I hate to break this to y'all, but Gen X pretty much got the shaft coming up in schools. We still had corporal punishment, we missed out on the political correctness crap, and we got to watch education dollars be pissed away at an alarming rate. On the up side, we had real sex ed that included contraception as well as folks telling us, "IF YOU HAVE SEX, UNPROTECTED, YOU WILL GET AIDS AND DIE!" And oddly enough, many of us had drills for what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Which might explain why we threw money at Rollins and The Circle Jerks...

If Gen X gave ourselves trophies, it's because Mom and Dad were still at work when we got home from school everyday and so we had to take care of everything ourselves.

lousyskater: A Terrible Human:

except the political correctness kept us from reading Huckleberry Finn.

86' here, glad to see I made it through high school before that one hit.

'88 and we sho' nuff got to read Huck Finn, yessah.

CliChe Guevara: As much as people make fun of them, Gen X actually has the potential to be far more effective leaders than the boomers. Even Gen Y has a small but distinct faction of solid leaders. Not all kids grew up in coddled suburban helicopter enclaves, and those that didn't actually stand out in even more contrast because of it.
 
Now, Generation Duckface looks to be a complete wash. 
I am not sure there is any salvaging even parts of it, but Gen X should shake things up even more effectively than the boomers ever did, and not all of Gen Y is a loss.
 
Gen X has that whole "We converted the old economy to an information economy and invented all of the toys that the Millennials now claim as their own" thing going for them.  That said, as much as I poke the Millennials, I think they'll be ok.  They'll just have to wait their turn.

Mentat

If Gen X gave ourselves trophies, it's because Mom and Dad were still at work when we got home from school everyday and so we had to take care of everything ourselves.

As cynical as it is, this statement is so goddnmned true.

The term "latchkey" kid doesn't really exist anymore because parents are suppose to have child care until kids are 12 or some shiat now or you are a negligent parent.

CliChe Guevara: As much as people make fun of them, Gen X actually has the potential to be far more effective leaders than the boomers. Even Gen Y has a small but distinct faction of solid leaders. Not all kids grew up in coddled suburban helicopter enclaves, and those that didn't actually stand out in even more contrast because of it.
 
Now, Generation Duckface looks to be a complete wash. 
I am not sure there is any salvaging even parts of it, but Gen X should shake things up even more effectively than the boomers ever did, and not all of Gen Y is a loss.

Gen X are your teachers. We are your middle managers. We are in our 40s to late 30s. We are the upper echelons of your police and fire departments. We are the folks leading your ad campaigns. We are making a lot of the films. We are not controlling everything, but Gen X has a firm hand on the throttle at least. Mind you, this autotune sh*t is probably some engineers idea of taking a piss and seeing if folks will call it rain and laugh, but we are all over your music industry. It's not a threat, it's the way things go. Older generations die off, and they youngers look to the folks who are quite literally in the offices and in front of them for guidance and leadership. And oddly enough, we vote. We were the kids who Rocked the Vote. We didn't go to Vietnam, but our vets went to Iraq I and II and Kosovo, and Afghanistan, and a few other lovely tours in less than stellar places. And yeah, we pretty much ARE the Internets. We are media savvy, we grew up with the technology, and we understand networking in ways that a lot of our elders simply don't, and the real strength of Gen X is its ability to connect personally with concepts and the culture. And what's crazy making for a lot of folks, is that we're helping raise their kids.
 
You're welcome. Now turn that gottverdammt radio up, you f*cking pussies and put on some real music, and not this soft rock crap.

mjohnson71:  
Now you baby boomers are going to wipe out Social Security so by them time we get to retirement age, there won't be anything left and we won't even get what we put in.
 
/Bitter Gen-X

Would it help if I say "thanks"?

elvindeath: As a Gen X'er, I'm repulsed by the idea that someone might even equate us with the whiny ass, participation trophy having, "I'm entitled to an iPhone and full data plan so raise taxes to give me one" biatches that comprise Gen Y.  We were too busy working shiat jobs with huge hours and no living wage to pay our dues so we could have a shot at making it in life ... we didn't have time to sit around a coffee shop perfect our ironic vintage wardrobe and complaining about how our mom only loaded $50 on our itunes account to spend on tv shows that we were too lazy to catch for free when they originally aired.  I can't even imagine my younger cousins sucking it and doing without cable for the first t years of their work life like my wife and I did, just so we could make our loan payments

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
 
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

mcreadyblue: People were very afraid that Iraq would turn out like Vietnam if Kerry was elected.
 
Good thing we dodged that bullet.