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Age Nepotism I


TheLastWolf

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Gen X   grew up as a generation of latch key kids.

a large majority of us would come home from school to both our parents at work, so had to let ourselves in and fend for ourselves.  often making our own dinner and looking after our younger brothers and sisters.

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23 hours ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

If there are some other areas where you feel people are insufferable knowitalls it maybe they love the sound of their own voice and treat everyone that way.  If you would like to give a specific example of when you have been talked down to we might be able empathise better.

Definitely. I'm sure any feminist-minded woman would consider my boss as a professional mansplainer. Turns out he's that way with absolutely everyone, except maybe a few older men he might know. He's definitely biased genderwise, but he's also massively biased age-wise. You just assume he's biased one specific way if you only interact with him on a few occasions. When you've been working with him for years, you know it's a far broader trend.

 

23 hours ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

also take some comfort that at least your existence are being acknowledged,  Gen X is invisible.

Yeah, smalle cohorts, stuck between bigger more vocal generations. We still have boomers in charge in some places, and plenty of younger ones eager to dislodge them and taking their places, so that they can be their very own new model boomers, in charge from 30 to their graves, and we're sitting here wondering if anyone will notice that we've been waiting for our turn at managing things for 10 or 20 years, and that we've been observing and pondering things for decades so we might know a bit what we're talking about.

This might actually be slightly relevant to the topic. If some 20-30 y old comes around and says "Now you had your run, Boomer, let me be in charge", odds are that there are a few GenX around who have way more experience, know a bit how to run things, but just had the respect and deference not to put the Boomers' heads on spikes, and they might not take lightly to young unexperienced ones shifting the queue, and some may react and make some snide remarks to the younger ones - which won't improve the relation of course. Granted, I talk in kinds of statistical average, there are a number of greedy GenX that came to power and responsibility here and there, some good, many useless selfish jerks - as usual among any generation in history.

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1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

If some 20-30 y old comes around and says "Now you had your run, Boomer, let me be in charge", odds are that there are a few GenX around who have way more experience, know a bit how to run things, but just had the respect and deference not to put the Boomers' heads on spikes,

Feel like it should be noted that any 20 year old is not a millennial at this point.  They would be Gen Z or zoomers, with their TikTok and..making me feel old by not knowing anything else they think is cool.  "Geriatric" millennials like myself are about 35-40.

That being said, I definitely sympathize with Gen Xers and totally understand them having something like the biggest middle child syndrome ever.  They will always have my love for giving us Jon Stewart, John Hughes movies, and - even though they got dead right quick - Biggie and Tupac.

Concerning the OP, as someone that started posting on message boards around 1998 when I woulda been 13, I can definitely empathize with people belittling your opinion just because you're young.  As for real life and whatnot, I'd tend to say that's just life.  Trust me, you'll soon look back and lament the time you were the victim of bias because you were too young.  I'll gladly trade if you want!

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2 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

 

 

Yeah, smalle cohorts, stuck between bigger more vocal generations. We still have boomers in charge in some places, and plenty of younger ones eager to dislodge them and taking their places, so that they can be their very own new model boomers, in charge from 30 to their graves, and we're sitting here wondering if anyone will notice that we've been waiting for our turn at managing things for 10 or 20 years, and that we've been observing and pondering things for decades so we might know a bit what we're talking about.

 

The youngest Boomers are just turning 57 this year, so of course they are still "in charge" in most organizations. 

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2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

organic chemistry

As a currently ongoing victim of 'higher education', don't use such vulgar words. This forum is my escape from reality and hydrocarbons....Amen whatever

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5 hours ago, The_Lone_Wolf said:

:blink: please elaborate. My understanding of that word is not complete. Only my dad works and now self employed thanks to Covid. And I've never had a latch key chain. 

Not much to elaborate on, latch key [or latchkey, whatever] kids is just another name for Gen X as the majority of us were pretty much on our own during childhood. For example: in our case, excepting weekends, our [brother and my] parents were gone by the time we woke up, and didn't get home until three and some hours after we did. Not sure when the phrase came about, perhaps it's loosely related or an answer to helicopter parents, not sure. 

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2 hours ago, DMC said:

They will always have my love for giving us Jon Stewart, John Hughes movies

Yeah well, a lot of the 1980s movies are an acquired taste, if you weren't a teen back then. I haven't rewatched most of them since the early 1990s, so I'm not sure even me would think they passed my own test of time.

 

34 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

 in our case, excepting weekends, our [brother and my] parents were gone by the time we woke up, and didn't get home until three and some hours after we did. Not sure when the phrase came about, perhaps it's loosely related or an answer to helicopter parents, not sure. 

Even more if you were a single child, you were on your own quite early on even as a 6-y old. So you had free time with your school or neighborhood buddies, without any adult oversight, and plenty of time alone on your own left to your own devices (and that was before consoles, except the early handheld ones, at a time when top games were playing Test Drive or the Olympics on a C-64). I still consider this a kind of vaccination against boredom and, to a lesser extent, against depression in the times when you're actually find yourself alone as an adult, because you've been used to it since you were kids, you've adapted to it, you know how to keep interested and busy with what you like, reading, playing, music, walking, riding a bike, whatever.

