Sad at death of older generation, hope for the next?

Maybe I am extraordinarily lucky--but all 5 of my kids, born between 1977 and 1986 are FANTASTIC hard working, respectful adults. They are all married to amazing hard working people. Between the 10 of them we have 9 advanced degrees from colleges. 2 doctors, 1 lawyer, 2 small business owners, 2 with master's degrees in computer science---every one of them has a kind heart and they love each other and they love me and my DH.

I never thought about them being "Gen x" or whatever. They were the people I raised and taught to be good people and then just hoped for the best.

When my YD was expecting her last baby, she was so incredibly sick they thought they would have to abort the pregnancy to save her. She lived 2000 miles away from all of us. Her DH called my OD and said "Help". So, my son went out to VA where YD lived, for 2 weeks, got her kids registered for school, bought their clothes and groceries and kept them busy while YD slept and rested. AND held his baby sister's hair back while she threw up almost non-stop. He left and my youngest daughter went out for 2 weeks. Did the same stuff. Then Older sis went out for 2 weeks, then Oldest sister went out for 2 weeks and bought a new couch, table and filled the house with groceries and set up a meal delivery service. I followed with the last 2 weeks. Everyone took PTO or simply said "If my company fires me b/c I put family first, then I don't want to work for them".

YD survived the worst pregnancy on record and we all had a hand in it. Her DH was in his last year of residency and was incredibly, incredibly grateful for the help. He couldn't have made it w/o FAMILY.

We now have a 3 yo who is the absolute light and life of our huge family. He wouldn't be here if it weren't for GOOD PEOPLE. And I know there are a LOT of people out there who wouldn't hesitate to do the same for their family or strangers.

Personally, I enjoy the attitudes and awareness that my kids have about race, kindness, love and a better attitude about the world. I have nothing but HOPE in my heart for a better world.

Shell, you're so right on the financial aspect; the value of money is not really understood to younger generations, but they didn't live through the Great Depression and can't understand studying by candlelight (as my mother did) b/c you couldn't afford electricity.

Rationing is another serious lesson learned from the Depression as well as WWII.   I doubt there are many people today who understand how food was rationed during WWII, and how women shared their ration stamps with their friends to broaden their choices of available food.

Well Stacy, my mother was Dx with NPD in 2020 and I don't sit around and think poor poor me!

Well, my parents were nothing like that and they were boomers! They could care less what the Jones had or did!

I have talk to enough Millennials and most of them don't even believe that Covid is real because they don't know anyone who died or even got it!

I had to hire some Millennials for a bar owner and the Millennials couldn't do math in their head...easy math! I had girls that didn't know what the change should be. Example, beer is 2.50 a customer gave a 10.00 and they couldn't do the math?? On another, again beer is 2.50 and a customer gave 5.00 and they're asking the bartender what the change should be?! Come on!!!

I believe the boomers were more conservative with money than the Millennials. The Millennials always want the new phone that is out...the new tech thing...a new car every 4 yrs...and so on and so on!

You have alright to disagree...you have your experiences and I have mine!
We'll leave it at that.

Shell, this is where I disagree with you since I do not believe you have children.

My boomer parents had to keep up with the Jones. So, dad was supposed to go NFL pro so an injury prevented that. All their success per say got shoved on the accomplishments of their Gen X kids. Besides the pressure of straight A's, being a star athlete, the clubs, the dances classes, golf lessons, art classes, the language lessons, etc. Oh, then there is the living in the Caymans two months a year and an Indian reservation in a mud hut with no electricity for 2 weeks a year so you understood what underprivledged meant and how much you owed your parents hard work. Thinking back it really makes you sick to your stomach to realize how privledged you were. But you still owe your parents to this day, lol. Oh, at my private school, I called teachers by their names because my parents said that I did not have to use titles, not even with them.

For that reason, I made the choice to let my Millenial son make his own decisions. He does not call me Mom but Stacy always has. Millenials are more conservative with money, savings and acceptance of others in general. As a generation, they are alot more responsible than other generations.

Do you read some of the things on here? Everyone's parent is a narcissist. Holy crap, lol. But do you actually read it? Paraphrase example: I had to quit my job because I might get Covid but I shoved my parent in a home so I sit at home, poor,poor me but because I am over 65, I am entitled to a vaccine and I paid taxes so screw the rest of you....I am a victim because my mom is mean to me. Also, because said people get a vaccine, they can go to restaurants, no masks and infect the rest of us because you know healthy people who have to go in public cannot get vaccininated until Sept or Oct.

Gender identity does not define a generation. Look at Caitlyn Jenner.

Isthisrealyreal,
You have some good points!
My dad made us sit down at the dining room table on his days off. My friends thought my family was weird or to strict! But my dad made sure that we had table manners, common courtesy and respect for adults and all that is missing in today's world!

