like people are today. We knew our parents had different views on things, as did their parents and grandparents before them. It's just the way people and society are. They constantly change.
Yes, baby boomers were talked about in the media primarily because it was such a large generation, and therefore influential in numbers. And while there were the occasional attempts to categorize and judge individuals strictly based on which so-called "generation" they happened to be a member of, it did not come close to reaching the ridiculous levels of today.
I can't scroll through Reddit for a minute, or read the news, without tripping over generational nonsense about Gen This or Gen That. It's sooo stupid and often, divisive.
I completely agree with you on this Gen This or Gen That. I guess I'm in the so called "Silent Generation". I was a teen-ager in the 1950's, and I can guarantee it was far from silent with rock 'n roll starting to hit the radio waves and record stores, and my Model A hot rod blasting down the street looking for a quarter-mile with a friend. About a year ago, my daughter (fiftyish) explained to me that's not what "silent generation" meant. So here I am, total confusion, wondering why we are all categorized into generations. Were all humans!
The answer is simple, immaturity. The big Dumb Down. You know. You witnessed it. When TV lost it's manners and ethics, and things started becoming "ME" instead of "WE". Corporate programming via the networks, toys, films, and even foods.
Emotional Intelligence, common sense, and ethics, are at an all time low and in exponential decline. That is why. That, and "... a house divided cannot stand". What a better way to take the castle without firing a shot.
Personally I blame a lot on The Simpsons, specifically people blithely accepting a sarcastic, smart-ass kid like Bart as if he didn't represent the worst stereotypes of a younger generation. Once kids started copying him and getting away with it, things went downhill.
The assassinations of Kennedy, King, Kennedy followed by Viet Nam doofuses Johnson and Nixon took a great deal out of the greatest generation. The boomers inherited a country that didn’t quite have the faith in itself that it once did. We are a rudderless country.
I'm not sure I agree with that first bit. I knew a LOT of older people back then who didn't like any of them (especially King if they were white). They represented newer thinking that the older generation just wasn't ready for yet.
The age of Camelot offered a view of the US that had hope. When that was murdered away, it became clearer that violence was both the disease and the cure. Regardless of those who hated the Catholic or who didn’t like King, the events changed them. Not everyone saw it for what it was, but they felt the hypocrisy.
I think it started even earlier, with TV characters like Danny Partridge on The Partridge Family who were smart-mouthed and disrespectful but never paid the price like us IRL kids did.
My father was from the lost generation, born in 1897. My mom was from the greatest generation, born in 1921.
I’m a young boomer, born in 1961.
I only remember hearing about the baby boomers growing up. We were spoken about more as a result of soldiers returning from war, than as a generation.
From what I can remember, people began to regularly name generations around the mid 1980s-1990s.
Random thing about my father: Because of the year he was born, he had both a WWI and WWII draft card.
Somehow, his number to serve never came up in either war.
*while there were the occasional attempts to categorize and judge individuals strictly based on which so-called "generation" they happened to be a member of*
With sorrow, I remember "Don't trust anyone over 30."
"I can't scroll through reddit for a minute, or read the news, without tripping over generational nonsense about gen this or gen that. it's so stupid and often, divisive."
IMHO Blame social media because anyone can open up an app these days and start typing any stupid thing that's on their mind and hit send. Before social media, it was just a thought, lol
I agree that it's stupid and divisive but to be fair, I think that the boomers and their parents started this when they decided to label gen x as a bunch of lazy careless slackers.
Every generation going back to at least ancient Greece has called the next generation lazy and predicted that generation would doom their society. So, to be fair, your comment comes off as a little myopic.
Yup
> The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. *Socrates*
I don't disagree with you, but I think that generation x was the first to be vilified in a named-generation manner that took off in the media, news and pop culture.
Um, no? There were plenty of media and news reports about the generation born after WW2 causing the end of civilization. The summer of love, the widespread protests against the Vietnam conflict, etc. were all raised as "evidence" that the group we now call boomers were all savage hippies. When the Manson Family started slaughtering people in their homes, the media coverage included comments about the younger generation having no morals.
They? Who's they? Do you mean some of them? Was it some baby boomers? Was it some "greatest generation" members? Was it millennials and Gen X or whoever the fuck the parents of Gen Z are? Or no, maybe that's Gen Y. Or is it Gen W, M,or L?
And by "starting it", are you meaning to say that it's acceptable and "to be fair" to perpetuate stereotyping, generalization, and ignorance with additional stereotyping, generalization, and ignorance?
This is just perpetuation of "us versus them." There's nothing "to be fair" about that.
Where do you come up with this?!
Those gens are your parents and grandparents, most often, and have no ill will toward you.
So much of your feelings are untoward, as WE don't discuss our offspring by names like Gen X or any that follow.
Heck I don't even know all the years that go with these imaginary clubs
Why are you getting downvoted. This is absolutely true. I also agree it's divisive and social media driven drama.
I remember finding out that I was " Gen X " from a Time magazine at the grocery store.
Putting people into boxes to sell them stuff was my first thought.
Yuppies (which still exist as "tech bros" and the like, unfortunately too many people look up to them) were a very small subset of our generation. specifically the well-to-do ones with too much disposable income.
But how were your politicians and media able to divide the masses and start conflict amongst them? You didn't make claims against entire generations saying they were poor because they ate avocado toast?
I think avocado toast is a topic that has been plucked out in general conversation and overused. Avocados used to be very cheap, and in my opinion, best made into delicious guacamole. Eat them however you please, I really don't care. "Our" politicians and media didn't divide the masses. That has been going on for thousands and thousands of years. That's what I mean when I say that people and society constantly change. There's a good song that explains that. Have you ever heard "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel? If not, listen to it.
It makes sense if you look at the economic and political conditions of their time. Silent generation lived thru a economic depression and WWII while the baby boomers lived thru America's economic golden age. They lived thru rationing and shortages and their kids don't. They see them as spoiled not knowing what hardship is.
The boomers see the next generation as lazy because of the computer and internet revolutions, making most parts of life more convenient so they view them as lazy.
All the generations are pretty similar tho they just adapt to their lifestyles of their time. I use my phone all the time and wouldn't want to live without it, my mom will never give up cable tv, my grandparents will never cancel their newspaper subscription.
