No One Remembers Gen X
No one remembers Gen X. This, unfortunately, is because our existence has been, at least for the most part, simply an extension of our parents. The Baby Boomers. They treated us like mini adults. Gen X have never been slackers despite the title the “Slacker Generation.” We’ve been tools. Run in the store and grab me some Newports. Sit in the driver’s seat until I come out the bank. Stand in the empty parking spot until I come around. The expectations of us were all variations of these boomers thinking that we were their doubles to help handle all of life’s difficulties.
Now that we are older—I wouldn’t say old!—we are expected to do the same things but on two fronts. Handle dad’s smartphone, fix the GPS on the car, reprogram the Alexa they won’t use, talk to the contractor. On the other end, we are solving the problems of our children. We got to go to PTA meetings (which our parents never attended), and we agonize what school our child goes to and the diversity of the school.
Our absence in the generation wars is not because we are slackers or nihilistic, it’s because we are quiet workers. We were latchkey children that had to fend for themselves more than half of the day. We had to meet responsibilities that were far too serious for our age, but we did it even if it was complicated for our little minds. I remember my mother sending me to the bank to deposit $500 worth of change. My book bag was so heavy and I was terrified someone would try to steal the book bag before I reached the bank. I reached. I went home. She sent me because a few years before, I walked to the bank and tried to open an account with all the change and dollars I had—the money was 2-dollar bills and rare dollar coins—so they called my mom and told her to come get the original money. She knew I understood the adult world…enough. So we Gen Xers were set out to be baby adults and we survived, mostly.
I remember when the ice cream guy was also a drug dealer. I remember when there was a serial killer bashing kids on the heads while their parents were at work. Don’t answer the door and never tell anyone on the phone that you are home alone.
So when we get old and crotchety—really old, not the old we are now, I mean Boomer old—talking about pansy youngsters and we sound like the old I walked to school uphill in the snow, it’s mostly about us. It’s about us and how we were adults before we even understood childhood.
Think about the first time you were sent to the store by yourself. Or the first time you were alone for more than half a day. If you’re Gen X, you’re probably thinking nine, ten years old. Remember Home Alone? 1990s. Macaulay Culkin is now 41.
We were not frightened about Macaulay Culkin being left alone, we were intrigued about how he would be enjoying being home alone. Ice cream. Ya filthy bastards. It was a funny movie, not a treatise on child neglect because we knew he could hold his own, alone.
I drove a car at 11. Often. Just down a few blocks to the grocery store. Or just pull it out of the driveway, so they could shovel snow. Oops, I mean, so I could come back and shovel snow. Never once got pulled over.
We were the workhorses. We worked. Now we still work for our parents and our children. Workhorses gets no accolades, no pretty flower garland draped across their necks, no laurels because they are not race horses and show horses. They have one duty—work. That is why Gen X is often forgotten. We make that tablet, the GPS in your car, even the streaming service to play Baby Shark for the millionth time work. Quietly because our parents told us to pretend we weren’t home when someone knocked.
No diss to our parents. They were working hard too. But they would also leave us to fend for ourselves like Lord of the Flies. They would leave us with instructions always, though. So you’re staying home alone with the flu? Don’t answer the door. Take the chicken out at 3PM. Tell people that call, your parent is in the bathroom. And remember to take the Robitussin every four hours. We did all of that, so it’s easy to forget us. We’ve been adults since the Baby Boomers had us.
