Angela Mollard: Everyone hates Gen X, not as much as we hate ourselves

Everyone hates Gen X, we are the sandwich generation targeted by all, but what is there to envy when everything we were raised on turned out not to be true, writes Angela Mollard.

I have a theory on why everyone hates Gen X.

Oh, don’t pretend you don’t. We are regarded as a generation of complaining Karens and apathetic Andrews and castigated for home ownership even though interest rates are gouging us as we lead the charge to bring down inflation.

We are envied for the wealth we are apparently going to inherit and mocked by Millennials who take to social media to declare: “gen x sucks” (note lower case). Said X, sorry x, basher went on to say that she suspects “hormonal shifts later in life play a much bigger role in society than we’d like to admit”. Clearly immaturity earlier in life breeds meanness.

Even the Boomers resent us because we’re the first older generation to parlay health awareness, hair dye and injectables into looking hot.

Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in a scene from film When Harry Met Sally.

See Kylie Minogue, Liz Hurley and Jennifer Aniston. Meanwhile Gen Z mock us because we’re their parents and therefore fair game but they respect their Boomer grandparents because they are “cute”.

And yet the real reason my generation, born between the mid ’60s and early ’80s, is so picked on is because we’re constantly bewildered as a consequence of the lies we’ve been told. Unlike the robust Boomers who swan around the golf course secure in the income from their investment properties and the woke Millennials who command the workplace with their EAP-funded therapy speak and threats of quiet quitting, we are the forlorn product of deception. Everything we were raised on has turned out not to be true and, try as we might to soldier on with our Protestant work ethic and rictus grin – “cheer up love, it might never happen” – the sandwich generation is crushed by the weight of hollow promises. Here’s some of the lies we were told.

Love is easy

We would meet the partner of our dreams in 90 minutes. That’s how long it took Meg Ryan to nab Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally and Tom Hanks in Sleepless In Seattle.

Kylie Minogue still slaying even as she passes 50. Picture: Jim Watson / AFP)

We fantasised about being Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy in Before Sunrise. Unlike the Boomers who’d glimpsed the havoc wreaked on romance by two world wars and therefore put in effort with courting and hand-written letters, we learned about love via effortless meet-cute. Consequently, we’re not only baffled three decades later when our relationships fail but ill-prepared for the transactional “connections” offered by dating apps. Younger generations seem to thrive in a world of situationships and ghosting but you only have to watch My Mum, Your Dad to see how being misled has made Gen X woeful at love.

Failure is not an option

Do you know why Gen X are the greatest users of Botox? Because of the furrowed brows we all have as a result of spending our youth worrying senselessly about not living up to expectations, mostly self-imposed. Raised on a diet of cement and cordial, we weren’t allowed sick days unless visibly dying, told we had nothing to complain about and given unsolicited perspective about “children in Africa” and: “When I was your age we walked 78 miles to school without shoes”. In 1995, the Apollo 13 movie was released with the tag line “Failure is not an option” even though spaceships seem to explode on takeoff every other week. While we’ve spent a lifetime battling impostor syndrome, younger generations now embrace failure as a “key learning” while Elizabeth Day’s instructive podcast How To Fail is a modern ode to f --k ups.

Jennifer Aniston is still redefining age. Picture: Zoey Grossman

The world is your oyster

Aged 23, I sought explanation as to the meaning of this nonsensical adage since an oyster is clammed shut. Apparently, the saying encourages us to turn a grain of sand into a pearl but having watched the process at a pearl farm in French Polynesia I now know oysters make pearls because some bloke with a pair of tweezers performs mollusc IVF with a tiny bead. It’s not miraculous and while the world is indeed enchanting the poetry of the sentiment is delusional. As Gen X can attest, the “world” may be our oyster but it comes with jet lag, pickpockets, lost luggage and poor exchange rates.

You can be anything you want

No, I cannot be a supermodel or a brain surgeon (squeamish) or an engineer. This one was often paired with “hard work pays off”. I’ve worked solidly for 34 years and my mortgage is bigger than ever.

Eat the food pyramid

No wonder we all ended up on diets after being instructed to eat vast quantities of bread and cereal but restrict our protein and fats. It’s left us Xers with deep suspicion for dietary advice, although we seem to be coming round to broccoli and blueberries. Imagine the discombobulation Millennials might feel if suddenly told that kombucha was bad for you.

If you sit too close to the TV you’ll get square eyes

Biologically impossible scaremongering from our parents who also told us not to pull a face in case the wind changed and not to swim 30 minutes after eating.

Seriously, is it any wonder we are pilloried and pitied?

Originally published as Angela Mollard: Everyone hates Gen X, not as much as we hate ourselves