By Peter K. Scheldt
For The Herald
If you’ve noticed, there seems to be a lot of acrimony toward millennials.
It is hard to define the boundaries of this generation because the media differ on their span of birth years as well as their actual name. The dividing lines for and names given to a generatonal group of people based are solely on their birth year and is not scientific. Rather it’s a social construct made up by people who like to generalize and probably have too much time on their hands.
In any case the Pew Research group which is considered by many to be fairly reliable and legitimate have defined the generations as follows:
• The Silent Generation: Born 1928-1945 (74-91 years old)
• Baby boomers: Born 1946-1964 (55-73)
• Generation X: Born 1965-1980 (39-54)
• Millennials: Born 1981-1996 (23-33)
• Post-Millennials (or Gen Z): Born 1997-Present (birth to 22)
Right off the bat, you may wonder what happened to the Greatest Generation, you know the folks who dropped everything in their lives to go fight WWII? That generation seems to have dropped off at least Pew’s radar. That name came from a book written by TV newsman and author Tom Brokaw who had the greatest respect for this group of people, but it didn’t provide for describing those folks too young to have served in the war, but born before the boomers, which included Brokaw, who was born in 1940. Pew seems to have fixed that anomaly, by dropping the Greatest and inserting the Silents.
It just goes to show you that the names and birth years of the generations are very fluid and quite subjective based on who is doing the defining. They are based on trying to define how various age groups view the world socially, economically, politically and technologically.
As far as I can tell, the first generation given an actual name were the baby boomers. This name came about because statisticians noted after the end of WWII, the U.S. birth rate grew to its largest in history and lasted until those veterans of the war peaked in their ability to reproduce, thus the “boom” moniker.
As a card-carrying member of this boomer group, let me tell you how folks older than boomers viewed us at the time. We were considered to be the laziest, most privileged, self-serving hippies whoever rolled up in a painted VW mini-bus. From 1967’s “Summer of Love’ in San Francisco to muddy Woodstock in 1969, the press had a heyday putting this “generation” down and declaring that it would never amount to anything. In short, we were different than our parents.
And although the boomers seemed to have no chance for success, we grew up to be educated, raise families, become homeowners and, otherwise, solid citizens.
We also seemed to have developed our parents lack of the ability to accept behavior different from our own.
We criticize the younger folks for their use of electronic devices, but I see a lot of folks with gray hair staring down at their smart phones. We claim that they are killing restaurants we like, the housing industry, and the auto industry, even canned tuna! So tastes in consumerism have changed. Yet, were our clothes, music and hobbies were the same as our parents? I don’t think so.
Lets try something. Lets try not to assume that if the latest generation uses technology to a greater extent than we, or dresses and talks differently than we do, let’s not assume it’s wrong; just different.
The future belongs to them, not us. They — as we did — will do with it as they see fit, and you know: Tt’s going to be OK.
Peter K. Scheldt is a former resident of Everett. He lieves in McEwen, Tennessee.
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