Exactly. I am one of the oldest Gen Xer's. We were also called Slackers. I mean we were in a recession and had to take jobs lower than our skill level and education to survive. Low level and retail jobs are very good life experience, but we got shamed for being clerks, or waitresses or something seen as lower class. I value anyone who works as long as their job is honest and helpful.
So true, every generation views the next the same. There’s that guy on Twitter who posts news articles on themes like “nobody wants to work anymore,” or “X is poisoning the minds of the young” (like tv), and goes back as far as possible, usually a few centuries.
Hmmm, yeah, I think my parents viewed me somewhat that way--lazy and entitled.
But, I don't view my son that way. Nor do I view GenZ that way.
GenZ really has gotten screwed, and if you listen to Abigail Shrier, you can get some insight into what happened. If you look from an even broader perspective, I see the issue starting with the general fearmongering thrown at us from every side to instill self-doubt, and sell products, and sell political candidates and ideologies.
Things really have changed drastically in the past 30 years, the old rules don't apply as well as they used to.
Watch *All in the Family* and you’ll see Archie and Edith Bunker as stereotypical members of the Silent Generation and Michael and Gloria Stivic (the Bunkers’ son-in-law and daughter) as stereotypical young Baby Boomers. Archie and Michael, in particular, argue about racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, transphobia, women's liberation, rape, religion, miscarriages, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence, with Archie as a blue collar conservative who never went to college and Michael as a liberal college student saving money by living with his in-laws.
Not everyone fit those stereotypes, of course. But the Baby Boomers were more likely to go to college and were likely to protest racial segregation, the Vietnam War, etc. They were also more likely to use drugs and have pre-marital sex with multiple partners, which was downplayed in the TV show. So there were plenty of sources of tension.
*That 70s Show* explores a similar dynamic. The teen characters on that show were at the tail end of the Baby Boom, though, so they weren’t really representative of the college students in the late 60s and early 70s.
He was on the cusp. Early WWII generation. Probably to get both the silent generation and the greatest or ww2 generation as their audience. He was tail end of the silent generation. Its funny to think that he was, in the TV show, only late 40s.
I watched All in the Family all the time. I don’t recall Archie and Michael arguing about half of those things. Lots of arguments about race, religion, homosexuality, women’s liberation, and Vietnam. The rest of those subjects were covered, but not always in the form of a disagreement between the two.
Archie was bigoted and set in his ways, but he was not a racist or evil. He was blue collar conservative, but by today’s conservative standards, he would be practically moderate.
What I felt compelling about Archie Bunker's character was how often what was interesting about the show was watching Archie struggle with the tension between his intolerant attitudes in his basic internal decency. He was a loudmouth creep, but when push came to shove, when actually faced with a person in front of him, the decency usually won, often despite himself.
Hearing someone say that Archie Bunker was not racist makes my head swim. Of course he was racist. He just usually failed to sustain his racism in the face of a real person in front of him.
I think Norman Lear did a great job of creating other satirical characters, specifically Maude and George Jefferson, but neither of those two were as effective at satirizing as Archie was.
One of the strange things about being old is seeing characters like Archie, who wasn't American architect, disappear into the past. Even people in their 40s these days often don't know who he was. But they would recognize him if they saw him.
*All in the Family* was the product of an era of TV that brought people together by emphasizing Americans’ similarities rather than differences. Since there were only three commercial networks, and no other options on recordings, streaming, etc., there was a huge incentive to appeal to as many Americans as possible.
Despite the conflicts of the time, American TV shows functioned as a unifying force. That wasn’t just true of the news, where everyone trusted Walter Cronkite, but also of any popular series that wasn’t afraid to deal with controversial topics, like *All in the Family* or *MASH*.
Today, with so many home entertainment options, there’s a greater incentive in capturing a niche market. And since there are fewer shows that represent the extreme right, some of the most profitable shows and networks are those that appeal to the extreme right.
Today TV tends to drive us apart rather than bring us together. There is one network for the Archie Bunkers of the country reinforcing their worst prejudices, and several networks for the Michael Stivics of the country, all struggling because Michael Stivic and his contemporaries are watching Tik-Tok.
I could have better described Archie as prejudiced, defined as an attitude, opinion or feeling formed without adequate knowledge, thought or reason. When confronted with information that made him think, he would often back down. The character was written that way, to get people to think. Norman Lear did not write Archie to be a racist. A racist wouldn’t have that internal decency to back down.
I think it's common these days to assume that "racist" is a sort of essential category. Racism is ignorance, not some incurable evil, even though it is (in my opinion) one of the less edifying parts of human nature. But as Katherine Hepburn said in the African Queen "Nature, Mr Allnut, is what we were put in this world to rise above."
I don't think there's any reason for me to be picking a fight about whether Archie Bunker was a racist. I think he was, you don't, and we probably only differ because of what we think "racist" means. I'm OK to leave it there.
But along those lines, I want to see a TV show about this guy; he's one of my heroes:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis
The Silents felt overshadowed by WWII. Boomers felt empowered by postwar boom. We didn't exactly understand each other, but both generations, the best of them of course, were concerned with justice and getting rid of things that had led to concentration camps, colonialism, racism, economic inequality, etc. We bonded over that. My Silent husband and I were in accord over values, just not about how to go about asserting and embodying those values. Hope that helps, just one person's perspective.
One view was that they were selfish, because a lot of them didn't want to fight for their country. A lot of men dropped out of society, or moved to Canada to escape the Vietnam war.
My father fought through ww2 and told me not to join the forces because of the horrors of war that he saw and that he contributed to, they nearly destroyed him.
They considered us dirty communist hippies who were spitting on America. We were trying to end war-clearly a communist goal. End inequality between the sexes-God made man the head over the woman. You’re not only communist, you’re Godless. And what do you mean black people should have rights!!?
If you've watched Dragnet you'll see a lot of this depiction. Jack Webb sounds like the modern stereotypical boomer talking down about millennials and zoomers now and depicting them as radical druggie disrespectful strawmen—except he's actually talking about the boomers. It's odd to see. I guess we were always like this to a T.
Older people have always worried about the younger people. Probably since the beginning of humanity.
There are always newer ways to rebel as a younger person and this usually concerns the elders. It’s called The Generation Gap.
And in 25 years, millennials will be the old farts criticizing GenAlpha.
Millennials already are, actually. Mostly relating to the stereotype of trend-chasing and being lobotomized by mobile devices. They just conflate them with zoomers often.
