Posted on 07/23/2004 8:50:51 AM PDT by qam1
Remember when all that generation Xers wanted was the key to the car? Well, now they need booster seats; generation Xers are parents. In the US, 51 per cent of children now have parents who were born between 1965 and 1979.
Frightening, no? Well, no. According to some recent studies, generation X - many of whom grew up on Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit - is doing just fine when it comes to raising generation Y.
Gen-X parents may even be doing a better job than their parents - the baby boomers - did.
"We see big gaps between how the boomers raise kids and how gen X does it," says James Chung of the Boston-based Reach Advisors, which last month released a study called Generation X Parents: From Grunge to Grown Up.
"With boomers, the focus was on making money and creating quality time for the kids. But generation X just wants to be around their kids while they are growing up. And gen-X dads, in particular, say they want to do more than bring home a pay cheque."
To compile its report, Reach Advisors, a market research firm, surveyed 3000 parents of young children. Half the group were baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965) and half were from generation X.
It found that gen-X parents were more likely to say that family was their priority. Gen-X fathers were also more likely to lend a hand around the house. While boomer fathers said they spent about zero to three hours a day on child-rearing activities, including taking care of the children and cleaning, gen-X fathers spent twice as much time - between three and six hours - on similar tasks.
Gen-X dads weren't happy about it, either. They wanted more time on the home front.
"Among boomer parents, 38 per cent said they were happy with the work-life balance in their home," Chung says, "But only 26 per cent of gen-X parents felt the same. The boomers were much more likely to say they felt satisfied with the amount of time they spend on child rearing, even though it was less."
Boomer parents were more likely to define "having it all" as having a career, a family and "literally having a lot of stuff".
"Gen-X parents, however, appear less interested in having it all. Instead of trying to fit a family into their work life, they are more likely to try to fit work into their family life," Chung says. While wealthy boomers might brag about how much they paid for something, gen-X likes to talk about how much they saved.
Separate studies suggest that children who are old enough to see a difference appreciate it. A recent Mood of American Youth survey, conducted by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, found that 80 per cent of young people report "no family problems", up from 40 per cent in the 1970s. Another study, State of Our Nation's Youth 2002, rejected the belief that children do not get on with their parents.
Half of the young people surveyed said they wanted to spend more time with their family. Three-quarters said they got on with their parents "very well" or "extremely well". Half picked a parent as their main role model.
Kay Hymowitz, of think tank the Manhattan Institute, has also studied the differences between gen-X and boomers, and says: "Married generation Xers are the most traditional, conservative group in the country. They are much more traditional than their boomer parents. I think we are seeing a backlash against the boomers, who raised their kids in an era where there was a lot of divorce. A lot of gen Xers suffered during that period and they are determined to do it differently for their own kids."
Hymowitz agrees there is no evidence that divorce rates are falling, "maybe because it's too soon. We have to wait and see. "We are talking about attitudes here, and there definitely has been a big shift in attitudes . . . when you talk to young mothers today, their issues are very different from boomer feminists.
"They aren't talking about how to get ahead. They take it for granted that they will work. But they know they can't take kids for granted and, when they have them, they are happier to work part-time, to be with them."
Hymowitz cites an American Demographics report that showed gen-X parents were nostalgic for the childhood that boomers supposedly had. By 2000, the number of women with infants under one in the workforce had dropped from 59 per cent to 55 per cent, the first decline in decades.
Mainstream media have noted the change: The New York Times Magazine this year published a hotly debated cover story on highly educated women who quit work while their children were young. Time magazine ran a cover story called "The Case for Staying Home".
It seems that gen-X adults resemble their Silent Generation grandparents more than their boomer parents.
Reach Advisors' James Chung is 37, and therefore "on the cusp" of generation X. His children are aged one and three. "I know when I started having kids, I felt frustrated, not being able to spend time with them," he says. "I thought, I don't want to spend all my time at the office."
But he notes some selfishness, in his approach.
"I know it's good for my wife and good for the kids," he says. "But let's be fair. It's good for me, too."
Actually, you're lucky. There is no more ideal job vis-a-vis children than teaching!
Pretty early home, often before the kids. Summer off, just like the kids.
