Obama: boomer or post-boomer?

"Sullivan includes Rudy Giuliani (b. 1944) and the current president (b. 1946) in this category, which is ironic, since both of them avoided serving in Vietnam"

Kevin Drum attributes to Mr. Sullivan an irrational (or at least inexplicable) enmity of the Clintons which might go some of the way to elucidate this classification as a further alienation of the Clinton era.

Baby Boomers starts too early here -- the whole point was coming back from the war and reproducing, you can't start that until 1946 at the earliest -- unless you were a farmer, maybe. The unnamed generation betwixt the Baby Boomers and Gen X may have named/inspired X but they weren't it -- plus they're lame enough that they don't get a name -- you need to have Y next to (and later -- Y shouldn't have the Cold War as a formative experience, they might remember the fall of the Berlin Wall but they weren't formed by it; maybe 1979-1985. The one after that the Earnest Generation) X or else it has to be an unnamed generation as well, it only got a name on X's heels. Millennials is too dumb unless the world ends up ending REALLY soon; maybe they're the 9/11 generation -- too young to remember when things seemed so great in the '90s.

No, it doesn't work to start the Boomer generation back in '44. The baby boom was a palpable event -- in my elementary school, there was one first-grade classroom in 1951-52, and three in 1952-53.

There was also a big difference between being in college '62-'66 and being there in the late '60s -- not many drugs, not many protests, except (on both counts) in Calfornia; dress requirements and parietal hours; etc.

I think an adjustment at the other end is useful, though.

I was born in 1961, and I'm definitely not a Baby Boomer. Your generational dividing lines seem off to me. Historical cohorts don't always come in evenly chunked batches.

It seems to me that the defining elements of my generation (whatever we call it) are:

We were children during the defining events of the sixties -- that is, not participants. It was what happened on TV.

We came of age in the early seventies which meant feminism and environmentalism were accepted already as cultural norms. We were raised with these principles.

No drug hysteria when we were growing up. Ready access to pot. (see: Dazed and Confused). Most of my friends went through their pot-head years in middle school/ junior high.

Pre-AIDS for adolesence: This one is key, I think. It was normal and acceptable to have pre-marital sex with minimal consequence during our teen years.

No war or even threat of war during our twenties.

We entered college with the legacy of low-consequence sex and easy drugs from the Boomers, and exited college into the Reagan era.

We got totally screwed on college loans. If you took out the maximum college loans in the early seventies, inflation alone made paying them off easy. Also there was very little enforcement for loan repayment. We took out the maximum loans just as Reagan economics pushed back against inflation. Good for the economy, but much harder to pay off. This happened simultaneously with cutbacks in financial aid and tuition fees rising well ahead of inflation.

My generation is the DIY generation. We weren't first wave of punk, but we created the hardcore punk touring/distribution network. My generation was unfinanced so we found cheap ways to do everything: comics, zines, films. Hip hop culture -- up from the streets, mixed tapes sold out of the back the car. That's my generation.

I think we're the DIY generation. Maybe the cassette generation.

Thanks, commenters -- and to everyone who has emailed (a couple dozen readers) so far. I will have to do a follow-up post where I admit that I don't really think *any* generational periodization can hold up to close scrutiny. My periodization is a straight-faced sendup... and yet, I kinda think I'm right, too.

JHM -- Sullivan is definitely a conservative, as I mention. No doubt about it. (However, he offers a ringing endorsement of Obama in the Atlantic Monthly; I think he sees Obama's supposed post-ideological mindset as un-liberal, if not illiberal.) Anyway, his point is that Bush and Giuliani are anti-Sixties Boomers; while Gore and the Clintons are perceived by Americans as pro-Sixties, no matter how moderate or conservative they might actually be when it comes to policy making.

Tom -- et tu, Brute? You're supposed to get my back. Listen, I'm not talking about when the baby boom starts, but when the Baby Boomer generation starts; the two overlap -- my theory would be preposterous if they didn't -- but not perfectly. Is it so unreasonable to believe that people born in 1944 share the same formative experiences and cultural touchstones as people born in 1946 or 1948? As for the post-Boomers (1954-63), considering the fact that two of their number popularized the phrase Generation X, either they should be saddled with the moniker or nobody should. You're right about Generation Y -- I'm now calling them the Internet Generation (not original), but Earnest works pretty well. Could call them the OK Soda generation, after another satirical-yet-convincing theory of mine, published years ago in the Baffler. The Millennials got that tag -- from Howe and Strauss, about whom I need to write something -- because they graduated high school around the year 2000. I'm happy to accept new monikers for them -- the Facebook Generation? Networkers?

