I recently joined a Facebook group for Gen X women.
It was originally called “Gen X latchkey women” but recently changed over to “Gen X Women are Sick of Your Sh!t” which is about the most Gen X name ever.
This group has been entertaining and also eye-opening in a number of ways.
First of all, my fellow Gen Xers are all going through similar things, so it’s been reassuring to know that I’m not alone. We’re all getting older but still finding ways to feel young and rebellious.
My tattoos are probably the most Gen X thing about me. I’m glad I finally found the confidence to “rebel” a bit in my late 20s through 50s!
Secondly, many of us are parents and find ourselves tearing our hair out (hopefully not literally) over some of the things our teens want to wear, do and listen to – just like our Boomer parents undoubtedly did with us back in the 80s.
But we’ve also been reminiscing as a group about our teen years in the 80s and that’s been wild. I had forgotten how trashy the 80s were – thank you, MTV and music videos for the epic influences – and how much I wanted to do crazy and rebellious things as a teen.
Case in point, I clearly remember the following:
- Using Playboy stickers in tanning beds for bunny tanlines
- Loving highly sexualized and gender-bending 80s music videos
- Watching forbidden rated R movies like Porky’s on repeat once our family got HBO
- Being obsessed with getting away from our parents
- Wanting tattoos in the worst way
- Reading every inappropriate and sex scene-filled book I could get my hands on
- Obsessing over Madonna and wanting to wear lingerie as clothing
- Trying to act and look older than I was
- Flirting heavily with a 25-year-old at a party when I was 15 (thankfully nothing ever happened beyond flirting!)
- Sneaking out at night to hang out with the neighbor boys
- Having friends or my boyfriend come over the second my parents left the house
- Spending WAY too much time with my boyfriend – like all of my time, basically, and forgetting about my friends
- Thinking my parents just did NOT get it and doing the exact opposite of what they wanted at times
Seeing that list, I realize that our beloved Gen Z daughter is doing just fine. I was a good kid and so is she.
Z may be having some of the same impulses that I had back in the day – and that’s normal. She’s going to turn out great. Most likely even better than I did because her emotional intelligence is like at level 3000.
So maybe I need to chill a bit instead of stressing us both out when she has some of these natural teen wishes and urges.
After all, it’s soooo not Gen X to micromanage our kids. We were left to fend for ourselves and we did just fine. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned through this little trip down memory lane, it’s to RELAX a bit about parenting our teen.
Just like Frankie told us to.