My mom was a teacher and got back into "full teaching" once I went to school. (Prior, she did home teaching for special people, either at our house or theirs. I was often along for the ride.) Yes, I survived not always having my parents home when I got back from elementary school (sometimes my older siblings were), but Mom generally got there soon.
Never mind that Summer was completely supervised by Mom.
Primary teaching is the ideal situation if you have to have a job.
Good article.
Here's my anecdotal evidence, but what the heck --> The private college I attended has turned out a goodly number of traditional couples - father works and mother stays at home with a trend toward families with over two children - 3, 4 and 5 being common. It was a mainstream evangelical school. It was a surprising trend to see develop, but it occured nonetheless.
My wife homeschools and stays at home with our 9 year old, 5 year old and 2 mo. old (granted the 2 mo. old has not started on algebra yet). Being a minister and living next door to the church - I am able to spend alot of time with the family.
As others have noted on this thread - money can be a bit tight, but I think the benefits of X'ers raising a generation (gen z?) of family oriented, stable adults, future oriented and not dumbed down by the system will be immense.
For what it's worth too, the X'ers I've known who have gotten divorced, haven't seen many, typically have gone to great lengths to make the children a true priority - parents living near to one another, genuinely trying to maintain or create a sense of stability and connectedness.
My wife is the same way. I think that is the duty and destiny of our generation.
I was born in '84. What the hell am I?
I think you're on to something. It certainly applies to my wife and most of our friends as we think about starting a family in our early thirties.
As a generation (myself included) we got married in our mid-late twenties instead of late teens early twenties. I don't hear about near as much cheating as what seemed to go on in the seventies with my father's friends. I would guess that we will see the rate of infidelity and divorce drop significantly.
I'm an older X-er ('67). My parents were not boomers! My mother was born in '36!! Other than that, good article. What is my kids' generation called? They were all born in the 90's.
Married, traditional, conservative generation X bump.
Your kids are Gen Y.
These demographic lines are very arbitrary. I was born in 1961, which makes me a boomer. But Vietnam, the defining event of the Baby Boom, is only a hazy memory of my early childhood. I have much more in common with Gen X than I do the Boomers.
That was Hugh Hefner's influence -- his magazine really took off at the end of the 60's and stayed big......he was married to Barbie Benton, but not so's you'd notice, not with a mansion full of Playmates, and not for long. But Hef wasn't a Boomer. He was Silent Generation, launched his magazine in the early 50's. Between them, he and Betty Friedan damn near killed off marriage. Friedan was same generation as Hef and Gloria Steinem (who's about 64 now).......Friedan chose her boyfriend over staying in college, moved to another city to follow him -- then he dropped her. Made her bitter. She's the Angry Old Woman of feminism, real piece of work. Steinem was Queen of the One-Liners ("A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"), finally got married at age 61! Has actually smiled 6-1/2 times since she turned 20.
Sounds like how the War Generation (the "Greatest Generation") did it. Only dads had to work -- staying at home during the day wasn't socially acceptable for them unless they had some kind of really good reason (like night work, home office, etc.). Later, when kids were all in school and accounted for during the day, Mom would take part-time work (very strong trend), maybe later fulltime.
As needed, d/o their income-earning ability, one or the other would take a second, part-time job, but they always pushed the kids to stay in school, do well in school, and absolutely not leave school early or take part-time work while still in school unless it was really short hours.
And they drove one car -- a second after she started work, usu. a VW Beetle. In the 60's, with the kids in high school, the iconic garageful was a station wagon like a Ford Country Sedan or an Olds Vista Cruiser, and a Beetle for grocery runs, work commutes, and dates.
Is there a coherent message there somewhere?
X'ers tweak so damn much you can never tell.
Geesh, I'm old.
A mere hatchling.
I'm a 76er and my parents were also wonderful, but that was not the norm for our generation. I remember being ina Sunday school class for high schollers and the teacher asking each person there whether they'd be a better parent than their own. I was the only one to say "no". The biggest complaint was that the parents didn't have time for them and left their raising to the schools and church.
I thought I was Gen X being born in 1983....I guess I am actually Gen Y.
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