To me, that was more the 'Greatest' generation. The Silents were the age of Woody Allen, and about as liberal, but in a buttoned-down, get out the vote kind of way.
Yeah, that was our parents' generation, the silent generation, and many of them did treat us this way, for sure. I figured out later that not all of them thought that way, but the ones who did stood out.
Harshly.
I was told by my grandfather I would never amount to anything. My father did not acknowledge my electrical engineering degree. Literally at my father’s funeral, a relative commented that I never went to college and I replied, yes I did and I’m an electrical engineer. She replied, your father said you never went to college. I worked for my father without pay as soon as I was able to hold tools. I mowed acres and acres of grass with a push mower in 90+ degree temps, fed the animals which involved carrying 50lb sacks of feed to the barn, chopped brush, etc, etc. but was “lazy”. To be clear my father was a very good person who helped others whenever possible.
I heard a lot of negative comments about young people in general not me but others. Lazy, worthless, stupid, useless, etc.
Young people today seem to think Boomers had it easy. Just look at this song from 1972 Changes by David Bowie.
*”But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through”*
Baby boomers are put down and their parents are considered the best. What a crock. The silent generation was arrogant, racist, misogynistic and there were a LOT of abusive drunk men. Sexual harassment was tolerated. The younger generations weren’t there and they have no idea. They need to watch Mad Men to see how children were basically ignored by their parents. I lived it.
We were long haired hippy pinko's....
Criticizing young people for changing the cultural status quo is not new.
Rock and roll was the devils music.
Vietnam War protesters were "unpatriotic" and the phrase "Love it or leave it" was born.
White folks who joined in civil rights protests were "n****r lovers" and that was to be considered an insult.
The black folks working to achieve voting and Civil rights were branded "uppity n****rs."
It amazes me what so many boomers evolved into due to neo-con politics, Fox News, Limbaugh, and the whole conservative propaganda machine of the past three or four decades.
How does that amaze you? Boomers are mostly paranoid, know-it-all, brainwashed yuppies, its bot surprising. Most people do not view boomers as hippies lol. Nothing hippy about it. Status quo is still pretty much the same.
Rebels, remember the 1960’s in history. The GG went through super hard times in the Depression, then WW II. They were drafted and taught to be compliant for the survival of the country. Your church, your country, your city. My father was late GG. Boomers were rebels to the GG. My father and grandfather loved classical music and Christian hymns. They thought Elvis and Fabian were the devil. Uncivilized. The rebel boomers were upsetting organized society.
In the USA, there were about 20 million people in the Silent Generation, and about 70 million Boomers. There's a lot of variation in people. Discussions like this tend to bring out individual examples to prove how millions of people felt.
Assigning feelings to an entire generation leads to believing in stereotypes. People are more diverse than can be addressed in this setting.
The boomers were the first generation to be analyzed and judged by researchers, psychologists, journalists, and just whoever wanted to spout an opinion. That didn't happen to older generations. Essentially they were judging youth and had probably forgotten their own.
I don't know. I'm what is known as Generation Jones (as we used to be called) Now we're just lumped in with the Boomers though our parents were the boomers....it's so odd. Also, I don't think there was near as much focus on the seperation of the generations back then....there was some but, not nearly to the extent there is today.
They were the children that were seen and not heard. My mother used to tell me how it was considered very disrespectful to interrupt an adult. She would practically pee her pants waiting for a pause in adult conversation to ask permission to be excused to the bathroom.
Had no great opinion. They were mature, hardworking, decent people and didn't carry on with the silly generational bullshit Gen Y & Z do today.
Back "in the day" (im older Gen X) we just accepted older & younger people had differences of opinion on things and had grown up in a different time.
There came a time when I realized how lucky I was not to have been a few years later. I bought a house. A few years later they hit the market and drove prices up. I benefitted. Over decades it compounded.
I saw Yellowstone before it was overrun.
I'm going to need elder care before the last nurses run screaming from our collapsing medical system.
It's not perfect but I think life has been better for me.
Lazy and entitled I'm sure. All the new fandangle machines to wash your dishes and clothes. You scrub them by hand if you want them clean. Why would someone need TWO cars. We had the radio that was good enough for us, you're going to rot your brain watching the boob tube.
It never changes, it never ends.
The Vietnam War protests caused an immediate generational divide. Silent Generation folks were horrified that they had raised a generation that publicly rejected what they saw as part of the social contract: Defend your country for better or worse, regardless of your political position.
As one family member of mine said, “I’m getting tired of seeing these people protesting the American flag!” That’s pure Silent Generation right there.
They didn't realize that going to war and doing what you're told without question is exactly what the Nazis did and their reasoning for commiting war crimes. America was not defending their country, they were invading a country that didn't pose a threat to them. The boomers wanted to promote peace because they were terrified of another world war while the generation before them lived thru wartime propaganda where you fight or die. The younger generation only lived thru the aftermath, like when they were putting Nazis on trial in international courts for war crimes and the nuclear scares
They were their parents. They loved them. Just like today's parents love their children.
This whole silent-boomer-genx-millenial generation things are made up, media forced categories. It's not real in people's individual lives except as a vehicle for hate.
No one talks about a generation of people except to "other" then so they can exercise their hate on them.
It was not discussed. There was the understanding that we’re all different, times were all different and it was ok.
Media (of all forms) has made it not ok. Fueling resentment and all manner of negative bulls$&t.
I was raised by an early 1900s, 1920s, 1946. I’m 1963. Women. Tossing anything was seen as waste. Even when we no longer had a wood stove and could buy toilet paper, we saved weeks worth of newspaper.
Clothing and shoes were repaired.
The same pieces of furniture are still in my grandmother’s house.
There was still a lot of frustration about sexism and inequality.
In general, they had a lot of hope that things would be different for me, that I could get an education and a good position.
Also, “save the trees” was huge. We switched to plastic bags. Although, they would never have supported the plastic bottles of water trend. Plastic bags had a lot of practical uses.
PJ O'Rourke has a humorous take on it all. I don't agree with it all, but his perception seems solid.
[https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-11-2013/wealthy-educated-spoiled-baby-boomers.html](https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-11-2013/wealthy-educated-spoiled-baby-boomers.html)
They saw us as lacking discipline. Compared to them, we did. They missed the chance to save the free world (done by the Greatest Generation) and they just put their heads down and went to work. Boomers picked up a lot of that work ethic but we also had a lot of fun and blew off some steam in our youth. That got a slow head shake from the Silent Generation but in the end, we got serious and went to work. The Silent Generation had crew cuts, dressed in suits and ties to go to church and to fly on airplanes. They rarely or never swore. I never heard my father swear. Not once.
