Generation X are ‘adults in the room’ and need to step up to zealous Gen Z and Millennials

Fiercely independent Generation Xers - with their ‘live and let live attitude’, need to confront woke Millennial zealots in workplaces, writes Clarissa Bye

When I was a kid, I rode my banana-seat Malvern Star Dragster bike with no helmet. When the disco roller skating craze hit, there were no such thing as elbow or knee pads. Nobody called the police on children alone in parks. Or when we waited in parked cars while our parents ducked into shops.

I’m from Generation X.

We were called the latchkey generation for a while, as we came home to empty houses as our mothers began going out to the workforce for the first time, “Nine to Five” style like Dolly Parton sings in the hit movie of the 1980s.

In my first year in high school, I used to walk almost 3km home, pick up my younger brothers from primary school on the way, and mind them until my mum got home.

Author Douglas Coupland coined the phrase “Generation X” with his book in 1991.

No OOSH after school care existed. We learned to be independent.

Gen X were the first generation to experience the full effects of skyrocketing divorce rates after no fault divorces came through in the mid 1970s.

Nine To Five movie with Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, 1980, about women going out to work.

Demographers say this led to many children becoming determined to put family happiness before family income when they grew up.

“While the Baby Boomer lived to work, Gen Xers worked to live” is often quoted.

Later we were dubbed the “Slacker” generation, after a line in the Back to the Future movie, typecast as cynical and disengaged.

Then author Douglas Coupland used the phrase “Generation X” in a book, about a generation who refused to be defined, and the name took off.

Born between 1965 and 1980, we came in the shadow of the Baby Boomers, and now are sandwiched between them and the new wave of Millennials, those born from 1981 to 1996.

Melbourne demographer Simon Kuestenmacher also describes Gen X as “the forgotten generation”.

“We don’t talk about them much because they are a small generation, the unassuming middle child,” he says.

“Xers are a bit cynical, sarcastic and sceptical in their worldview and almost collectively dislike authorities and hierarchies.

“This collective cynicism forged them into a very practical generation. Xers don’t really connect to the high-mindedness of the two generations they are sandwiched between.”

Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd in a scene from the movie Back to the Future Part II. The first movie gave rise to the term “Slacker” about Generation X. Supplied by Foxtel Movies.

You can say that again.

And now we’re the adults in the room, and in workplaces, and our famous shrug of the shoulders and “let it be” attitude, is not working anymore.

We have a fight on our hands that many of us want to avoid. I was intrigued to see an analysis of US billionaire Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter described the other day as an “act of Gen X rebellion against wokeness”.

US right wing provocateur Jack Posobiec argued it was all about the mostly apolitical “don’t tell me what to do” generation running up against Millennials, who are now starting to get power in institutions and workplaces.

Elon Musk’s bid to buy twitter has been described as an act of Gen X rebellion against wokeness.

Gen Xers are “finally standing up and taking their agency in the world”, he argues. “Gen X was always the generation that said we don’t care, we don’t want any control, we don’t want any authority, we don’t want anyone to have power over us.”

But with those activist Millennials and even younger “Zoomers”, Gen Z, running wild with woke authoritarian, something’s got to be done.

“Now, those people who famously eschewed politics for so long, are now getting involved because things have gotten so crazy.”

It’s a point forcefully made by US writer Matthew Hennessey, author of Zero Hour for Gen X: How the Last Adult Generation Can Save America from Millennials.

His big argument is that cancel culture has gotten out of control and Gen Xers, soon to be the only cohort who remembers life before the internet, have to take charge.

“If Gen Xers want to spare our own kids having to live in the new East Germany these woke maniacs are trying to build, we can’t go on wearing our sunglasses at night,” he says.

Classic Gen X movie “The Breakfast Club”, with (L-R) Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. Gen X were described as the generation that “fought for its right to party”.

“The generation that fought for its right to party should be leading the charge against these millennial Maoists terrorising the culture via social media.”

Speak up, he says. Argue back in workplaces, make the case for regular order, face-to-face meetings and systems that reward merit over other faddish criteria.

Here in Australia, the march of woke ideology manifests in the whole decolonisation project, endless online training courses in workplaces, diversity inclusion and equity mandates in the public service, attempts to force us to declare pronouns and the push to allow biological men to self-ID in women-only spaces.

Some are starting to push back. Parents are taking a closer look at some of the ideology being taught to their children in schools and raising these issues with NSW MP Mark Latham every week.

Save Women’s Sports founder and Warringah Liberal candidate Katherine Deves, 44, ran into a mountain of criticism, but paved the way for more voices to be heard on controversial subjects.

Gen X may be famously sarcastic and cynical, but we’ve got the runs on the board. We’ve been there, done that. We’re resilient, forged in a pre-digital world of self-reliance, and know how important it is to keep the glue of families together. It’s time to be heard.