Growing up there wasn't much talk of generations. There were just The Baby Boomers, gigantic in every way, blotting out everything else beyond them, like a massive planet passing before the sun. And while on the one hand I grew up feeling I missed many of the greatest things, the explosion in music and art, The Beatles! Dylan! Melanie! The Godfather! that had all happened 10 or 15 years before my coming of age, it also felt like I was getting all the scraps left behind by some kind of a once-in-a-century locust swarm. My many schools at every stage were all marked by interesting experimental programs that were ending and becoming more conservative and institutional. Reagan was elected. The dream was over.
But as I got older, and the wicked Baby Boomers started growing old and getting vilified by subsequent disenchanted generations, I found that I, having reaped none of the benefits, was somehow mistakenly placed as a baby boomer by a mere 64 days! I don't know what cloistered statistician cast these generational lines so poorly, but as "Boomer" became a resounding epitaph to some qualities and benefits that I never partook of, I was helpless. The dates were somehow set in stone.
Until Kamala Harris came along.
Kamala is seven days older than me! She is, technically, seven days more a boomer than I am! And as the biggest figure to loom up out of this year, suddenly those generational lines are back in play. Kamala Harris cannot be a breath of fresh air and the hope of Democracy and yet also a Boomer! It doesn't make any sense.
And so it was that I read today:
Kamala Harris identifies as Gen X.
So do I, Kamala. So do I.
I am greatly relieved by this post.
ReplyDeleteAs someone born only a few days before you I too have had to say “I’m on the VERY cusp of Baby Boomer.” Always with a sense that the label doesn’t fit.