Holy Toledo, I am so disappointed. I don’t have a swanky generational name like “Baby Boomers” or “Millennials” to back me up. Instead I’m just a basic old unacknowledged “Traditionalist”. If only my parents had waited a little longer to have me, I would have belonged to one of those clubby categories.
Traditionalists had core values like conforming, hard work and respect for authority. But for all the respect extended we don’t that get much in return from the younger sets. According to J.B. Priestly, “There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age — I missed it coming and going.” I always maintained that, “If everyone thought just like me there would be a lot less problems.”
The topic of Generalization is a little confusing. If you can figure out the year you born you can identify with one of the five groups:
Gen Z or Centennials: Born 1996 and later
Millennials or Gen Y: Born 1977 to 1995
Generation X: Born 1965 to 1976
Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964
Traditionalists or the Silent Generation: Born 1945 and before
A generation is a group of people born around the same time and raised around the same place who exhibit similar characteristics, preferences, and values over their lifetimes. At an individual level, everyone is different but looking at people through a generational lens offers useful predictability for a large cross-section of a population.
The end of the Millennial generation and the start of Gen Z is closely tied to September 11, 2001. That day marks the number-one generation-defining moment for Millennials. Members of Gen Z cannot process the significance of 9/11 and it’s only been a part of history for them.
The three key trends that shape generations are parenting, technology, and economics. For example, many Baby Boomers have the parenting philosophy, “We want it to be easier for our kids than it was for us.” This philosophy, in turn, helped create and reinforce Millennials’ sense of entitlement, which is now a hotly debated topic.
In the last two years, Millennials have become the largest generation in the workforce and the fastest-growing generation of customers. In addition, Millennials exhibit different attitudes toward employment, sales, and marketing, which challenge many conventional strategies and approaches. No wonder everyone’s talking about Millennials, trying to figure what they are all about!
Now Millennials have something to look out for too: the next generation known as Gen Z or Centennials are people making big waves in all the ways a generation possibly could — including parenting, education, employment, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, politics, religion and more.
The theory of a generation gap first came to light in the 1960s when the Baby Boomers went against everything their parents had previously believed in; music, values and political views. Sociologists now refer to this “generation gap” as “institutional age-segregation”. Tom Wolfe identified in the ‘70’s in his “Me Decade” on the young Boomers; their self-obsession was antisocial and indifferent to the needs of others. Usually, when age groups are engaged in its own thing, the individuals are physically isolated from people of other generations. The generation gap has created a parallel gap in language that can be difficult to communicate across as well. Tell me about it — now I understand why no one pays me much attention – they speak a different lingo! New slang is developed with every generation however with technology’s help, gaps have widened. What chance does a Traditionalist have getting through to the Gen Z kids – none at all. “They say genes skip generations. Maybe that’s why grandparents find their grandchildren so likeable,” observed Joan McIntosh.
Members of Generation X were children during a time of shifting societal values and as children were sometimes called the “latchkey generation” due to reduced adult supervision. Gen X youth were the musical genres of hip hop music, and indie films. In midlife, research describes Gen X adults as active, happy, achieving a work-life balance along with entrepreneurial tendencies
What makes a Gen Z different? Growing up with a smartphone has affected nearly every aspect of their lives. They spend so much time texting offline friends and engaging on social media that they have less leisure time. They also value diversity while being raised to learn in teams. Depression and loneliness have shot upward over the years, with happiness declining.
While the Traditionalists took in stride some uncertainty in their lives, they didn’t put the almighty buck first like the Boomers, have disillusionment with family-life like the Gen Xers, adapt to globalization like the Millennials or deal with war on terror like the Centennial generation. Maybe they weren’t that deprived of their place in history after all!
