Being a Xennial

What do you think of when someone says millennial? The image that comes to my mind is a young person, early twenties, just starting in their career maybe with a sense of entitlement and an attachment to their cell phone. What if I told you a person: married, with school-age children who graduated college 15 years ago was also a millennial?

It’s true and I’m talking about myself.

Now I would have to say that I don’t really identify myself as a millennial because the widespread perception is that young entitled person, not someone who has over a decade of experience in their chosen career path. What if I also told you a person who is just one year older than me is in an entirely different generation, Gen – X. With only a year difference our characteristics and events that shape our views are supposedly different.

Looking at Gen-X though I don’t really identify with that either.

A couple of years ago I was going through a leadership class and they covered managing the different generations. We had to go with “our generation” which included a list the key events that happened in the world that helped shape our outlook on this world. I was too young to remember most of the key events for Gen-x but too old for the key events of millennials.

I bridged two generations but had to be classified as one.  I stood in between the two.

This past spring a new word started popping up on social media, Xennial. I clicked on the link, read the description and said now that’s me.

Xennial is a micro-generation born between the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Essentially we’re a combination of the traits of both Gen-X and millennial’s. We didn’t grow up with technology like our children are, but it came early enough in our lives that we easily adapted.

These characteristics apply to both myself (technically a millennial) and my husband (technically a Gen-Xer). Our childhood experiences were extremely close but before the classification of Xennials we were considered two different eras.

Why was I so excited to have a new classification though? It has a lot to do with all of the negative perceptions that there are about millennials in the business world. I have been in multiple meeting where millennial’s were put down. My older peers, the Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers, not realizing that I am in fact technically a millennial. I’ve been quick to point out that a vast majority of millennials are out school, in their careers and starting to have families at home.

We don’t need advice on getting our lives and careers started; we did that years ago.

The youngest Millennials are finishing up college and in a couple of years, there will be a whole new generation hitting the workforce that I’m sure people will start complaining about. Good Luck Gen Z, if you need any advice, we misunderstood Xennials will be there for you.

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