Andre -- see my note to Tom about baby boom vs. Baby Boomers. Also, I'm only shifting the start date by two years, is that so outlandish? It's impossible to imagine that Angela Davis, Jonathan Demme, Sly Stone, Jack Casady, George Lucas, Patti LaBelle, Frank Oz, Paul Wellstone, Michael Douglas, Lorne Michaels (all born in 1944), Stephen Stills, Tom Selleck, Rob Reiner, Micky Dolenz, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Carly Simon, Debbie Harry, Steve Martin, Henry Winkler, and Neil Young (1945; OK, Young is Canadian) are Boomers? They seem to hail from an entirely different generation than Diane Keaton, Naomi Judd, Dolly Parton, David Lynch, Peter Wolf, Liza Minnelli, Candice Bergen, Cher, Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Sylvester Stallone, Linda Ronstadt, Danny Glover, Bill Clinton, Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, Pat Sajak, Gram Parsons, Patty Duke, Steven Spielberg, Jimmy Buffett, and Patti Smith (all 1946)?

David -- et tu? Listen, I'm *not* saying that you are a Boomer, although demographers would. I'm saying that you are a post-Boomer/Xer/whatever. DIY, sure, I'll accept that as a better generational handle than Xers; I certainly learned about DIY from people half a decade or so older than me (I was born in '67.) As for your most critical point -- that cohorts don't come in neat batches -- you are, of course, absolutely correct. There is no generational periodization that's airtight. What I find charming/amusing/provocative about my own periodization is that its strict formalism -- all those 3s and 4s -- makes mockery of those pop demographers (Howe and Strauss, for example) who pretend that what they're doing is somehow an exact science. Yet I also half-believe my periodization; enough so, anyway, to defend it.

I was born in '65. A good friend was born in '64. We share most of the same values. However, under your analysis, he's a Boomer and I'm a "post-boomer", or Gen-Xer. According to your meaningless post, we should be at war with each other.

John, like at least one other commenter, you have somehow misread my (easy-to-read) chart. In fact, you and your friend are both members of my own (temporarily unnamed) generation, 1964-73. Hooray! The fact that you two share the same values proves that I was right all along, don'tcha think? Don'tcha?

Anyway, even if your friend had been born in '63, making him a post-Boomer/Gen Xer, I'm pretty sure that people born on the cusp of a generation (a "3" or "4" year, according to my theory) are torn between two generational worldviews. When I'm a famous pop demographer, I'll write a monograph about Cuspies.

Finally, though many post-Boomers are eager to dissociate themselves from the Boomers, I never suggested that each generation is at war with the others. Now, that would be an exciting theory.

First of all, a generation is 20 years-- so why is it 10 here? But it is true that the 'baby boomers' were a much smaller group than is now being thought of-- the traditional thinking was that boomers were born between 1945 and 1952, not 1964. The new date is more of a marketing thing-- a 1964 kid has little in common with a 1945 one. But the article is still pretty ridiculous.

I was born in 1961, so here's another take on generation definitions:
1945-1955: Good Boomers--Hippies who were friendly, kind, listened to little kids
1956-1960: Bad Boomers--Yuppie Scums who stood us up on dates, took our jobs away, ignored their poorer younger colleagues
Many born between 1956-1960 were associated with crime, antisocial behavior, substance abuse, and notorious sex scandals. But every generation has its exceptions, like our current President...

Jim, why is it "ridiculous" to suggest that a generation can emerge every 10 years, instead of every 20? Is it super-ridiculous, then, to argue -- as you do -- that the boomers were born over an 8-year period? The problem is that we've all been told that identifying generations is a science (a branch of sociology, perhaps), and that the generational schemes that have been proposed by the so-called experts are therefore airtight. But when we really think about it -- as you have, since you note that "a 1964 kid has little in common with a 1945 one" -- we experience cognitive dissonance. Which leads us to make self-contradictory remarks.

Betty, if we translate your scheme into the terms of my scheme, then we get:

1944: Boomers who weren't good hippies.

1945-53: Boomers who were good hippies.

1954-55: Gen Xers who were good hippies

1956-60: Gen Xers who were yuppie scum.

1961-63: Gen Xers who were neither good hippies nor yuppie scum.

I'm not too sure about this; let's revisit your idea down the road.

I was born in 1961. One of the biggest thorns in my side is being called a "boomer." The baby boom is a birth dynamic not a generation. Generations are formed by common cultural and social experiences, not birth rates. Those of us born in the early '60s simply lack any of the Woodstock/Hippie connotations associated with people born in part of the '40s and most of the '50s. I have nothing in common with Billary's or Dubya's peers. While true boomers ran around naked at music festivals, I was watching "Scooby-Doo." When ex-hippies waxed nostalgic about Haight-Ashbury in the late '70s, I was listening to Kiss and the Ramones.

Read Strauss and Howes book on American Generations and Obama falls in the beginning of the "13th" or GenX

Chuck -- right. Like Obama, you are an Original Gen Xer (1954-63).

Steve -- Howe and Strauss's "13th Gen" has lots of interesting data in it. But Howe and Strauss got their dates wrong. They claim that the Boomer generation started in 1946 (the beginning of the demographic boom) and ended in 1960 (4 years before the end of the demographic boom); Americans born from 1961-81, they claim, are post-Boomers, sometimes called Gen Xers -- they prefer "13ers." So they'd agree that Obama is a Gen Xer, they'd just quibble with the nomenclature.