With all respect GA, but I am part of Gen X and we didn't grow up with as much technology as the Millennials. My Generation was taught to respect our parents and other people's property. I was taught to say, "yes ma'am or no sir." We didn't talk to our parents the way kids talk to their parents in today's world. We didn't have a say where the family was going to for out to dinner or on vacation. I go to a lot of Camper shows and hear kids tell their parents "O don't Iike this camper or we are not buying this camper" and the parents saying, "ok, well keep looking." Really!!! "It the tail waging the dog! "Sense when did kids have the right to tell a parent what to buy or not! My dad came home with different campers and never once asked if it was okay with my brother or myself. Why? Because we were kids and not paying for it!

The problem with my generation (I think) is either both parents started working outside the home and/or our stay at home mothers didn't really do any parenting. The 80's is when credit cards became a big thing right long with material consumption! I can only speak for myself and my friends from back than if we wanted something we were told to get a job. Were the Millennials got handed a lot of what they wanted and grew up thinking the world owes them. Of course, this is not true for all Millennials!! Just most of them! Where my SO works they hire a lot of Millennials and they work for a week and think they should get the full-time position not caring that there are other men in line for that position who has worked for the company for 6 yrs! But hey, their special and once they figure out that they are not up for that position they quite stating how unfair the company is!

Moreover, I have went on job interviews with a Millennial doing the hiring just to have them tell me that I don't have enough experience...Really...25 yrs is not enough experience??? Later, I found out they didn't hire me because I knew more than they did...again...REALLY???

In what I have experiences with Millennials is they are just as Narcissistic as some of the boomers!!

Remember the Millennials grew up going to school and everybody got a blue ribbon for the relay races and what not because no one wanted to hurt anyone's feels...well the real world doesn't work that way!! Sorry...it just doesn't!!

I know I'll get some backlashes for this, but this what I see everyday!

P.S There is a whole generation that don't want to be gender identity. As in I am a girl but my pronoun is us, or I am gay, male and my pronoun is someone or them!! Again REALLY!! I just want to yell "your a girl and that makes your pronoun her/she."

The other day, I was talking about my grandparents, to my aunt. This aunt is from the other side of my family.

I was talking about the joys of being a grandmother now, and reminiscing about my own grandparents. I remember them as practically perfect. They loved us and would come up from the Midwest to New York, and stay in our house and play cards and Yahtzee with us kids They wrote us frequently, and made us feel loved.

My aunt is a friend to ALL. The most loving person I have EVER met. She told me that she never cared for my grandparents at all! It was a shock! I changed the subject, since I didn’t want to know WHY! It would taint my idea of them! :-) With my mom in MC, and my own health problems, as well as the pandemic weighing on my mind, I just wanted to keep my grandparents in my heart as I remembered them! :-)

So, what we remember from our childhoods, MAY just be what our hearts want to remember! I’ll keep those particular memories just as they are! :-)

I don't understand why society gives each generation a label. GenX, Baby Boomers, Millennials, I don't get it. Labels are used to distinguish one thing from another. How can we broad brush all millennials, for example, and say this is what defines them. I don't even like political titles like Democrat or Republican. I've been both and have finally settled on Independent.

And, yes, I am sad at the death of the older generation. But I am also saddened at the death of younger people who haven't had the opportunity to live life. Two weeks ago I lost two dear friends I treasured. One, a golfing buddy and his wife, both died of COVID within 3 hours of each other while holding hands in adjoining hospital beds. Otherwise healthy individuals who have lived a good life, but should still be with us. I'll miss him dearly on the first tee. Another female friend of over 50 yrs died of kidney disease. I tear up at the thought of losing them.

So something is missing, GingerMay, and it can't be replaced.

Remember that admonition - when you point a finger there are three pointing back at you. I think that a lot of boomers did a bad job raising our kids: we gave everyone a trophy so they never learned to feel defeat and to strive for more, when there was trouble at school we blamed the teacher, we didn't want to "force religion down their throats" so we never gave them any moral compass, and we are the ones who broke down all the barriers around polite language and public sexuality. That said we know that every generation has despaired at the one coming after, a millennia ago Socrates supposedly said "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

My husband and I are boomers. We’ve taken care of seniors in our home. Didn’t dump them anywhere. We raised both of our sons, paid in full thru grad school and law school and helped them establish their own homes. This is hardly selfish on our part.

Courtesy is taught at home and in church. We did have dinner as a family. Even though adults we still have dinner as a family a few times a week.

We were all young once and the generations that went before said the same about us.

Personally I believe that "good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."

We do get wiser as we get older because of the above.