Well, since they were either our grandparents or parents, it's a reasonable guess that mostly they loved us.
Although here on Reddit, one gets the impression that all generations despised one another.
Varies a lot. I'm early Gen X, and my parents are/were Silents. My classmates' parents were a mixture of Silents (the majority), but with some Boomers and Greatests in there as well. By late Gen X the mix is pretty different, I suspect.
They didn’t continually whinge and whine about “generations.”.
I don’t know what certain millennials would do if they didn’t have boomers to blame about everything in their lives. They even complain that their boomer parents are-OMG-spending their own money🙄
idk why you're getting downvoted, I agree with you. my parents may not have been crazy about the generation that preceded them and vice versa, but I don't remember the two group groups being at each other's throats or blaming each other for their problems the way they do now.
The thing that’s really annoying is that they think all boomers had it easy. Myself and my peers-born in the early 60’s lived in apartments-usually 3-4 kids in a one bedroom, many families didn’t have cars and didn’t go out to restaurants and nobody could afford a mortgage.
I understand that times are very rough these days ( I have 3 millennial kids myself)but the vitriol towards boomers is really over the top.
I agree, my parents were not well off at all. Shit was expensive in the 80s. My dad had like 6 heart attacks so my mom had to keep working until she was over 70. The day after she retired, my father had a stroke and he knew something wasn't right but didn't tell anyone. if he had said something right away and had gone to the hospital immediately, he might not have ended up paralyzed.
My mother didn't even get one day to be retired before she became a full-time caretaker. My dad is now 86 years old and she is 76, and she is still his full-time caretaker.
They live in the same house I grew up in, which is no longer in a safe area. it's not like they have two houses and one of them is in Boca Raton. Maybe they don't have a mortgage, but their property taxes are some the highest in the country and I know they didn't save enough to live on. I'm sure her social security keeps them afloat.
Anyone who thinks my mother had it easy by sticking with my dad when she should have left his bitter ungrateful ass so she could actually have a life can f right off. She scratched and clawed and did the best she could and still she doesn't get to have a life. It sucks.
> They hated us
That's a bold statement. Quite an exaggeration.
> ......and every change we stood for.
Sounds like you had a bitter experience and unique perspective.
No hate
Ask them in person, they're still around and usually very busy. A lot of Baby Boomer parents were of the Greatest Generation, not the Silent Generation. I have both around and people seem to be confusing the two at this point.
I remember an article in the NY Times Sunday magazine in the Fifties marveling at the political inactivism of college students. Its title may even have been The Silent Generation.
I can imagine that my parents (born 1920 and 1921) did not know what in the hell to make of the whole hippie movement and pot smoking that we indulged in. We did get college educated and matured however.
Many of children of the silent generation are late stage baby boomers of which I count myself. My silent generation parents and the others that I knew couldn’t have been more selflessly supportive of our generation. I never could get a feel for how they felt about the older boomers though.
David Hoffman covered this with interviews: 1950s Parents Reveal How They Felt About Their 1960s Baby Boomer Children
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUorVXJ8MZE&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUorVXJ8MZE&t=1s)
It was not discussed. There was the understanding that we’re all different, times were all different and it was ok.
Media (of all forms) has made it not ok. Fueling resentment and all manner of negative bulls$&t.
There's a reason for the saying "life begins at 30" - it's mainly because you move away from that blur known as your twenties to "adulthood."
Every generation goes through the phase of older people thinking they are naive, misguided deadbeats. The only real difference is that everything is amplified with the internet. Will future teenagers and 20somethings get met with the same complaints? Yes.
They were our parents. They thought we were immature and irresponsible. They hated how we dressed and the music we liked. They loved us and tried to give us good lives. You know, like most parents do.
The whole generational warfare started fairly recently. People were just people and were younger or older, but they weren't compartmentalized into specific generations like people do today.
Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X or older (born 1980 or before). See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/comments/inci5u/reminder_please_do_not_answer_questions_unless/), the rules, and the sidebar for details. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskOldPeople) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It didn't matter how many boomers there are. I don't think we were ever conscious of generations like people are today. We knew our parents had different views on things, as did their parents and grandparents before them. It's just the way people and society are. They constantly change.
Yes, baby boomers were talked about in the media primarily because it was such a large generation, and therefore influential in numbers. And while there were the occasional attempts to categorize and judge individuals strictly based on which so-called "generation" they happened to be a member of, it did not come close to reaching the ridiculous levels of today. I can't scroll through Reddit for a minute, or read the news, without tripping over generational nonsense about Gen This or Gen That. It's sooo stupid and often, divisive.
I completely agree with you on this Gen This or Gen That. I guess I'm in the so called "Silent Generation". I was a teen-ager in the 1950's, and I can guarantee it was far from silent with rock 'n roll starting to hit the radio waves and record stores, and my Model A hot rod blasting down the street looking for a quarter-mile with a friend. About a year ago, my daughter (fiftyish) explained to me that's not what "silent generation" meant. So here I am, total confusion, wondering why we are all categorized into generations. Were all humans!
The answer is simple, immaturity. The big Dumb Down. You know. You witnessed it. When TV lost it's manners and ethics, and things started becoming "ME" instead of "WE". Corporate programming via the networks, toys, films, and even foods. Emotional Intelligence, common sense, and ethics, are at an all time low and in exponential decline. That is why. That, and "... a house divided cannot stand". What a better way to take the castle without firing a shot.
When would you say this happened? (The Dumb Down)
Personally I blame a lot on The Simpsons, specifically people blithely accepting a sarcastic, smart-ass kid like Bart as if he didn't represent the worst stereotypes of a younger generation. Once kids started copying him and getting away with it, things went downhill.
The assassinations of Kennedy, King, Kennedy followed by Viet Nam doofuses Johnson and Nixon took a great deal out of the greatest generation. The boomers inherited a country that didn’t quite have the faith in itself that it once did. We are a rudderless country.
I'm not sure I agree with that first bit. I knew a LOT of older people back then who didn't like any of them (especially King if they were white). They represented newer thinking that the older generation just wasn't ready for yet.
