Labels -- not lifestyles -- define Generation X
Campus Times
October 18, 1996
by Melissa A. Collett
Photography Editor
Instead of being born in the year of an animal, as in many Asian cultures,
we Americans are born into "generations." So who fits into a generation?
Does anyone ever get left out? What if you were born in an off year? Where
do generations begin and end? How do you know if you fit into a generation?
What if one day someone tells you, "Sorry, you don't belong in our
generation?"
If you did not practice free love and take drugs in the '60s, does that
mean you do not belong in the generation that came of age with those activities?
A label is a horrible thing, no matter what it is or who gives it to you.
Is your name not enough of a label that you need to be called a nerd, a
druggie, a negro or white trash? Especially having "X" as a label.
Would you rather be called a momma's boy or a product of Generation X?
Generation X. What is "X?" Where did it come from, and why does
my generation have to have to be labeled "X?" Questions like these
make me mad. I wanted to know-what does "X" represent? Why do
we not have a real name for our generation?
Generation X is the name we were given because there was no other name to
describe our generation. Things are too complicated to have a label.
Whoever the person is who named our generation might have been more on target
than he realized.
Our generation holds no label, and because of this, every person fits
into it. No person in our generation can be told, "Sorry, you were
born in the late '90s, you do not belong in our generation."
We are diverse in cultures, ethnicity and schooling. We have grown up not
knowing what it was like to go to segregated schools or have our country
fight in a major war.
Our parents, the Baby Boom generation, rebelled against society during the
Vietnam War and fought for a freedom we take advantage of. The wars we fight
are mainly on the streets, in school and at home. Most of our parents are
divorced, and their children were left home alone after school watching
"Scooby-Doo" and re-runs of "Three's Company."
Many people feel our generation is the least disciplined. How were our parents
going to discipline us after they themselves rebelled against society? In
realizing they could not change the world, they tried to give us every opportunity
to try ourselves. All they could do was grow up themselves and try to provide
a better world for their children, just like their parents did for them.
We are the products of all the generations before us. We did not choose
the society in which we would be brought up. We are all individuals, and
our diversity brings us together to make this generation-Generation X, the
generation without a label. I want my children to know that this is the
society in which I grew up, the society that shaped me.
While my parents and grandparents lived through the Civil Rights movement,
we have lived through the Los Angeles riots, Oklahoma City bombing and the
falling of the Berlin Wall.
Generation X has more to it than anyone ever thought. Many Generation Xers
are first-generation college students. We can talk to people all over the
world through our fingers on the Internet. We are more technologically advanced
than all the generations before us, and we will soon witness the turn of
a century. We are all living our lives the only way we know how. We learn
the mistakes of the past and we will keep going to try to make it better
for our children.
Generation X? Not really, but I would rather be known by that than some
label that does not apply to our generation as a whole.
Melissa A. Collett, a senior journalism major, is photography editor
of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at collettm@ulvacs.ulaverne.edu.