Dear Boomers - an open letter from a GenXer

[SheilaT]

9. Try to read "Generations"

by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It came out twenty years ago, so it could use a new addition, which is never going to happen as William Strauss died in 2007.

They make a strong case for the generations actually being defined by outside events that influence them, not simply by a baby boom or bust. They define Boomers as being born between 1943 and 1960, not the usual 1946-1964.

People born on the cusp can really go either way, depending on other influences around them. They have 1982 as the first year of the Millennials, and it does seem to me as though most people I've known born in 1981 really are X-ers (or as Strauss and Howe named them, Thirteeners).

Jimmy Carter, although officially a GI generation, having been born in 1924, strikes me as by behavior a member of the Silent Generation. We never did have a President who was officially from that generation, but Carter behaved like one.