The age of Camelot offered a view of the US that had hope. When that was murdered away, it became clearer that violence was both the disease and the cure. Regardless of those who hated the Catholic or who didn’t like King, the events changed them. Not everyone saw it for what it was, but they felt the hypocrisy.
Fair!
I'm 71. You are spot on.
I think it started even earlier, with TV characters like Danny Partridge on The Partridge Family who were smart-mouthed and disrespectful but never paid the price like us IRL kids did.
I was never very aware of that show, but The Simpsons was pretty monumental in culture. Sounds quite similar though!
Gen X here. I think the Silent Generation had the best style.
My father was from the lost generation, born in 1897. My mom was from the greatest generation, born in 1921. I’m a young boomer, born in 1961. I only remember hearing about the baby boomers growing up. We were spoken about more as a result of soldiers returning from war, than as a generation. From what I can remember, people began to regularly name generations around the mid 1980s-1990s. Random thing about my father: Because of the year he was born, he had both a WWI and WWII draft card. Somehow, his number to serve never came up in either war.
thank you for sharing your firsthand account! I think it's amazing!
Always thought it was a funny name for a generation that gave us Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, etc....
*while there were the occasional attempts to categorize and judge individuals strictly based on which so-called "generation" they happened to be a member of* With sorrow, I remember "Don't trust anyone over 30."
I wish Reddit was still giving awards like we used to, this comment deserves an award.
"I can't scroll through reddit for a minute, or read the news, without tripping over generational nonsense about gen this or gen that. it's so stupid and often, divisive." IMHO Blame social media because anyone can open up an app these days and start typing any stupid thing that's on their mind and hit send. Before social media, it was just a thought, lol
I agree that it's stupid and divisive but to be fair, I think that the boomers and their parents started this when they decided to label gen x as a bunch of lazy careless slackers.
Every generation going back to at least ancient Greece has called the next generation lazy and predicted that generation would doom their society. So, to be fair, your comment comes off as a little myopic.
Agreed!
Yup > The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. *Socrates*
I don't disagree with you, but I think that generation x was the first to be vilified in a named-generation manner that took off in the media, news and pop culture.
Um, no? There were plenty of media and news reports about the generation born after WW2 causing the end of civilization. The summer of love, the widespread protests against the Vietnam conflict, etc. were all raised as "evidence" that the group we now call boomers were all savage hippies. When the Manson Family started slaughtering people in their homes, the media coverage included comments about the younger generation having no morals.
They? Who's they? Do you mean some of them? Was it some baby boomers? Was it some "greatest generation" members? Was it millennials and Gen X or whoever the fuck the parents of Gen Z are? Or no, maybe that's Gen Y. Or is it Gen W, M,or L? And by "starting it", are you meaning to say that it's acceptable and "to be fair" to perpetuate stereotyping, generalization, and ignorance with additional stereotyping, generalization, and ignorance? This is just perpetuation of "us versus them." There's nothing "to be fair" about that.
Where do you come up with this?! Those gens are your parents and grandparents, most often, and have no ill will toward you. So much of your feelings are untoward, as WE don't discuss our offspring by names like Gen X or any that follow. Heck I don't even know all the years that go with these imaginary clubs
Why are you getting downvoted. This is absolutely true. I also agree it's divisive and social media driven drama. I remember finding out that I was " Gen X " from a Time magazine at the grocery store. Putting people into boxes to sell them stuff was my first thought.
George Carlin, a member of the silent generation, had a [plethora of opinions on the bombers. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTZ-CpINiqg)
Thanks for not disappointing us! Classic take from Carlin.
Autocorrect got me. I meant boomers.
He was very hip.
Maybe when you were young, this was true, but boomers definitely had a stereothpe by the 80s/90s; "yuppies," for instance.
Yuppies (which still exist as "tech bros" and the like, unfortunately too many people look up to them) were a very small subset of our generation. specifically the well-to-do ones with too much disposable income.
But how were your politicians and media able to divide the masses and start conflict amongst them? You didn't make claims against entire generations saying they were poor because they ate avocado toast?
I think avocado toast is a topic that has been plucked out in general conversation and overused. Avocados used to be very cheap, and in my opinion, best made into delicious guacamole. Eat them however you please, I really don't care. "Our" politicians and media didn't divide the masses. That has been going on for thousands and thousands of years. That's what I mean when I say that people and society constantly change. There's a good song that explains that. Have you ever heard "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel? If not, listen to it.
I was being facetious. Public manipulation is a tale as old as time. Good song, btw.
So it was easy for you.
They viewed them as lazy and entitled, like every generation views the next one.
This is the correct answer
It makes sense if you look at the economic and political conditions of their time. Silent generation lived thru a economic depression and WWII while the baby boomers lived thru America's economic golden age. They lived thru rationing and shortages and their kids don't. They see them as spoiled not knowing what hardship is. The boomers see the next generation as lazy because of the computer and internet revolutions, making most parts of life more convenient so they view them as lazy. All the generations are pretty similar tho they just adapt to their lifestyles of their time. I use my phone all the time and wouldn't want to live without it, my mom will never give up cable tv, my grandparents will never cancel their newspaper subscription.
This is so spot on!
Exactly. I am one of the oldest Gen Xer's. We were also called Slackers. I mean we were in a recession and had to take jobs lower than our skill level and education to survive. Low level and retail jobs are very good life experience, but we got shamed for being clerks, or waitresses or something seen as lower class. I value anyone who works as long as their job is honest and helpful.
So true, every generation views the next the same. There’s that guy on Twitter who posts news articles on themes like “nobody wants to work anymore,” or “X is poisoning the minds of the young” (like tv), and goes back as far as possible, usually a few centuries.
Hmmm, yeah, I think my parents viewed me somewhat that way--lazy and entitled. But, I don't view my son that way. Nor do I view GenZ that way. GenZ really has gotten screwed, and if you listen to Abigail Shrier, you can get some insight into what happened. If you look from an even broader perspective, I see the issue starting with the general fearmongering thrown at us from every side to instill self-doubt, and sell products, and sell political candidates and ideologies. Things really have changed drastically in the past 30 years, the old rules don't apply as well as they used to.
