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whitetiger
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16 Jun 2010, 8:11 pm

I'm a gen X'er. I think most of the stereotypes of X'ers do apply to me.. a little lost in life, without much direction, etc. We were kids during divorce explosions and victims of selfish boomers, for the most part. So, people were determined to give the next generation a sense of purpose. They really seem to have that.

Millenials volunteer at a rate of 80%, whereas X'ers volunteered at 25%. Millenials are better with teamwork and cooperation, having had the new "collabarative learning" drilled into them throughout school.

However, people are concerned that millenials are unable and uninterested in intellectual debate, as they despise making waves and not getting along with others. How are they to sort out varied opinions and incorporate them into expanded views without debate?

Also, millenials are believed to be feedback hounds. They were continually given feedback (usually positive) in school, so when they enter the workplace, they do not know what to think when no one is patting them on the head or giving positive feedback. X'ers are used to this. We were pretty much ignored, not constantly validated, in school, so a 6 month or yearly eval has been enough for us.

Another concern is that the majority are not risk-takers. Everything has been made "safe" for them. Playgrounds were re-designed to be safer and parents didn't usually let kids just go out to play without supervision, etc. There may also be other reasons for this phenomenon.

My questions are these: Do you agree or disagree with the above statements BASED ON YOUR OBSERVATIONS of NEUROTYPICALS. How are you the same or different as others of your generation as a spectrum individual?


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16 Jun 2010, 8:23 pm

whitetiger wrote:
Millenials volunteer at a rate of 80%, whereas X'ers volunteered at 25%.


Theory; Decent jobs are harder to get, so more kids are willing to do extra stuff to get an edge.


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16 Jun 2010, 10:33 pm

As an X-er myself, with the added bonus of having grown up in a classic-ly defined alcoholic home (both parents drank!), but in that rare group of X-er's with still married parents, what I understand of millenials comes from the rare times that I come across a news account of them. And then read it. Anyway, your description of NT millenials jibes with what I understand.

They are probably more patient with non-NT people than X-er's are; otherwise, I agree with the statements you made. I do think us X-er's, AS or not, are more prepared for the "real world" than millenials - we are tougher, I think.


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17 Jun 2010, 3:07 am

I am on the edge of Gen X, probably at the last 2 years... I am not sure what it means to me though. I had nearly reached 20 by the time the big technological breakthroughs came through (ie internet and cellphones),

I grew up talking on landline phones and the computers at my school were black screened with green writing.

I remember school as being a pretty tough place where me and all my peers were left to our devices and told to "harden up" etc...

But at the same time a lot of changes were made to schools in the years after I left,. I think people in their early 30s were the last people to grow up in this "Gen X" like environment.


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Robdemanc
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17 Jun 2010, 4:01 am

Hi - I am not sure what an X'er or millenial is? I am assuming millenial is someone born during the last 10 years? And X'r someone born since 1970? Is that correct?



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17 Jun 2010, 4:04 am

A good article about UPS training. Their good system stopped working, handouts, lectures, the blackboard, did not reach Millenials.

They could not learn it here and apply it there, so the course was redone as hands on. Millenials learn by doing.

Everyone up to X-ers could apply classroom work to the real world. In school we learned, and in better schools learned how to learn, for they do teach the past. Millienials have to be trained for each new situation.

X-ers were told to use a three point method to get in the truck, hand rail, step, and ground. Spread the weight in motion, reduce the stress. X-ers did it right, Millenials only put their hand on the rail.

They built one with sensors, to check the weight distrabution, Millienals only touched the rail. After they were trained by watching the meters, they did it right.

Something is going on, they do not learn in abstract, fail to transfer knowledge, and the general view was, just like children.

As a pre Boomer I am looking at a long line that functioned about he same,

I watched the Boomers from the oldest child through two waves of younger siblings, they did have to force a place to fit in for it was a huge generation.

While the pill delayed children, and abortion thinned them out, Boomers did have too much money, and hence did not start businesses like prior generations. Through in Food Stamps and the X-ers lived through prosperous times, so were faced with less demand, and the Boomers taking all jobs.

X-ers could work at the coffee shop. I found them more questioning and intellectual than their Yuppi Scum parents.

For many, Mom and Dad both married three times, so there were sibs, half-sibs, half-sibs by marriage, all with related cousins, which lead to a study of where is the incest line?

At least they asked questions.

Millenials seem to be the one pet child. They were put in pet school, protected, and kept children. They had play dates. It was all scripted.

