Gen-X Flexes
The neglected child comes of age. Hold our beer while we fix some shit.
Xers cannot reasonably expect the political establishment to address, let alone fix, the sobering problems they are to inherit unless they start participating in the nation's political process, and learn to flex their generational muscle.
All of a sudden, Gen-X is front and center. Taking the spotlight. And for once, we’re gonna hog the mic and get some shit off our chests. So sit down, hold on, and shut the fuck up. This is our time, and we are going to set some shit straight.
Most of us never wore pink pussy hats, rage-screamed with others, marched and burned cities in protest, or otherwise engaged in performative acts of resistance when Trump lost last time. We went to work on Wednesday and got shit done.
All these EXPERTS dissecting reality, looking for “insight” about Gen-X and its political leanings. It’s so over-thought, every symptom a cause and every reaction a correlation. There’s about 76+ million exact reasons why this thing turned out like it did. But there’s a unifying theme flashing like my check-liver light after a 3-day bender. Freedom. No complex political science reason. Just Freedom. That’s it.
One post-election comment hit the nail on the head: “We grew up not caring about Boy George wearing a dress. Who you slept with. What color you are. And then the whole progressive machinery spent the last decade calling us racist, sexist Nazis. … Enough is enough.”
Xers cannot reasonably expect the political establishment to address, let alone fix, the sobering problems they are to inherit unless they start participating in the nation's political process, and learn to flex their generational muscle.
I read an Atlantic piece today from August 1999 written by a dead guy. I mean, he was alive when he wrote it, and this dude lived a life beyond. He died in a hiking accident in Spain, where he lived. After sailing the world for five years with his wife on a small catamaran. He passed in 2020 - RIP Ted Halstead.
But his piece foretold the future. Fingering the pulse of Gen-X, he diagnosed the disease. Boomers kited a check in the 80’s and Gen-X just cashed it. And no surprise here, it bounced. Those mutherfuckers, it never ends with their control.
I beseech you to read this article - it’s a free trial you can cancel. But this guy really should not have died so young.
Gen-X also reported receiving more sexual touching, rape, and physical abuse than any other generation.
What is it about this generation that drives the other cohorts crazy? Our survival instinct, crafted in the chaos of compromised childhoods, surfaces in moments of dire need. Apparently, American is in dire need. Of much. We specialize in breaking shit down. Because we all have been there and suffered silently. No more.
Graphs are useful to paint colorful pictures of large groups. The three here paint loss for some and victory for others. The consistency of all of them is striking and validating. Of course, overlap is inevitable but accountable. Most of us rubes can decipher pictographs and color-grams. Geography. Geometry. It’s all math, right?
When it comes to offensive behaviour, nothing can come close to our upbringing. At all. Our parents cussed us out! Our friends parents swore at us. Teachers labeled, sorted, and ridiculed us. Coaches called us ladies for not climbing a rope and pussies for everything else. Fag was a word we used to love or hate.
Literally, every mom I knew yelled the words “You little shit, get your ass over here before I beat it til tomorrow. Each household tool in hand was wielded with exacting precision. Denied therapy was reverse psychology. Gen-X was created.
Every parent had implicit approval to whack a kid upside the head if they “fucked around” as dads put it. Teachers and principals too. The call to the dad was inherent, and initiated the second line of punishment. I raised the issue of double-jeopardy once, and got beat twice as hard. For being a smartass. Any more issues?
Our middle school teachers customized swat paddles to inflict maximum punishment with minimal effort. They named them for God’s sake, and utilized a system of chutes and ladders of appreciation and discipline. We, as children and teenagers, navigated those waters of institutional abuse. But there was more to us.
In examining the frequency of each ACE by generation, we found several significant differences between the generations for all ACEs with the exception of having lived with someone who had alcohol dependency (Table 2). Gen-X, millennials, and Gen-Z all experienced more household depression, drug use, incarceration, parental divorce, and emotional abuse than did baby boomers. Millennials and Gen-Z reported more household depression, incarceration, parental divorce, and emotional abuse than Gen-X. Millennials and Gen-X reported more interparental violence and sexual abuse than Gen-Z or baby boomers, with both reporting higher proportions of being forced to touch an adult sexually. Gen-X also reported receiving more sexual touching, rape, and physical abuse than any other generation.
Yeah, there’s all that swirling around this cycle. We got fucked; literally, figuratively, financially, physically, mentally, spiritually, and in every other way. Yeah, I get the other generations - we saved the world! No shit, we got it grandpa. Boomers made us equal! Not even close, selfish fucks. YZ Millennial - strap in.
They let us smoke on the quad in high school. And then attempted to exert some fashion of authority on us. Like fuck that. We ditched to get high. Then we got high and bored, and then went to class high. And now we vote.
Check out my Gen-X Section on Substack. It’s a thing. We are now the force. What the hell, here we go!
Love you all,
Ric