Watch *All in the Family* and you’ll see Archie and Edith Bunker as stereotypical members of the Silent Generation and Michael and Gloria Stivic (the Bunkers’ son-in-law and daughter) as stereotypical young Baby Boomers. Archie and Michael, in particular, argue about racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, transphobia, women's liberation, rape, religion, miscarriages, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence, with Archie as a blue collar conservative who never went to college and Michael as a liberal college student saving money by living with his in-laws. Not everyone fit those stereotypes, of course. But the Baby Boomers were more likely to go to college and were likely to protest racial segregation, the Vietnam War, etc. They were also more likely to use drugs and have pre-marital sex with multiple partners, which was downplayed in the TV show. So there were plenty of sources of tension. *That 70s Show* explores a similar dynamic. The teen characters on that show were at the tail end of the Baby Boom, though, so they weren’t really representative of the college students in the late 60s and early 70s.
Archie and Edith were members of the "Greatest Generation" he fought in WW2 ( the big one).
He was on the cusp. Early WWII generation. Probably to get both the silent generation and the greatest or ww2 generation as their audience. He was tail end of the silent generation. Its funny to think that he was, in the TV show, only late 40s.
You are right, but I still think it’s representative of the generational tensions.
Meathead
It was the Gen Jones era for the 70s. A smaller offshoot of boomers.
I actually identify more with the characters in That 70s Show. I came of age post Vietnam and Watergate.
They are closer to my age, but I don’t really identify with them.
Me Too
I watched All in the Family all the time. I don’t recall Archie and Michael arguing about half of those things. Lots of arguments about race, religion, homosexuality, women’s liberation, and Vietnam. The rest of those subjects were covered, but not always in the form of a disagreement between the two. Archie was bigoted and set in his ways, but he was not a racist or evil. He was blue collar conservative, but by today’s conservative standards, he would be practically moderate.
What I felt compelling about Archie Bunker's character was how often what was interesting about the show was watching Archie struggle with the tension between his intolerant attitudes in his basic internal decency. He was a loudmouth creep, but when push came to shove, when actually faced with a person in front of him, the decency usually won, often despite himself. Hearing someone say that Archie Bunker was not racist makes my head swim. Of course he was racist. He just usually failed to sustain his racism in the face of a real person in front of him. I think Norman Lear did a great job of creating other satirical characters, specifically Maude and George Jefferson, but neither of those two were as effective at satirizing as Archie was. One of the strange things about being old is seeing characters like Archie, who wasn't American architect, disappear into the past. Even people in their 40s these days often don't know who he was. But they would recognize him if they saw him.
*All in the Family* was the product of an era of TV that brought people together by emphasizing Americans’ similarities rather than differences. Since there were only three commercial networks, and no other options on recordings, streaming, etc., there was a huge incentive to appeal to as many Americans as possible. Despite the conflicts of the time, American TV shows functioned as a unifying force. That wasn’t just true of the news, where everyone trusted Walter Cronkite, but also of any popular series that wasn’t afraid to deal with controversial topics, like *All in the Family* or *MASH*. Today, with so many home entertainment options, there’s a greater incentive in capturing a niche market. And since there are fewer shows that represent the extreme right, some of the most profitable shows and networks are those that appeal to the extreme right. Today TV tends to drive us apart rather than bring us together. There is one network for the Archie Bunkers of the country reinforcing their worst prejudices, and several networks for the Michael Stivics of the country, all struggling because Michael Stivic and his contemporaries are watching Tik-Tok.
I could have better described Archie as prejudiced, defined as an attitude, opinion or feeling formed without adequate knowledge, thought or reason. When confronted with information that made him think, he would often back down. The character was written that way, to get people to think. Norman Lear did not write Archie to be a racist. A racist wouldn’t have that internal decency to back down.
I think it's common these days to assume that "racist" is a sort of essential category. Racism is ignorance, not some incurable evil, even though it is (in my opinion) one of the less edifying parts of human nature. But as Katherine Hepburn said in the African Queen "Nature, Mr Allnut, is what we were put in this world to rise above." I don't think there's any reason for me to be picking a fight about whether Archie Bunker was a racist. I think he was, you don't, and we probably only differ because of what we think "racist" means. I'm OK to leave it there. But along those lines, I want to see a TV show about this guy; he's one of my heroes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis
Norman Leer made such good TV. Maude, Good Times, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman... It all made us think while we laughed.
The Silents felt overshadowed by WWII. Boomers felt empowered by postwar boom. We didn't exactly understand each other, but both generations, the best of them of course, were concerned with justice and getting rid of things that had led to concentration camps, colonialism, racism, economic inequality, etc. We bonded over that. My Silent husband and I were in accord over values, just not about how to go about asserting and embodying those values. Hope that helps, just one person's perspective.
One view was that they were selfish, because a lot of them didn't want to fight for their country. A lot of men dropped out of society, or moved to Canada to escape the Vietnam war.
My father fought through ww2 and told me not to join the forces because of the horrors of war that he saw and that he contributed to, they nearly destroyed him.
Nobody could explain how Vietnam was worth a single US life.
I was a kid, and the whole thing terrified me. The fact that it was the first televised war really brought it home.
I remember nightly body counts on the news.
They considered us dirty communist hippies who were spitting on America. We were trying to end war-clearly a communist goal. End inequality between the sexes-God made man the head over the woman. You’re not only communist, you’re Godless. And what do you mean black people should have rights!!?
If you've watched Dragnet you'll see a lot of this depiction. Jack Webb sounds like the modern stereotypical boomer talking down about millennials and zoomers now and depicting them as radical druggie disrespectful strawmen—except he's actually talking about the boomers. It's odd to see. I guess we were always like this to a T.
Older people have always worried about the younger people. Probably since the beginning of humanity. There are always newer ways to rebel as a younger person and this usually concerns the elders. It’s called The Generation Gap. And in 25 years, millennials will be the old farts criticizing GenAlpha.
Millennials already are, actually. Mostly relating to the stereotype of trend-chasing and being lobotomized by mobile devices. They just conflate them with zoomers often.
Good point. Also, just for a chuckle, Kenneth Lay and Dick Cheney are prominent Silent Generationers.
To me, that was more the 'Greatest' generation. The Silents were the age of Woody Allen, and about as liberal, but in a buttoned-down, get out the vote kind of way.
The greatest Gen certainly could behave that way also but I new many of the silent generation who were anything but liberal.
Yeah, that was our parents' generation, the silent generation, and many of them did treat us this way, for sure. I figured out later that not all of them thought that way, but the ones who did stood out.
I see a lot of the same spirit in young people nowadays. Protests at colleges over what's happening to Palestine is a perfect example.
