I find now in my 50's I sound more and more like my grandmother who constantly referred to her generation in comparison to mine.
There were statements like "back in my day" and "you young people today."
It is true as I look back that from her perspective, being born in the early 1900's, my generation must have sounded much like a spoiled brat pouting because the microwave wasn't heating up our food fast enough. That's right. We could pop popcorn in two minutes even though an old timey metal popper hung by our fireplace to pop it the way they did many years before over a fire.
She had been a child in a world of horse-drawn wagons and outhouses. She and her siblings grew up in the Great Depression. A penny was as great as a quarter in my day, maybe even a dollar now. She had no indoor heating and cooling, no washer and dryer, no refrigerator. My grandfather rode his horse to her house to court her. I can only imagine how many loaded thoughts went through her mind as all the new inventions brought about a group of impatient young people who could rent a movie for the VCR rather than on a rare occasion travel to a picture show.
My grandmother's life witnessed an evolution of change due to modern inventions. These were inventions my generation thought little about. Every kitchen had an electric stove and oven. Both cold and hot water was pumped into our house.
I didn’t think much about her comments on how the world had changed until lately, when I look at the changes that continue to occur. It is not so much my Grandmother’s world of mechanical inventions, but our world of technological inventions that have changed education, medicine, food production, transportation, communication, and the list goes on.
We now have these generations named. How were they named? I guess some writers came up with a term that caught on and other writers went with it. Currently it runs like this:
•The Silent Generation: Born 1928-1945 (78-95 years old)
•Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964 (59-77 years old)
•Gen X: Born 1965-1980 (43-58 years old)
•Millennials: Born 1981-1996 (27-42 years old)
• Gen Z: Born 1997-2012 (11-26 years old)
•Gen Alpha: Born early 2010’s-2025 (0-about 10 years old).
There is a ton of information to be found on these newer generations. Not so much the silent generation or the one before that. Why? It is likely because there was no social media, selfies, emails, or even cable television to care. They simply existed and moved from day to day, patiently building out a life. There was nothing fast, nothing easy, and nothing given.
These younger generations will make comments like, "I'm a millennial. I'm sorry, I was on my phone." Or "Gen Z is totally changing our fashion." My research pointed out the next generation will be Generation Glass because they will be the first born to have not witnessed life before the pandemic. And yet there was the Spanish Flu Pandemic in 1918.
Each generation will bring with it their own twists and turns as mankind unfolds. And as I watch my children and grandchildren navigate the days, I will fondly think back on "back in my day." And I will enjoy a new appreciation for those memories Grandma shared with us often.