In fact, the Original Generation X was born between 1954-63, according to my own, original research and theorization. Howe and Strauss boldly ended the Boomer generation 4 years before the demographers do; my theory is even bolder!

10 years flies in the face of the usual sociological definition of "about 20 years."

The reason for 20 years is that that would be the time it, generally, takes form birth to maturity and establishment of a family beginning a new generation. Your theory would have 10 year olds having had children (unless, of course, you are willing to provide an alternate basis for your definition of generation).

Strauss and Howe, if you read their books, did not base their periodizations, especially for the Boom, on birth rate statistics but by shared characteristics.

But that's not true! We don't start families at age 20. As for birth rate statistics, they're important only if they're out of the ordinary, and leave their mark on a cohort of Americans -- like being born during the first years of the baby boom of 1946-64 did. Otherwise, a generation is more about -- as you say -- shared characteristics. Meaning shared formative experiences, with give rise to certain characteristics: e.g., optimistic or pessimistic worldview, can- or can't-do attitude, faith in authority or lack of same, tendency to be earnest, serious, ironic, sarcastic, nihilistic, ideological. And when you think about it, what group of people born over a 20-year span have the same experiences? A generation has to be shorter than 20 years. I'm suggesting 10 years, but maybe it's more like 5 years. Anyway, hope you'll read more of the entries I've done about American generations; this was a fairly early one.

I always think of the boomer generation as the youngsters who fought in and/or protested the vietnam war. They were born after WWII, and were raised in the 1950s. If you remember the 50s and Kennedy getting shot, you are a boomer. Generation X is made up of the kids born during vietnam 1961 - 1975.

I was born in December 1963, and I do not consider myself a Boomer. My parents were boomers. I do not consider myself this Generation Jones either. I am Generation X. Period end of story.

A great resource - many thanks!

Born in late 63. Not sure what I am, but I am sure what I am not. I am not a baby boomer. I am extremely irritated when I see references to Obama as a "late boomer." They don't get to claim him!!!!!
The vast majority of other early 60's born I know feel the same way. What's strange is the number of older people, mostly born in the 50's, that will try and insist that I am a boomer. I can usually short circuit the discussion by pointing out that the big thing when I was 13, was Star Wars. There was before SW and after SW. They will often say - "You're right - your not a boomer" at that point. Someone even wrote an article about Star Wars as a dividing line, if you were 17 and under it was a bigger deal. If you were older it was mostly just a movie:-) Wish I could find that article now.

These are all interesting comments. I am a late baby boomer born in 1956. We are all considered to be from 1946 to 1964. My sister was born in 1963 and also is a baby boomer. Some may be also earlier in the 1940's. The earlier ones from the 1940's perhaps into the early 1950's had different experiences than the late boomers. They were the hippies/Woodstock druggie crowd. The rest of us grew up in the 1970's. Some took drugs or drank, but not all of us. Many of us were not yuppies and could not find good jobs like they have now. Reaganomics and greed of the 1990's screwed a lot of us of all ages. I find that about every 10 years people
have similar experiences. Basically, there were baby boomers who had kids that were also baby boomers. Many had kids starting at ages like 12-14, but also closer to 18 or 20 years old. We are all individuals, though, and should be looked at that way. A lot of us like the same things that people in their 20's and 30's like such as sports, hobbies, and music. We are very different from our parents, and
The older generations above us. They did not like rock music for instance, and would not try new things. Baby boomers want to stay young and we like music
from the 50's on up to today's music. We are active and still have to work longer. We all have had to work with people of all ages all of our lives and enjoy it. The
younger people need to remember this. You have to work with younger people as well as older people. That is part of life. It seems that Generation X,Y, and Millennials or whatever the names are, need to keep an open mind and give everyone a chance. Not everyone thinks the same. Your life experiences, work, family, culture, etc. all shape each individual person. My parents for instance were not from the generation just above baby boomers but were from an even older one
because they were 40 and 46 when they had us. I love things like Star Wars. It was one of the best films I ever saw! I love animals and the planet and helping others. Obama was born in 1961 and is a late boomer, who like me, thinks
differently than the older boomers. I voted for him and think he is great. The late 1950's and early 1960's boomers have a lot in common, but the 1960's boomers
might have some different experiences. I don't feel that I have a lot in common with the earliest boomers. Maybe they could split the boomers into boomer group one and boomer group two. Hey, sometimes I meet people born in the 70's and 80's who I feel are similar to me. Give people a chance to get to know them as an individual. As for the younger people working less hours, I don't see that yet in companies. We all would like that, more free time and family time. We have tried for that for years. Companies still dictate the 40 hour or more work week when you go for interviews. I am hoping President Obama will bring positive changes to the workplace, more jobs, decent pay, healthcare, etc. Rock on everyone, and God Bless.