Where X-ers had Freddie Kruger, Millienials were told everyone was Freddie, and they should stay in the house. They were given TV, Video games, and security. They were raised in a box with only approved interaction allowed.

This seems to continue with still not being able to play without supervision. Becoming an adult takes more than years. They are going into life with the same group approved path as the rest. They volunteer at the Animal Shelter, the Aquarium, the approved list.

A hundred years ago Horaitio Alger books said, the young should look at what they old are doing, making money, for the path up for a young person was to understand how the business worked, why it made money, and who owned it. Then starting as the always cheerful office boy, do you job well, be honest, and it will be noticed.

Yuppi Scum Boomers went with an education to start with, spy on your employer, then sell them out, for it is all about ME!

X-ers did seem to maintain some humanity, They did have to stick together for they were Boomer Prey.

Not everyone is a serial killer, child molester, all men are not rapists, yet it was pushed by a bored media of Yuppi Scum.

This social fear seems to have lead to raising overprotected children.

The other book that speaks to this trend is, The Time Machine, The young were raised in isolated groups without stress, and became eight year old adults. Without a reason to develop, they stayed childlike. Some must have continued developing, the Morlocks came from somewhere. Due to it's time the book skipped sex and children, but the Eloi seemed to have no sex drive.

Millenials will need continued social support threough life, for becoming adults is like language, if you do not get it at the right time, you never get it. We could raise them in Parks, and have Eloi in a few generations.

While they may show a sense of purpose, I think it misguided, they were force fed equality, they say the words, but lack the thoughts. They were raised into a never never land that does not exist, where in the real world, they are just food.

As sorry as us old folks were, risk taking, investment, work, and hiring one to five people, made up most of the economy and employment. The Yuppis worked on selling it abroad, the X-ers just got by, a low earning generation, and Millenials no one wants. Like Hitler Youth, Young Socialist Pioneers, or Christians raised on Bible study, they are looking for enemies to denounce. Training them to work is like deprograming a cult member.

Of the lot I like the X-ers, they lack the Yuppi Greed is Good, and the Political Correct over reality of the Millenials.

We really old folks did things, better a small business than a job. For that you have to think, put all the parts together, and it never lasts. Even back then five years was a long time, tech changes, good ideas became chains, and you had to reinvent yourself.

While most went to work for someone else, I continued the tradition. Boomers made money, and spent it on coke. They ran up massive debt, it all crashed, and having looted the world, now they want another chance, Being Yuppi Scum, they are looking for my next idea to sell to someone else. They missed out on how to develop a long term business, and morality.

I am still in the world of small business is the most productive. It is like providing for your family, A few people providing a service is the backbone of the economy. No IPO, no selling it, no fire everyone and move to Mexico, Just do one thing well and take care of your customers.

I would not hire a Boomer, they are all land sharks. I would not hire a Millenial, they are forever children. X-ers I have some hope for. They did grow up, but in a sea filled with sharks. They would see a long term oppertunity and take it.

Someone should do something for the Boomer generation surely trashed this place.



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17 Jun 2010, 9:50 am

I'm the extreme tail end of gen x (30 by August), raised oddly enough by pre-boomers (my dad is nearly 70), and I see the same thing others are seeing. A lot of people just barely younger than me seem to have a pretty big sense of entitlement. And the way they grew up seems to mirror institutions in some creepy respects -- everything scheduled, little freedom. Must be hard for them to make decisions.

One hope I have though is based on what I've noticed about class -- the more money the worse it gets. Kids I saw raised by more poor and working class parents still had the freedom to run around and play more, and to make their own decisions. (On average.) So it's not like the entire generation had the exact same upbringing as each other. Also there are only trends in a generation, actual personality variation accounts for a lot too.


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17 Jun 2010, 12:30 pm

Robdemanc wrote:
Hi - I am not sure what an X'er or millenial is? I am assuming millenial is someone born during the last 10 years? And X'r someone born since 1970? Is that correct?


A person can decide which generation they belong to when they are born near to the start date or the end date, i.e., my brother, who was born in '61, considers himself a Baby Boomer. It all depends on which gen a person feels they relate to better.

In other words, the dates are not set in stone, as they overlap, and you'll often find different variations when searching for the dates, especially for younger generations that haven't been fully defined yet. The original start date for Gen Y was 1974 and for Gen X it was 1965.

