Generation gaps have always existed. The kids who grew up in the 1870's would always consider those newfangled horseless carriages to be a noisy waste of money. The generation who grew up with the first automobiles further stunned and alienated their parents by partying hard to jazz in the 1920's. But one of the greatest generation gaps in history was the one between Boomers and their parents and grandparents.
My father was born in 1919. He spent his teenaged years in the Great Depression. Pleasures and pastimes were few for him, as he weathered harsh economic times on a Minnesota farm. Poor dental hygiene cost him his teeth by the age of thirty. So entertainment and having fun were rather low on his list of priorities. In addition, he was put off by loud rock and roll music, and saw little rhyme or reason in the student protests of the 60's.
He was a great father, but you can see how his thinking and the thinking of his offspring would be so different.
The parents who worked so hard to provide great lives (including healthy teeth) for the post WWII-born children would one day find themselves on the opposite side of the fence, so to speak, with the cultural, musical, and political preferences of their children. For instance, to refuse to go to war in 1942 would have stigmatized an individual as yellow, or cowardly, or as a draft dodger. Some did seek conscientious objector status, but they bore the wrath of society for doing so.
However, many Boomers had enough chutzpah to question the very morality of the war in Vietnam, and to thereby burn draft cards and loudly protest and refuse to go, fleeing to Canada or going to jail, if necessary.
Our parents just couldn't relate or understand.
Indeed, it was our comfortable middle-class households that allowed us to be so rebellious. Many of us grew up in Spock-inspired upbringings, where children were allowed to have a voice in how they were raised. This certainly encouraged expression of opinions and beliefs. But even if our parents were disciplinarians (mine certainly were), we still had easy childhoods compared to them. We weren't working in the fields for fourteen hours a day like they might have. No, we were at home watching the Mickey Mouse Club.
It wasn't just being willing to defy authority that made Boomers different. Our parents grew up listening to much of the same music our grandparents did. The Jazz Age was an urban phenomenon, and the large rural-raised percentage of the WWII generation grew up unexposed to its excesses. As a result, the whole family would gather around the radio and enjoy the same music.
That all changed with the birth of Rock and Roll.
Suddenly, teenager's radios were blaring out music that sounded debased to our conservative parents. It sounded like it was being played by . . . Negroes! Who would listen to such noise?
Indeed, many were shocked to see Elvis on Ed Sullivan for the first time and to discover that he was WHITE!
Of course, we kids love it. We liked it to be played loudly, as well. Our poor parents, used to the soothing music of the Ink Spots, Eddie Fisher, and Sinatra were repelled by this new musical phenomenon.
Another thing that they found shocking was the fact that drug use was becoming commonplace. This must have been more shocking than the other two differences put together.
But not all of us protested the war or dropped acid, though it's hard to imagine a Boomer not being into Rock and Roll. But even if we lived more straight-laced lives than the hippies on the nightly news, there's no doubt that our thinking was a whole lot different from that of our parents. And that constituted a massive generation gap that has not been repeated since.
For a great, fascinating read about the Hippie generation, check out this site.
Comments (4)
In a time period where we are seeing more than four generations at one time, I believe the issue of generational differences should be seen through the lens of traits and tendencies more so than age. My two cents. You may have Xers, like myself, you get along better with boomers. We have that "boomer" thing going on, I guess I can say. But at the sometime, I don't get along with xers at all.
www.generationalprofiles.com
Posted by Tim Harris | August 17, 2007 12:13 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 12:13
What generation gap?
just kidding.....another
good question would be who coined the term generation gap. For that matter, the naming of generations themselves. Isn't that
kinda-sorta egocentric
to give generations little names? I blame it all on mass media.
Think of it. Before it, we were all one human race. Now, mass media splinters young from old
with infernal electronic
contraptions, mostly to do with music. Okay, so now mass media and music are the culprits!
I have a little thought experiment. Here goes(and this is sorta like
the "A world without mexicans" movie BTW, where we learn how to tend our own rosebushes
and make our own beds when Lupe, Jose and their collective bretheren disappear from the face of the earth):
Imagine(and this thought experiment also credits Lennon for his
inspiration with his own thought experiment,
even though he forgot
to zap Yoko after everything else. I could deal with no religion, war, countries, etc., but I personally would have to vaporize Yoko as well. Sorry, John!)
Imagine no Ipods, Iphones, or anything else beginning with I.
Also all foods ending with I(linguni, spheghetti, mostacholi, etc.) Also all snack foods ending with O's
(Tostitos, Doritos, Fritos, etc.)
Finally, zap all electronic thingies altogether. I mean all of them. Okay, now you have a bunch of americans living without permanent or portable appliances, electricity, or snack foods. What to do?
Good question..not much, apparently. Hence the point of this experiment. The generation gap IS the media. If we were still
scouraging for nuts and berries on the serengetti plain, there
would be no gap. We would all look for walnuts and raspberries the same damn way.
Technology AND invention
create the potential for that gap, and the gap itself. Those were the first gaps, from the bronze age on. The mass media broadcasts
it to the masses, gently embedding it in our collective subconscious. Thats why the gap was so big in the 50-s - 60's....Media
(television, AM radio,
LP's) and technology
(suburban mass housing tracks, expressways,
747's, computers) converged into a critical mass. Technology changed faster between 1890 and 1925, so it wasn't the pace of change. It was that the media WAS technology. Radio kickstarted the media as technology thing,
creating big band zoot suiters and wanna be's
all over the country in the 30's/ Let's not forget that the 40's teens were the biggest gap up to that time, with the sinatra swooning, their own hitparade, and all that.
In the 50's the media became us, in a surreal way. We could watch the tube, and maybe catch our friends on it( I remember the kids next-door winning a big prize on Bozo's Circus in Chicago). We couldn't live without our tunes, just like todays kids cant without their pods.....We defined ourselves by TV shows
(remember when you were watching this or that...). Madison avenue decided to take advantage of the unprecedented numbers of kids, and singlehandedly created a mass market of consumers. They gave them the illusion that they were special, with their own music, TV shows, movies, etc.
Again this is simply corporate america making money by creating illusions, just like Hollywood.
Ultimately, the human element triumphed over the corporate, as we used the collectiveism
for higher purposes such as ecology, civil rights, liberation of everyone from whales to
women(and prob some female whales).
My only question..what will we name the generations when we run out of the english alphabet? Russian cyrillic? symbols(@#$%&*()~)?, emotions-:)...
one can only guess, and pray.....
Posted by scott | August 17, 2007 3:10 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 15:10
> My only question..what will we name the generations when we run out of the english alphabet? Russian cyrillic? symbols(@#$%&*()~)?, emotions-:)...
Scott, a couple in China wants to name their new child "@", so you might not be wrong.
Posted by David S Paleg | August 18, 2007 1:40 AM
Posted on August 18, 2007 01:40
How about naming a kid
with an entire dot-com
address, and updating it
his/her entire life with
personal firsts and events...this can precede the moment when
we all become virtual,
and upload our conciousness into the collective web of being.
So Ray Kurzweil sez, anyway......
Posted by scott | August 18, 2007 6:18 PM
Posted on August 18, 2007 18:18