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I'm early GenX (born 1965). I feel more cultural bond with people 15 years younger than I do with people 5 years older (Baby Boomers). The divide is really powe

by beat 11y ago

I'm early GenX (born 1965). I feel more cultural bond with people 15 years younger than I do with people 5 years older (Baby Boomers). The divide is really powerful for me. My daughter is 21 and very politically active. She feels the Millennial line strongly as well. She once recounted a conversation she had about careers and job-hunting with her Boomer grandfather. He started giving advice, but realized he'd only ever done two job interviews in his life, from college to retirement. He had no clue what life was like for her generation.

talmand 11y ago
It is amazing to watch when a member of an older generation comes to the sudden realization that the generations after them have had such a different experience. Especially when there's been big changes in what amounts to the normal aspects of everybody's day-to-day life. I'm just doing my best to keep an open mind as my own children grow up; that their life experience will be vastly different. An easy one is the thought that they are growing up with cheap, fast computers with FIOS as a high-speed connection to a feature-rich Internet. None of which I had for easily half my lifetime. I could bore them to tears with the vast differences between our childhoods that I can easily identify and I can't imagine the differences I haven't recognized yet.
- beat 11y ago
  What's kind of interesting is how things can be the same, too. My daughter has committed herself to a career in food. She's not going to college. Instead, she managed to get a job as a prep and line cook under an internationally-known chef, mostly through luck. This job will teach her if she can deal with being a line cook. If she can hack that, she'll do this for a few years, then maybe head toward having her own restaurant, or something else. This course is not fundamentally different than the course of chefs 50 years ago. What is different is that she can learn so much over the internet - about what chefs are doing elsewhere, about new techniques. Meanwhile, she's developing a style of her own, based on 19th century techniques she learns from old cookbooks and the internet - ways of cuisine so old they feel new today.
- Dewie3 11y ago
  > I'm just doing my best to keep an open mind as my own children grow up; that their life experience will be vastly different. An easy one is the thought that they are growing up with cheap, fast computers with FIOS as a high-speed connection to a feature-rich Internet. None of which I had for easily half my lifetime. I could bore them to tears with the vast differences between our childhoods that I can easily identify and I can't imagine the differences I haven't recognized yet. And the difference you do see seems to only be how things are more easy/convenient for them.
  - talmand 11y ago
    I don't see that necessarily just as more easy or convenient things for them, I also see them as different and new expectations and challenges that they will face that I did not.

by beat 11y ago

talmand 11y ago

It is amazing to watch when a member of an older generation comes to the sudden realization that the generations after them have had such a different experience. Especially when there's been big changes in what amounts to the normal aspects of everybody's day-to-day life. I'm just doing my best to keep an open mind as my own children grow up; that their life experience will be vastly different. An easy one is the thought that they are growing up with cheap, fast computers with FIOS as a high-speed connection to a feature-rich Internet. None of which I had for easily half my lifetime. I could bore them to tears with the vast differences between our childhoods that I can easily identify and I can't imagine the differences I haven't recognized yet.

beat 11y ago
What's kind of interesting is how things can be the same, too. My daughter has committed herself to a career in food. She's not going to college. Instead, she managed to get a job as a prep and line cook under an internationally-known chef, mostly through luck. This job will teach her if she can deal with being a line cook. If she can hack that, she'll do this for a few years, then maybe head toward having her own restaurant, or something else. This course is not fundamentally different than the course of chefs 50 years ago. What is different is that she can learn so much over the internet - about what chefs are doing elsewhere, about new techniques. Meanwhile, she's developing a style of her own, based on 19th century techniques she learns from old cookbooks and the internet - ways of cuisine so old they feel new today.
Dewie3 11y ago
> I'm just doing my best to keep an open mind as my own children grow up; that their life experience will be vastly different. An easy one is the thought that they are growing up with cheap, fast computers with FIOS as a high-speed connection to a feature-rich Internet. None of which I had for easily half my lifetime. I could bore them to tears with the vast differences between our childhoods that I can easily identify and I can't imagine the differences I haven't recognized yet. And the difference you do see seems to only be how things are more easy/convenient for them.
- talmand 11y ago
  I don't see that necessarily just as more easy or convenient things for them, I also see them as different and new expectations and challenges that they will face that I did not.