Gen-X: "Boomer" Parenting & The Burdens They Passed On
Generation X and the Baby Boomers
Gen X is a generation known for... well, not being known. The generation preceding it, the Baby Boomers (Boomers), and the following generation, the Millenials, have been so heavily focused on that Generation X is often referred to as the "forgotten middle child".
The Boomer generation imposed a unique set of burdens for our generation (Gen X). In this article I want to identify those burdens, explore why they occurred, and most importantly - offer essential advice that could be the start to ones journey towards transformation and healing.
The Burdens
Although we are resilient, in fact I believe it's one of our greatest strengths, our upbringing was completely misaligned with how society shifted. The wounds that this misalignment caused has manifested in ways that we are only now understanding. This short list is by no means exhaustive but I think it's a good starting point to begin exploring. I carefully chose 3 topics that I can lightly dive into, give a good background of, and have at least one (or all) of the topics be relatable!
Vulnerability, Mental Health, and Stress
In the Gifts of Imperfection by Dr. Brene Brown, she talks extensively about the struggle Gen Xers have with expressing vulnerability and prioritizing their mental health. The Boomer mentality of therapists or "shrinks" was/is that they're "an indulgence" - as a result, we often suppress our emotions until they manifest through stress, through anger, or even health issues. To make matters worse, there has been extensive research over the last decade that directly links the effects of stress to serious health issues. (If you're interested, here is a link published on the NCBI that goes into MAJOR detail between the direct link of life events/stress and illness)
A Financial "Promise" That Never Came True
We were also brought up in an era where we were promised that hard work and loyalty would basically guarantee success. A promise that is objectively not true in the world we live in today, nor was it true in the world we lived in when we became adults. In fact, it's all but recommended by experts to constantly be on the search for a job, regardless of your current employment. Financial stability is a thing of the past it seems yet the idea was instilled in us from a young age, something many Gen Xers still struggle with after all these years.
A common theme we will see reoccur throughout this article is just how independent and isolated our generation was and is. In terms of financial stability, we see social security under fire, we have been through enough recessions and economic crises that they're normal to us, and the list goes on. We're old enough to navigate our way through the world but we act as if we're not young enough to ask basic questions and figure out how to BETTER navigate the world.
Overcorrecting and the Cycle We May Have Created
One last burden I want to bring up that I found many Gen Xers relate to is the overcorrection we've tried to make when it comes to parenting. Many of us have recognized our upbringing didn't align with the society we raised our children in. In a very brief and simplified way, some of our upbringings were emotionally distant, sometimes "authoritarian" like. As a result, some of us have raised our children with the conscious decision of trying to perform the opposite - in hopes that our children experience what we perceive as a "better upbringing". We may have chosen to be more involved, more communicative, emotionally available, creating open dialogue, and ENCOURAGING therapy and mental well-being. All of these are amazing strategies and practices that I'd give to any new parent - but for Gen Xers, we created our own set of struggles by attempting to do so.
Raised in disciplined and strict homes, as that was the Boomer way of raising their children, we also watched as we personally experienced, or at least knew someone, whose parents were going through a divorce. In fact, the 70s and 80s had the highest divorce rates by a huge margin. From the 60s to 70s, the rate at which divorces were happening is nearly a vertical line. To really explain how crazy the divorce rates were during that period of time, imagine what we think about divorce today. It seems like everyone is getting divorced. In comparison, the divorce rate during the 70s and 80s was nearly double what it is today [1]. With all that I've mentioned so far, it doesn't even begin to explain the environment we grew up in, the psychology behind the "post-war" behavior of the Boomer mentality, the effects the economy had, and the changes in society that were being made due to numerous factors.
I mention all of this because of the "conscious decisions" we tried to make when raising our children.
We are by no means bad parents. The question that is being raised though is how are/were we supposed to be more involved, more communicative, emotionally available, better at opening dialogue, encouraging mental well-being, and really having our children prosper in the way we hope/hoped when we were taught/embedded with the complete opposite mindset? Where did we suddenly learn how to do this?
We didn't. We overcorrected, we overcompensated, and were unable to effectively raise our children the way we thought or wished we had, leading enough of us to feel guilty. Not just after the fact but during. For a long time, I wasn't aware of this guilt myself. I knew I had it, I just didn't know why.
I stated I believe resilience is one of our greatest strengths. Of course I still believe this to be true. What we didn't do when raising our children, however, is pass on that strength. The independence we had growing up as the "latchkey kids" and the resilience we were taught may not have been recognized by many of us. Yes, we can attribute my next statement to economic issues, cost of living, and many of other things, but it's not uncommon for the children of Gen Xers to live with their parents well into their 20s and sometimes even 30s due to our overprotective nature.
Even though I am seemingly promoting doom and gloom, our forgotten generation and all of the efforts we made were not for nothing. I promise.
A psychologist, Alison Gopnik, in her book The Gardener and the Carpenter, explains extensively that despite the drawbacks of the Gen Xers parenting style, the attempt as a whole created a generational shift in parenting and has been beneficial, according to her peer-reviewed studies. Although many of us imperfectly applied these practices, we exposed our children to being emotionally attuned, communicative individuals and parents themselves. Nearly all of the research I've read has discussed how Gen X changed the historical parenting style of "task-oriented" parenting to what we know now as actual parenting. We have changed the world by starting this cycle. Our children are more emotionally intelligent, are more thoughtful, and as the years have gone by, we see now just how bad the mental health crisis is - something that was ignored during our upbringing. Our children embrace seeing therapists, which have made it easier for us to begin attending. It has made it easier for us to finally start to break free and begin to change.
All of this to say....
Many of us carry the scars of the way our parents raised us. We remained resilient, strong, and did, or are doing, our best to raise our children. What we forgot to do was to take care of ourselves. As the "forgotten middle child" and the "latchkey kids", it's a harsh reality but we must remember that it's up to us to overcome these challenges. It's our time to finally live a free and happy life. We did the impossible by creating the generational parenting shift that we now know today is, in "perfect" practice, the more appropriate way to raise our children. It's almost existential that many of us live in the same place we grew up but when we look back, we can't seem to recognize the world around us anymore.
Many of us feel we have no place.
The burdens we carry may be heavy, but there has never been a greater time for us to finally commit to changing - making a transformation. It's never too late and you'll find that once you make one small change, suddenly, the inner desire to become who you want will be overwhelming.
Just remember, many of us feel we have no place, you are NOT alone.
