I’m a Gen-X’er.
I had to Google that. I had no idea what generation I was, being born in 1968. I honestly didn’t know that there was a Generation Alpha until about five minutes ago. Up until then, I thought Generation Alpha was a sci-fi series on cable.
I’d like to think my generation is the best, if not only because it had an entire decade of music that helped sustain the hairspray and lycra industries. However, as I listen to my own kids’ music, and watch them embrace technologies I could never have dreamed of, I can’t help but reflect on some of the major differences between us.
When I was a kid…
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When I was a kid, a parent threatening to take away my electronics meant that they’d unplug my Lite Brite.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have social media platforms to get our points across, we had a Mr. Microphone and an FM Radio.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have Victoria’s Secret. We had a 43-lb Sears catalog with a 12-page flannel nightgown section.
When I was a kid, we weren’t afraid of germs. We went to Halloween parties and bobbed for apples in huge buckets of spit and okay maybe that’s how these things mutated into the super viruses of today please disregard this one.
When I was a kid, the closest thing we had to road rage was the possibility of a limo pulling up next to us and a guy in the back asking if we had mustard.
When I was a kid, our earworm song wasn’t about baby sharks, it was about bologna.
When I was a kid, “Safe Injection Sites” were places where our parents wouldn’t catch us parking.
When I was a kid and acted up, my parents would threaten to send me to an orphanage instead of shutting off the wifi.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have school backpacks, we carried eight books & a 5-inch thick Trapper Keeper in our arms and we dropped everything every 5 feet.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have SoftSoap, our soap was hard and slippery and sometimes it came on a rope, and most nights it ended up being stuffed in our mouths for saying words like “poop.”
When I was a kid, we didn’t have Body Mass Indexes to tell us we were overweight, we wore corduroys, and if they made loud ZIP ZIP ZIP noises when we walked and then our inner thighs caught on fire that was indicator enough.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have to come home until the street lights came on, and sometimes our parents shot them out on purpose.
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Even our insults were different. Take this conversation I had with my children:
Kids: We’re bored.
Me: Here’s a dime. Call someone who cares.
Kids: What?
Me: When I was a kid that was an insult.
Kids: Why?
Me: We had phones you had to put coins-
Kids: Why wouldn’t you just text them?
Me: So we didn’t have textin-
Kids: OMG HOW OLD ARE YOU
…
When I was a kid, we didn’t fear global pandemics, We had other things to worry about like giant talking pitchers breaking thru walls or a tiny man in a boat, living in our toilet.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have gummy vitamins. Our vitamins were small and hard and shaped like cavepeople and tasted like lemons soaked in a bowl of vinegar and gasoline that was left out in the sun for a week.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have program guides on our televisions to see what was on, we had to read a tiny book that was harder to decipher than the DaVinci Code.
When I was a kid, we couldn’t pause the television, if we missed part of a show we had to wait eight months to try to catch it in a rerun.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have electronic devices or game consoles to keep us busy when we were bored, we went outside and played in traffic like our parents told us to.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have fancy low-calorie sodas like Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, or Sprite Zero. We only had something called “Tab” and it tasted like carbonated brake fluid.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have dangerous viral eating challenges like eating Tide Pods to make ourselves trendy, we went to school and ate paste like everyone else.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have clothes that wicked away moisture when we sweat, our moisture stayed unwicked and that’s how we liked it.
When I was a kid, we didn’t give holiday gifts to our teachers and bus drivers before the holiday break, we left school for 10 days and that was gift enough.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have tableside guacamole at restaurants. We didn’t even know what guacamole was. We dipped everything in ketchup.
When I was a kid, there was no safe-driving technology in our cars. Our parents backed into things and drove with their knees while we sat unbuckled in the middle of the back seat inhaling their cigarette smoke.
When I was a kid, the Tooth Fairy would leave me a quarter instead of a $25 Visa Gift Card.
When I was a kid, we weren’t loved to the moon and back. We were loved a bushel and a peck, which is only about 180 apples worth of love.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have bath bombs. We had something called “Mr. Bubbles“ and it was pink and smelled like bleach and was probably made of some caustic substance but damn was it fun.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have free internet porn. We stayed up until 2 am watching a 13-inch black-and-white TV with the sound off so our parents wouldn’t wake up just to try to see a squiggly nipple through a scrambled Cinemax channel.
When I was a kid, a good prank was short-sheeting a bed. Now my kids change the wake-word for Alexa so I end up spending 40 minutes yelling at her just to turn a light on.
When I was a kid, the bus didn’t stop at every house. We had to walk to a bus stop and sometimes that bus stop was a mile away. Sometimes we’d miss the bus by three seconds and have to walk a mile back and ask a parent to drive us to school and whoooboy would they be angry.
When I was a kid, a lot of the fun of eating cereal was trying to find the toy inside, but now cereal boxes just say, “WARNING: Made in a facility with peanuts.”
When I was a kid, there weren’t IPAs or stouts or fancy craft beers called grapefruit shandy. Beer was beer-flavored and there were only three brands of it.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have Snapchat, or texting, or private Twitter DM rooms. There were a few America Online chat rooms all named Married but Looking and everyone in there was male.
Also, if your mom needed to talk to your grandmother on the house phone, it meant that your internet time was over.
When I was a kid, there was no online publishing or word processing. We wrote everything using a pen in a notebook or on a typewriter and used whiteout on typos, so most of our stories looked like they had mange.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have streaming music or song downloads. We had a Columbia House subscription and they’d ship us 57 cassette tapes every month for a penny and I am still getting them someone please tell me how to cancel this thing.
Got more? I’d love to hear them and love to hear from other generations!!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Ajeet Mestry on Unsplash