As for people not having common courtesy for one another, well, that is taught in the homes that have not really been there. How many families do you know that make it a rule that we all sit down and eat together, every dinner, no excuses and no technology? Yeah, me neither.

My grandma is the best person I know and she is 101, kinda the glue that binds but is very different than my parents. My mom is a boomer, christ she drives me nuts. If you ask my mom, my grandma is the biggest pain in the a** on Earth and if you ask me my mom is the biggest pain in the a**. See how it goes with mothers and daughters?

I am Gen X and while I respect GAs opinion, I do not agree. In all of my years here, I have heard her talk in glowing terms of nieces or other relatives, never of her own children.

I can tell you, the minute my mom cannot take care of herself, she is in a home. Many boomers were selfish. They want what they wanted and ditched us Gen Xers to fend for ourselves or ditched us on their parents. That is the most narcissistic, self absorbed and greedist generation ever, there are books backing my train of thought. My personal opinion, my mom ditched my sister on my at 16 and had "issues" due to a divorce. Not my problem. Us Gen Xers adapted and taught Millenials to be self sufficient.

So, to answer your question, no that heirarchy will never be replaced. People will adapt and move forward.

I’ve read this question over and over. It’s sad they died. I miss my own parents, but others not so much. I like the younger generations. I find them interesting and involved. Innovative thinkers. In my community they are excellent volunteers. I don’t like the names assigned to generations - old or new.

It's sad to lose these people who influenced us, but remember, they DID influence us and as a result, they continue to live on long after their lives have ended.

Don't lose faith in the younger generation -- they have less experience, but as they gain life experiences they'll rise to the challenges before them.

All will be well. Rejoice in your part of this great circle known as Life.

I share the sadness and loss of those of my parents' and my generation, and honestly, I'm not comforted by the approach of the younger generations, including Millennials and Gen X.    I think through no fault of their own, they're been mechanized and approach problems differently, w/o the old time analysis and experience that I saw in my parents' and my generation.

I think that sometimes they're more bonded with their tech devices than with real people, or at least that the devices are the preferred methods of communication, as opposed to face to face interaction (prior to COVID 19).   But it's more than a bonding; it's segued into a way of life.

Shell makes some good points in her last 2 paragraphs. 

It's the cycle of life, right? Longevity runs in my adoptive family.......my mother is 94, and her mother lived to 91. Her brothers and sisters all lived to mid 90s, or at least late 80s, same with dad's side. He lived to 91, his mother to 95, and so on. They outlived 95% of the rest of the population and were fortunate, in some ways, for having done so.

I don't know if our parent's generation had better values than the current generation. I think all generations feel such things, whether they're true or not. My daughter in law is carrying on matriarchal traditions in our family right now and doing so with gusto, so I have no doubt she'll be just as strong and loving as her predecessors.

Some traditions get phased out and replaced while others are carried on by the younger family members. That's life, that's progress, and that's how it has always been I guess. What I will say about my mother's generation (1920s) is it sure did seem to breed a huge group of narcissistic personality types which hopefully won't ever be repeated in such numbers in future generations! Yeah...they weren't all inspirational people from that age group, that's for sure! 🙄

Yes, I feel the lost but not sure how to describe it. I personally believe that people are not what they use to be! I see it everyday! It may show up in small ways mostly, but it also shows up in big ways! In small ways, you get very few thank yous or your welcome for holding the door open for someone. Some of the big ways, is you make small talk standing in line and he/she gives you a dirty look or someone in the grocery store hits you with their cart and gives you a dirty look or a look like it was your fault because he/she thinks you should have gotten out of their way! I am not sure if these are a few things your talking about, but people today only care about themselves and they will run you over if you are in their way! Yes, we have always had people like this, but now there is more of them then ever!

At my last job, I got the pleasure of seeing 8, 9, 10 yr old kids telling their parents what they were going to do...not asked...but told their parents...We are doing this...we are doing that. I even heard kids call their parents names like dumbing and worst and yet parents did nothing! Sorry to say this happened more times then I care to count!

Here is my point: Adults are letting kids dictate how things are done and what to buy...again I see it everyday! So yes, something is being lost. If kids are running the family homes then who is doing the teaching? There really is no one or not enough people to replace what is being lost from my parents generation and my generation! The new generations want to change things to what is called 'New Age!' And that is a whole nother discussion!

It is not your age...there is a silent void!!

Yes to all of it.
I think we often fail to see the things going on behind the scenes when we aren't directly involved, so all of those wonderful characteristics we attribute to previous generations are the result of not having the whole picture combined with looking through rose coloured glasses. I think it is a pretty rare person who feels ready to take on the mantle of patriarch/matriarch, I know I keep looking back for role models even beyond my parents to the generation that held that position in my childhood, the idea that I'm one of the role models now seems impossible because I haven't figured it out yet!