Baby Boomers - 1946 - 1965
Gen X (Baby Busters, 13th Generation) - 1961 - 1981
Gen Y (Millennials, Echo Boomers) - 1982 - 2001 (but a person born in the mid '70's could also identify as "Y")
Gen Z (iGen, Internet Generation) - mid-late '90's - 2010

I'm Gen X ('67). As far as volunteer work goes, I've done a lot of it. So have many of my peers I've known. My three Gen Y nephews and niece (mid 20's) haven't done any volunteer work, except that I can't be positive regarding my niece, she might have done some I'm not aware of. The only volunteer work my oldest nephew has done was forced on him by the Law (incomplete). I know that's only 3 examples of Gen Y, so it doesn't mean anything, really.



Last edited by MechAnime on 17 Jun 2010, 4:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

marshall
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17 Jun 2010, 1:35 pm

I consider myself Gen-X even though I'm young enough to be Gen-Y. I think the date your parents were born is more important than the date you were born. Both my parent's were born in '48 so I consider them late Boomers.

I notice that kids belonging to Gen-Y seem to have their time micro-managed too much. A lot of Gen-X parents are almost too involved in their childrens' lives. The parents act like they are their childrens' buddies/partners. Also, Gen-Y seems to be the first generation where there are people in the younger generation who are more conservative than people in the older generation. It's very weird to me.



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17 Jun 2010, 2:58 pm

marshall wrote:
I consider myself Gen-X even though I'm young enough to be Gen-Y. I think the date your parents were born is more important than the date you were born. Both my parent's were born in '48 so I consider them late Boomers.


My parents (early-mid 1930's) were born to the Silent Generation (who's "tag" I always get confused with the Lost Generation, who came earlier), born from 1925 - 1945. They were raised during the Depression years, and were too young to fight WWII. I feel my generation (X) and my parent's had one major thing in common but from opposite ends: They were overshadowed by the Boomers, which meant that, amongst other things, they had less impact on the culture. "X" can be defined as "silenced" or "eradicated".

That said, the culture of Gen X lives on in Gen Y, i.e., through 80's and 90's influence and nostalgia....much the same way that 60's culture was admired by Gen X'ers, only the Y's can better carry these thing onward via their sheer numbers. Only time will tell, though.

1948...I would say your parents are early "leading edge" Boomers (1946 - 65), no?

marshall wrote:
I notice that kids belonging to Gen-Y seem to have their time micro-managed too much. A lot of Gen-X parents are almost too involved in their childrens' lives. The parents act like they are their childrens' buddies/partners.


I have two late Boomer sisters (b. late 50's). One is very much "friends" with their children (like an "X'er"), and the other raised hers more akin to our parent's style peppered with some Boomer ways. My brother, born on the cusp of Boomer and X, raises his children very much like that of our parent's generation (authoritarian, and no micro-management). The mother of his children, who's Gen X and born the same year as me, has the same parenting style. So I agree, it can heavily depend on your parent's generation when it comes to how you view the world and raise your children. As I mentioned, only one of my Boomer (by birth date) siblings has a highly permissive "friend-like" parenting style. She (a "typical" middle child) was very much opposed to the way in which my parents raised us (some of it was overly heavy handed and they used a lot of invalidation), so she did a complete 180º.

I'd agree that, in general, the later half of Gen X (born to Boomers) are definitely guilty of over-involvement in their kid's lives, while many of the early Gen X'ers have similar parenting styles to their own parents, a lot of whom aren't Boomer (where the permissive and liberal styles began, from what I've seen and learned). Early Gen X'ers, such as myself, are often the younger siblings of Boomers, which helps to explain why 1970 had the lowest birth rates (then the Boomers really began picking up the baby slack c.1974). So one could grow up identifying with Boomers (culturally, the Arts), while feeling in total opposition to them (politically, ideologically). Or vice versa.

Speaking of the Arts...my late Boomer siblings and their peers despised the 60's culture (i.e., The Beatles), whereas I always wished I could have lived during those times.

marshall wrote:
Also, Gen-Y seems to be the first generation where there are people in the younger generation who are more conservative than people in the older generation. It's very weird to me.


It is weird, but I believe it's a reaction to overly liberal and lenient Boomer/X'er tendencies.

whitetiger wrote:
.

My questions are these: Do you agree or disagree with the above statements BASED ON YOUR OBSERVATIONS of NEUROTYPICALS. How are you the same or different as others of your generation as a spectrum individual?


I want to mull over your questions for a bit as far as neurological differences are concerned and plan to come back to it. Generational differences have always intrigued me. :)