Don’t get me wrong, we have our disagreements, but even with the different viewpoints, experiences and priorities, we all get along pretty well. There are some very clear lines that divide us, which is normal. Cultural markers and age barriers do tend to pigeonhole us into specific categories within the larger group – parents are parents, kids are kids, etc. Yet somehow I am the only one able to bridge the generations fairly easily. I can chat with my dad about history and politics, commiserate with my sisters about the foibles of celebrities, and quote current movie lines with my nephews. But here’s the rub – when I say I can relate to every member, I really do mean every one of them. My parents, my siblings, my nephews.
This bridging between generations is unusual. Even if everyone gets along great with each other, there is most definitely a divide between family groups. Take music, for example – every generation has their favorites, and parents usually can’t stand what their kids listen to, who in turn are baffled by what their kids enjoy. My folks listened to a lot of 60’s folk music, my siblings were fans of 70’s pop/rock, and my nephews liked Avril Levigne and Eminem. Me? I like them all. This makes me sound a lot more sophisticated than I actually am, but it underscores the ease in which I am able to flit from one group to the next. It’s just bizarre.
How am I able to do this, to get along with such a varied group of people? Is it simply because they’re my relatives? I’d reject that idea right away – blood is not always thicker than water (unfortunately). Sometimes we have altercations where the bad feelings last for years. Obviously it isn’t all fluffy clouds and butterflies (nothing’s perfect), but eventually we do get past the bad stuff and can communicate again.
I can understand some psychological reasons for our different behaviors, but I’m not a trained psychologist. I know all too well that my limited understanding of the brain doesn’t always work in other circumstances, with other people. There are people I work with whose attitudes and/or actions I sometimes have great difficulty comprehending. I’m sure they’d say the same about me. So clearly there’s a lot more going on than just understanding someone’s outlook.
So how did I get this unusual ability? It cannot be understated that in my family I truly am the outsider. Part of that is because I don’t live anywhere near my relatives. Physical distance helps a great deal – if I had to deal with them on a more regular basis (like the folks I work with), we might annoy each other constantly. However, at the heart of this issue, is how I can move amongst all of them so easily. The core difference really is because I am the outsider. I simply don’t fit in with the rest.
Seriously. I’m the oddball. The iconoclast, the true independent, the black sheep. Whatever you want to call us, we’re the ones who never quite fit in with the others. Like the cheese, I stand alone. But how is this possible? They are my relatives, after all. I should have some kind of common ground to start from. Other than DNA, a love of reading/writing, and sharing a liking for some variants of Star Trek, there’s not much else. Even with all these people around I never seemed to get really close to any one family member, with the only possible exception being my mother, as I take after her in more ways than I can count. However, lately I realized there really was a very good reason for this: my age. I know what you’re thinking: that explanation doesn’t make sense, but hear me out on this – I was actually born in a different generation than everyone else.
My parents were what they call the Silent Generation (aka the Traditionalists). Most children from this group of people were called the Baby Boomers – those born after World War II. The next two generations are Generation X, and Generation Y, aka the Millennials. I am the youngest of four, and all my siblings are Boomers, but I am not. My brother, the closest in age to me, was born four years beforehand, so I am the only one of us firmly ensconced in Gen X territory. This isolates me because I have no familial contemporaries. Mother, father, step-parents: all Traditionalists. Siblings: all Boomers. Nieces/nephews: all Millennials. I am the only one from Generation X.
The more I look into this, the more sense it makes. A quick Google search brings up lots of different articles, papers and slideshows that illustrate the differences between these four groups of people. And there really are a lot of differences. The way each of us thinks, our fears and desires, our motivations – they’re all different. Just a few years separate me from my siblings, but for all intents and purposes, I’m from a totally different world. Some of those articles I found I could have written, using information gleaned from just my family alone.
For example, let’s look at work and careers. Traditionalists are loyalists; it was common for them to stay with one firm for their entire career. My dad is a classic Traditionalist. He was career military, and then spent 20+ years with the Department of Defense until he retired. Technically, he was a “government man” his whole adult life. None of the rest of us has had that experience.
The Boomers, with their mistrust of authority (brought about by the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Watergate), trusted their instincts when finding the best way to pay the bills. That means that if they found that their manager at ABC Company was untrustworthy in any fashion, even if they liked the work, they definitely wouldn’t stick around for 20+ years. Boomers also tended to find one area of expertise they could focus on, but worked at many different firms to do that one thing. One of my sisters exemplifies this trend: she started in the child care field even before graduating from high school, yet over the years she’s moved between several employers.
Generation X and the Millennials have a totally different outlook about careers. While both are very comfortable with constantly changing technology, Gen X-ers are extremely resourceful and self-reliant. This has a lot to do with how they were often on their own as kids since both of their parents worked; no stay-at-home moms for them. Career-wise, that makes them more likely to work at a lot of different firms, way more than their elders. Essentially, Gen X has portable careers: they learn as much as they can and then take their skill set anywhere they want to go. They are more generalists than specialists. That’s pretty much been the story of my entire work life, as well as many of my peers; I must have three times the total number of employers that my siblings have had.
Millennials grew up with a much higher rate of violence and gangs than the rest of us, and are thus highly concerned about personal safety. To alleviate that concern, they’re also extremely open and tolerant to different cultures and lifestyles, and education is key. This makes them much more comfortable having more than one option with regard to jobs, and are very open to having several parallel career paths. More than one set of job skills is sort of like a career safety net: if one doesn’t work out, they’ve got something else to fall back on. This seems to be the blueprint for all of my nieces/nephews; they’ve always got several things going in the pipeline. Also, one of them was so concerned about his personal safety he even invested in a bullet-proof vest! That seemed excessive to me at the time, but I understand it a lot better now.
Which brings us back to this ability of mine to seemingly transcend generations. The unique spot I occupy in my family makes empathizing with each of them much easier than it might otherwise be. It also highlights my eccentric reputation: I’m the one that sends postcards and t-shirts from far-off places. I’m the one that sends silly, non-sequitur text messages, and I am the only one in the family over the age of 30 that regularly uses modern technology. Every. Single. Day. In my family, I am a Generation of One. I am a rock, I am an island.