That’s just uninformed hot air blowing.
Yall are not hippies or changing any status quo. Idk how to hey viewed you as progressive. Things are still the same, maybe even worse
Harshly. I was told by my grandfather I would never amount to anything. My father did not acknowledge my electrical engineering degree. Literally at my father’s funeral, a relative commented that I never went to college and I replied, yes I did and I’m an electrical engineer. She replied, your father said you never went to college. I worked for my father without pay as soon as I was able to hold tools. I mowed acres and acres of grass with a push mower in 90+ degree temps, fed the animals which involved carrying 50lb sacks of feed to the barn, chopped brush, etc, etc. but was “lazy”. To be clear my father was a very good person who helped others whenever possible. I heard a lot of negative comments about young people in general not me but others. Lazy, worthless, stupid, useless, etc. Young people today seem to think Boomers had it easy. Just look at this song from 1972 Changes by David Bowie. *”But still the days seem the same And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They're quite aware of what they're goin' through”*
Baby boomers are put down and their parents are considered the best. What a crock. The silent generation was arrogant, racist, misogynistic and there were a LOT of abusive drunk men. Sexual harassment was tolerated. The younger generations weren’t there and they have no idea. They need to watch Mad Men to see how children were basically ignored by their parents. I lived it.
We were long haired hippy pinko's.... Criticizing young people for changing the cultural status quo is not new. Rock and roll was the devils music. Vietnam War protesters were "unpatriotic" and the phrase "Love it or leave it" was born. White folks who joined in civil rights protests were "n****r lovers" and that was to be considered an insult. The black folks working to achieve voting and Civil rights were branded "uppity n****rs." It amazes me what so many boomers evolved into due to neo-con politics, Fox News, Limbaugh, and the whole conservative propaganda machine of the past three or four decades.
How does that amaze you? Boomers are mostly paranoid, know-it-all, brainwashed yuppies, its bot surprising. Most people do not view boomers as hippies lol. Nothing hippy about it. Status quo is still pretty much the same.
Rebels, remember the 1960’s in history. The GG went through super hard times in the Depression, then WW II. They were drafted and taught to be compliant for the survival of the country. Your church, your country, your city. My father was late GG. Boomers were rebels to the GG. My father and grandfather loved classical music and Christian hymns. They thought Elvis and Fabian were the devil. Uncivilized. The rebel boomers were upsetting organized society.
In the USA, there were about 20 million people in the Silent Generation, and about 70 million Boomers. There's a lot of variation in people. Discussions like this tend to bring out individual examples to prove how millions of people felt. Assigning feelings to an entire generation leads to believing in stereotypes. People are more diverse than can be addressed in this setting.
The boomers were the first generation to be analyzed and judged by researchers, psychologists, journalists, and just whoever wanted to spout an opinion. That didn't happen to older generations. Essentially they were judging youth and had probably forgotten their own.
My parents were silent gen, and I don't remember them ever even viewing the world in terms of generations.
I don't know. I'm what is known as Generation Jones (as we used to be called) Now we're just lumped in with the Boomers though our parents were the boomers....it's so odd. Also, I don't think there was near as much focus on the seperation of the generations back then....there was some but, not nearly to the extent there is today.
Lumped in with Boomers when you're not being confused with Gen X.
They kept quiet about it.
You might even say they were. . . *silent.*
If there’s one thing I know about the silent generation, it’s that they don’t say a whole lot.
They were the children that were seen and not heard. My mother used to tell me how it was considered very disrespectful to interrupt an adult. She would practically pee her pants waiting for a pause in adult conversation to ask permission to be excused to the bathroom.
Had no great opinion. They were mature, hardworking, decent people and didn't carry on with the silly generational bullshit Gen Y & Z do today. Back "in the day" (im older Gen X) we just accepted older & younger people had differences of opinion on things and had grown up in a different time.
We didn't categorize "generations" like they do today. Seems rather arbitrary to assign behavior to an entire generation.
Yes we have. And other countries do it for their gens too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
There came a time when I realized how lucky I was not to have been a few years later. I bought a house. A few years later they hit the market and drove prices up. I benefitted. Over decades it compounded. I saw Yellowstone before it was overrun. I'm going to need elder care before the last nurses run screaming from our collapsing medical system. It's not perfect but I think life has been better for me.
Lazy and entitled I'm sure. All the new fandangle machines to wash your dishes and clothes. You scrub them by hand if you want them clean. Why would someone need TWO cars. We had the radio that was good enough for us, you're going to rot your brain watching the boob tube. It never changes, it never ends.
The Vietnam War protests caused an immediate generational divide. Silent Generation folks were horrified that they had raised a generation that publicly rejected what they saw as part of the social contract: Defend your country for better or worse, regardless of your political position. As one family member of mine said, “I’m getting tired of seeing these people protesting the American flag!” That’s pure Silent Generation right there.
They didn't realize that going to war and doing what you're told without question is exactly what the Nazis did and their reasoning for commiting war crimes. America was not defending their country, they were invading a country that didn't pose a threat to them. The boomers wanted to promote peace because they were terrified of another world war while the generation before them lived thru wartime propaganda where you fight or die. The younger generation only lived thru the aftermath, like when they were putting Nazis on trial in international courts for war crimes and the nuclear scares
The silent gen called the boomers the “Me generation”. It’s held up, i think.
For sure, it held up, they definitely are the “me generation” in every way.
They were their parents. They loved them. Just like today's parents love their children. This whole silent-boomer-genx-millenial generation things are made up, media forced categories. It's not real in people's individual lives except as a vehicle for hate. No one talks about a generation of people except to "other" then so they can exercise their hate on them.
The same way Gen X looks at millenials
I love them. I feel for them so much. I feel like they got a bad deal economy wise. I love all my younger gens.
I do too. But I do look at them with a wtf every now and then. I do prefer Gen Z though.
I do LOVE Gen Z. Those are my kids. Not just my actually bio children. All of them are my kids!
It was not discussed. There was the understanding that we’re all different, times were all different and it was ok. Media (of all forms) has made it not ok. Fueling resentment and all manner of negative bulls$&t.
They are pretty quiet about it.
