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Gen X vs. the Boomers

Broadcast Date: Jan. 17, 1993

Boomers and Xers agree on just one thing: members of the other generation are arrogant and selfish. Boomers say the legacy of social values they fought for are being squandered by hedonistic, cynical Xers. Xers say the boomers ate up the planet and couldn't care less that they left nothing behind. As we hear in this clip, the generation gap is widening not only due to economic differences, but cultural resentment as well.

Gen X vs. the Boomers

• In Canada, "Baby Boomer" usually refers those born between 1947 and 1964. There was a rise in the birth rate after the Second World War ended, peaking at 28.9 births per 1,000 people. (By contrast, from 1971 to 1981 — prime "X" years — the number had dropped to 15 per 1,000.)
• Shared experiences of boomers include Beatlemania, Trudeaumania, Woodstock and the war in Vietnam.

• In the eyes of Generation Xers, baby boomers were influenced by the ideals of the hippie 1960s, but "sold out" their ideals when they went on to relative economic prosperity and material wealth in the 70s and 80s.
• In contrast, Generation Xers entered their working years in comparatively lean economic environment of the late 1980s and 1990s. These years were characterized with catch phrases like "downsizing," "negative growth" and a "jobless recovery."


• Douglas Coupland once described the role of Generation Xers, entering their adult years in the boomers' wake, as "mopping up the barf after the party." Boomers, in turn, saw Xers entering the workforce as lazy, vapid, bleak, bitter and pessimistic.

• Are Xers self-pitying whiners, prone to overstating their plight? In 1994 The Economist said yes — the discourse is "dominated by the loud voices of those who actually have the least to squawk about: middle-class, well-educated whites." The job market did have the highest-ever proportion of part-time or temporary workers. But the magazine pointed out that college graduates — the ones doing the complaining — were earning 77 per cent more than high-school graduates, and the gap was rapidly widening.


• The Washington Post weighed in with an article called "The Boring Twenties: Grow Up Crybabies, You're America's Luckiest Generation." Christopher Georges called X, "the first generation to live so well and to complain so bitterly about it."
• A 1993 Newsweek article called X "the whiny generation," spoiled by their parents and having unrealistic economic expectations, always blaming others for their problems.

From Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture:
• Boomer Envy: Envy of material wealth and long-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births.
• Legislated Nostalgia:To force a body of people to have memories that do not actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?"

Gen X vs. the Boomers

Medium: Radio

Program: Sunday Morning

Broadcast Date: Jan. 17, 1993

Guest(s): Michael Adams, Kate Fillion, Mark Kingwell, Jason Zeidenberg

Host: Mary Lou Finlay
Reporter: Mary O'Connell

Duration: 9:11

Last updated:
Feb. 20, 2004