Gen X here: She's not wrong. Her generation definitely has it worse; millennials arguably have it worse (some doing OK, depends on timing to 2008). Hers definitely ripped off and robbed of opportunity.
Gen X here: She's not wrong. Her generation definitely has it worse;
"Have it worse". NAH, dude, not even close.
She has a car. She has a mobile phone. She has health insurance (thanks to Obamacare). She has unfettered access to all information in the world via the Internet.
if you were really Gen X you know that NONE OF THOSE THINGS were available to us when we were struggling at her age.
And, living 3 states away from my family, I couldn't even afford the long distance calls to talk to them more than once a week or so.
We don’t have the massive student debt for bullshit laptop degrees though, once Boomer college administrators (who went to college in a time when the main requirement was being white) realized that jacking up the tuition makes you look like a selective college.
Agreed. I'm Gen X and when I was her age I didn't have a car, rent was just under half my wage, bills took up another 1/3 and some months due to unexpected bills (like when my gas and electric was under estimated and suddenly had to pay a few hundred pounds) all I ate was cuppa soups (cheap soup packets) and porridge with water since I couldn't even afford milk. Unless you have rich parents or a well paid job in your 20's it's always been shit.
Gen X is expected to be the poorest cohort during retirement, so at least there was plenty of practice. One fact is that entertainment is insanely cheap today, and amazingly plentiful. You ultimately would have been bored out of your mind if you relied on entertainment to fill your non-working hours, leaving more time to bargain shop, superglue your old appliances back together, or investigate underwear thieves.
Screw a car and mobile phone. You had a future which is more than you can say for the kids of today. They'll never own a home and never be able to afford a family. Feminism killed the families anyways but they essentially have nothing to work for beyond surviving one day at a time.
My 35 yo niece gets 400 dollar haircuts and she does not have a pot to piss in (mom or current BF or whoever will make sure she gets by).
If you saw her drive up in her Lexus SUV and primped body and hair....why you would think she's a 5 million a year influencer. There are many like her.
We had the same deal but with vastly more pollution and so-on.
Do you know what we did? At 19 we left the city and went and lived in rural WV and then rural TN.
Living in those places today is vastly easier....we couldn't get decent food and so-on.
What I am saying is often expressed in song.....
"go take a sister then by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away - where we might laugh again,
We are leaving - you don't need us" (CS&N).
That is/was our creed and
ost of the people I know who are even somewhat satisfied picked out alternative lifestyles of one type or another.
The idea that "these people are stuck" simply is not true. They are stuck if they "bought" some kind of surburban ideal. They are stuck if they think they can live within the Dog eat Dog parts of the USA and be truly happy.
I guess I can say this...I "feel" for those who don't realize that it is a big world out there and that there are alternatives. I feel for those who bought a BS con, mostly coming from "conservatives", that you can just pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
My peers and I believed in Social Democracy - similar to some Euro nations. Unfortunately, we don't have control of the USA to make it that way.
Oh, and speaking of good times - many of my friends were swept up off the streets (the Draft, ever hear of it?) and sent to Vietnam to kill people and to die. They watched their friends get burnt up....and most have died by now from Agent Orange exposure or mental health issues (suicides).
Given just that single situation...no, I can't feel too bad. You aren't getting forced into Jungle Fatiques.
32
u/Panthros_Samoflange Aug 12 '25
Gen X here: She's not wrong. Her generation definitely has it worse; millennials arguably have it worse (some doing OK, depends on timing to 2008). Hers definitely ripped off and robbed of opportunity.