 

That said, being slightly misanthropist since early on, I can understand TLW for resenting how older people can be contemputous and stupid at the same time, whether they're Boomers, GenX or Millennials. Then, I thought most of my generation was pretty stupid doing stupid stuff and having useless points of interest when I was a teen, I still think most of my generation nowadays is pretty stupid, I've also come to the conclusion that most of the Boomers are pretty stupid, and just like when I was a teen, I consider most of the current young ones pretty stupid with silly interests. Bottom-line: misanthropy is an equal opportunity philosophy, no favourites :D  That, or I was born an old fart. Most probably both.

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1 minute ago, Clueless Northman said:

Yeah well, a lot of the 1980s movies are an acquired taste, if you weren't a teen back then.

...Kind of a weird response.  That definitely wasn't meant to be a dig on John Hughes movies.  I love most John Hughes movies, although I have to admit I don't think I've ever seen all of Sixteen Candles in one sitting.  Same goes for Pretty in Pink.  Guess Molly Ringwald didn't do it for me.

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2 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Not sure when the phrase came about, perhaps it's loosely related or an answer to helicopter parents, not sure. 

Would it not basically be that you had to have a key to your house with you at all/most times at a younger age than kids would normally be expected to have one?

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I've never really thought about the latchkey thing before but I guess I kinda had it.  My mom didn't go back to work til I was around 12-13, but she often was busy.  And I definitely needed to go next door to get the spare key after school at a pretty young.  I guess the key thing is in terms of idyllic suburban child rearing, especially during summer but really most of the time, the parents expected the kids to take care of or at least entertain themselves.  You'd be off playing outside with the neighborhood kids making up games or doing some Stand By Me shit.  I think, but don't know, that kinda got killed with the emergence of the internet, etc.  So I suppose in that way more "geriatric" millennials have more in common with Gen Xers.

ETA:  I will say I never had the thing where my parents were gone before I woke up.  But maybe that's cuz school started early where I was?  Usually had to be up by 6-630, and most non-farmers aren't gone by then.

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48 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Would it not basically be that you had to have a key to your house with you at all/most times at a younger age than kids would normally be expected to have one?

Yeah, of course. 

My wording you quoted is clunky. I suppose I meant more that we didn't refer to ourselves as latch key kids, the nomenclature wasn't assigned until much later-- likely around the same period helicopter parenting became a thing and was coined, as it [helicopter parenting] seems predominantly a Gen X thing as a polar response to how we were raised.

 

26 minutes ago, DMC said:

ETA:  I will say I never had the thing where my parents were gone before I woke up.  But maybe that's cuz school started early where I was?  Usually had to be up by 6-630, and most non-farmers aren't gone by then.

My mom was a teacher and my dad a dispatcher. Mom would make the lunches the night before and we would be responsible for getting our asses out of bed, clothed, breakfast, then to the bus stop half a mile away. Which was kind of awesome. If we missed the bus for whatever reason it was a free day because we were rural and neither mom or dad could drop work to come pick us up and get us to school.  

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Just now, JEORDHl said:

Mom would make the lunches the night before and we would be responsible for getting our asses out of bed, clothed, breakfast, then to the bus stop half a mile away. Which was kind of awesome. If we missed the bus for whatever reason it was a free day because we were rural and neither mom or dad could drop work to come pick us up and get us to school.  

Alright, yeah sure, we were responsible for all that too.  Have to wonder though, if you got a free day if you missed the bus, I just woulda missed the bus every day.  Guess that is pushing it.  At least one day a week.

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

Alright, yeah sure, we were responsible for all that too.  Have to wonder though, if you got a free day if you missed the bus, I just woulda missed the bus every day.  Guess that is pushing it.  At least one day a week.

Well, by that point [iirc] my brother and I had graduated from the belt to the crib board, so amongst other things, a big incentive not to miss the bus lol 

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1 hour ago, JEORDHl said:

My wording you quoted is clunky. I suppose I meant more that we didn't refer to ourselves as latch key kids, the nomenclature wasn't assigned until much later

To the best of my knowledge, the terminology dates back to WWII when dad was training/fighting and mum was working in the factory.
It was certainly used in the UK during the 80s to describe the kids of the day.

 

ETA: https://www.etymonline.com/word/latch-key

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I was left home alone everyday after school from age 9 on, with two younger siblings.  I remember this being pretty normal for older millennials (I'm 38), although the school system did offer an after school daycare called, oddly enough, "latch key" where you could pick your kids up at 530.

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3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

I was left home alone everyday after school from age 9 on, with two younger siblings.  I remember this being pretty normal for older millennials (I'm 38), although the school system did offer an after school daycare called, oddly enough, "latch key" where you could pick your kids up at 530.

Yep I remember those days of getting off the bus and going to the kitchen and teaching myself how to cook all kinds of afternoon snacks till Mom got home at 5:30.

I was totally unbothered by it, it taught me self reliance. We had incredibly more free rein and independence compared to this day and age it seems.

Then again I grew up in a village where you could leave your empty vehicle running on Main St and it would likely still be there for as long as it took to run out of gas.

This-

Chats quote

We didn’t have to have a key to the house simply because no one locked their doors in our small town.

endquote

So much this. I don't think I ever had a house key till I went away to college. That's the way the Midwest was and still is, in some areas.

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