Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree with OP. People used to get masters and other advanced degrees while working. Now your average 30 year old has student loan debt the size of a mortgage and they don't even know what kid of a job they'll be able to get. Plus people are putting off starting families until ridicilously late (I know I'll get flamed for this, but the science supports it). Is it really any wonder we have more and more kids with special needs.

During the Great Depression, people delayed marriage and childbearing well into their 30's. There was no surge of special needs children.

Yeah, also not buying the first PP. My grandmas started having babies in their early 20s, but kept having them well into their 40s. Both grandmas had young babies when their first born kids had babies of their own, and this seemed the norm. No special needs in my family history. Birth control wasn't so great until recently, so lots of women having babies well past when they wanted to.

Gen Y here. All the trashy reality t.v.

I hear you OP. I have a young Gen-Y friend (I'm Gen-X) and she went to GW (paid in full by parents) and got a degree in anthropology. First off, my parents would've laughed my ass out of the house, and secondly, been pissed, because she then became an admin.

She doesn't seem to think a thing of it. She even told me that her parents were more concerned about her getting into college than what she majored in. (??) I can't imagine my parents having that opinion at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree with OP. People used to get masters and other advanced degrees while working. Now your average 30 year old has student loan debt the size of a mortgage and they don't even know what kid of a job they'll be able to get. Plus people are putting off starting families until ridicilously late (I know I'll get flamed for this, but the science supports it). Is it really any wonder we have more and more kids with special needs.

During the Great Depression, people delayed marriage and childbearing well into their 30's. There was no surge of special needs children.

A study just came out that said that children born of older moms are actually healthier.

OT question - are kids being born today still considered Millenials? If not, what're they called?

Gen Y here...late 20's. OP I could not agree with you more about the whole degree thing. It seems as though most of my friends from high school are just entering the real world. I am not talking about lawyers and doctors, but people who have 5 degrees for teaching/ education, finance, etc.

Why on earth do they feel the need to go to college for 8 years...and the saddest part is alot of them the parents are still supporting them while they live at home or their parents pay for their apartments.

I also think that our generation feels entitled to having what they want all the time. For example, when I was interviewing for jobs the last year of college and companies would put us up in hotels, I remember hearing kids complain bc one company put them up in the Ritz, but this time it was only the Hyatt in DC and how they did not want to work for a company that put them up in the Hyatt. Really!?!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gen X here -- our worst quality is jaded cynicism. We have never been optimists. Our parents got bad, damaging, angry 80s divorces. We had little to no supervision so we made every mistake. We graduated into a recession. And then we watched the economy get better and saw new college graduates get hired at the salary that we worked 3 to 5 years to attain. I feel like I deserve my jaded outlook, but it is not my best quality.

ITA! No generation can match our cynicism.

Yep. And to the PP who mentioned that Gen X wasn't old enough to be as "important" as the Boomers, *snort*. The Boomers have always thought they were more important than any other generation, regardless of how old they are. They are the reason that Gen X is jaded and they are the reason we'll (Gen X, that is) go down in flames to ensure our children Millenials don't have to put up with the same shit we 've put up with.

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree with OP. People used to get masters and other advanced degrees while working. Now your average 30 year old has student loan debt the size of a mortgage and they don't even know what kid of a job they'll be able to get. Plus people are putting off starting families until ridicilously late (I know I'll get flamed for this, but the science supports it). Is it really any wonder we have more and more kids with special needs.

During the Great Depression, people delayed marriage and childbearing well into their 30's. There was no surge of special needs children.

Anonymous wrote:Gen X here -- our worst quality is jaded cynicism. We have never been optimists. Our parents got bad, damaging, angry 80s divorces. We had little to no supervision so we made every mistake. We graduated into a recession. And then we watched the economy get better and saw new college graduates get hired at the salary that we worked 3 to 5 years to attain. I feel like I deserve my jaded outlook, but it is not my best quality.

ITA! No generation can match our cynicism.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am almost 33 (born in 1979). What generation am I in?

Tail end of Gen X.

Thanks! I think I relate more to the Gen. X than Y. I think our best and worst quality may be a strong sense of independence/self-reliance. This stems partly from watching our parents' miserable divorces and having a lot of unsupervised time, but it also stems from the economic hurdles we have faced. Independence/self reliance is great in a lot of ways, but it is also isolating and can manifest a bit narcissist.

Anonymous wrote:Gen X. Our "worst quality" is that we're so desperately outnumbered by Boomers and Ys that no one cares what we think.

this.

we don't bitch loudly enough to warrant concern over the ENTITLED Gen Y'ers. That sums them up in one word.

And we aren't old enough to be as important as boomers. so we are just there.

Anonymous wrote:I'm 33, so I guess genX? Once I was struggling to enter a store with a double stroller, and when I finally was able to reach past the stroller to hold the door open, a young man waltzes through as though I was holding the door for him. And he didn't even say thank-you! If it had been an 80 yo with a walker, he would have held the door for a lady with 2 babies. A healthy dose of chivalry can be sexy, and I rarely see it in my generation. In my experience, the Greatest Generation deserves its name.

You're pretty much the very LAST year of X, so you're more of a Y. Rude dude was the same gen as you.

THough this thread is fun, think these generalizations people make are really silly. Most people in this area and demographic live in a bubble and haven't the slightest clue what the rest of their generation is doing or facing.

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, the Greatest Generation deserves its name.

Boomer here. Our parents were the Greatest Generation. While certainly great is many respects they had their problems too. Many had a "just suck it up" mentality that they passed onto their kids.

I'm 33, so I guess genX? Once I was struggling to enter a store with a double stroller, and when I finally was able to reach past the stroller to hold the door open, a young man waltzes through as though I was holding the door for him. And he didn't even say thank-you! If it had been an 80 yo with a walker, he would have held the door for a lady with 2 babies. A healthy dose of chivalry can be sexy, and I rarely see it in my generation. In my experience, the Greatest Generation deserves its name.