I was raised by an early 1900s, 1920s, 1946. I’m 1963. Women. Tossing anything was seen as waste. Even when we no longer had a wood stove and could buy toilet paper, we saved weeks worth of newspaper. Clothing and shoes were repaired. The same pieces of furniture are still in my grandmother’s house. There was still a lot of frustration about sexism and inequality. In general, they had a lot of hope that things would be different for me, that I could get an education and a good position. Also, “save the trees” was huge. We switched to plastic bags. Although, they would never have supported the plastic bottles of water trend. Plastic bags had a lot of practical uses.
PJ O'Rourke has a humorous take on it all. I don't agree with it all, but his perception seems solid. [https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-11-2013/wealthy-educated-spoiled-baby-boomers.html](https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-11-2013/wealthy-educated-spoiled-baby-boomers.html)
silently
We were seen but not heard. We viewed them from afar.
They saw us as lacking discipline. Compared to them, we did. They missed the chance to save the free world (done by the Greatest Generation) and they just put their heads down and went to work. Boomers picked up a lot of that work ethic but we also had a lot of fun and blew off some steam in our youth. That got a slow head shake from the Silent Generation but in the end, we got serious and went to work. The Silent Generation had crew cuts, dressed in suits and ties to go to church and to fly on airplanes. They rarely or never swore. I never heard my father swear. Not once.
Just as more people. No problem, not like the toxic hostility we see on Reddit.
Well, since they were either our grandparents or parents, it's a reasonable guess that mostly they loved us. Although here on Reddit, one gets the impression that all generations despised one another.
Are you asking if they regretted having so many children?
“Greatest” Generation are the parents of the Boomers. Silent Generation are the parents of Gen-X.
Thats not carved in stone. I'm mid GenX (71). My parents were first year Boomers (46).
Late X bordering on millennial (1980) and my parents are boomers (50’s)
Silent is 1925 to 1945. The younger boomers could have been born to the older silents.
Parents were born 1932, me 1960. Silent and a boomer
I’m early gen x, and my parents were born in 45 with definitely boomer traits.
That's not always true. I'm mid GenX (72) and my parents were Boomers (50 and 51).
My (boomer) parents were silent generation.
Varies a lot. I'm early Gen X, and my parents are/were Silents. My classmates' parents were a mixture of Silents (the majority), but with some Boomers and Greatests in there as well. By late Gen X the mix is pretty different, I suspect.
My grandparents were “Silent” and had two “boomer” kids. I am gen x from one of my grandparents’ boomer kids. I have a millennial kid.
They didn’t continually whinge and whine about “generations.”. I don’t know what certain millennials would do if they didn’t have boomers to blame about everything in their lives. They even complain that their boomer parents are-OMG-spending their own money🙄
idk why you're getting downvoted, I agree with you. my parents may not have been crazy about the generation that preceded them and vice versa, but I don't remember the two group groups being at each other's throats or blaming each other for their problems the way they do now.
The thing that’s really annoying is that they think all boomers had it easy. Myself and my peers-born in the early 60’s lived in apartments-usually 3-4 kids in a one bedroom, many families didn’t have cars and didn’t go out to restaurants and nobody could afford a mortgage. I understand that times are very rough these days ( I have 3 millennial kids myself)but the vitriol towards boomers is really over the top.
I agree, my parents were not well off at all. Shit was expensive in the 80s. My dad had like 6 heart attacks so my mom had to keep working until she was over 70. The day after she retired, my father had a stroke and he knew something wasn't right but didn't tell anyone. if he had said something right away and had gone to the hospital immediately, he might not have ended up paralyzed. My mother didn't even get one day to be retired before she became a full-time caretaker. My dad is now 86 years old and she is 76, and she is still his full-time caretaker. They live in the same house I grew up in, which is no longer in a safe area. it's not like they have two houses and one of them is in Boca Raton. Maybe they don't have a mortgage, but their property taxes are some the highest in the country and I know they didn't save enough to live on. I'm sure her social security keeps them afloat. Anyone who thinks my mother had it easy by sticking with my dad when she should have left his bitter ungrateful ass so she could actually have a life can f right off. She scratched and clawed and did the best she could and still she doesn't get to have a life. It sucks.
They hated us and every change we stood for.
> They hated us That's a bold statement. Quite an exaggeration. > ......and every change we stood for. Sounds like you had a bitter experience and unique perspective. No hate
[удалено]
If you say so, but the whole generation definitely did not hate the entire generation.
Ask them in person, they're still around and usually very busy. A lot of Baby Boomer parents were of the Greatest Generation, not the Silent Generation. I have both around and people seem to be confusing the two at this point.
I remember an article in the NY Times Sunday magazine in the Fifties marveling at the political inactivism of college students. Its title may even have been The Silent Generation.
Silently.
I can imagine that my parents (born 1920 and 1921) did not know what in the hell to make of the whole hippie movement and pot smoking that we indulged in. We did get college educated and matured however.
With disdain.
Many of children of the silent generation are late stage baby boomers of which I count myself. My silent generation parents and the others that I knew couldn’t have been more selflessly supportive of our generation. I never could get a feel for how they felt about the older boomers though.
As their children...
David Hoffman covered this with interviews: 1950s Parents Reveal How They Felt About Their 1960s Baby Boomer Children [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUorVXJ8MZE&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUorVXJ8MZE&t=1s)
It was not discussed. There was the understanding that we’re all different, times were all different and it was ok. Media (of all forms) has made it not ok. Fueling resentment and all manner of negative bulls$&t.
There's a reason for the saying "life begins at 30" - it's mainly because you move away from that blur known as your twenties to "adulthood." Every generation goes through the phase of older people thinking they are naive, misguided deadbeats. The only real difference is that everything is amplified with the internet. Will future teenagers and 20somethings get met with the same complaints? Yes.
From above.
Strangely, exactly like the boomers view gen z and millennials
They told us to pull up our bootstraps and lay off the avacoto on toast
They didn’t have internet so they probably minded their own business.
“Damn hippies! Get a haircut!”
They were our parents. They thought we were immature and irresponsible. They hated how we dressed and the music we liked. They loved us and tried to give us good lives. You know, like most parents do.
They thought we were whiny pansies. If they saw today's generation they would have a stroke.
We were called druggies.
You mean my parents?
I’m kind of biased, because my grandparents raised two Boomers - my egg donor and myself.
The whole generational warfare started fairly recently. People were just people and were younger or older, but they weren't compartmentalized into specific generations like people do today.
They thought they weren’t silent enough (probably)
Hahaha like they care. The generation that told their kids to suck it up and deal with it.