GenXers, Millennials, and Zoomers Have More in Common Than What Divides Us

How Generations X, Y, & Z can unite to support our common interests

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

“Kids these days!” goes the clichéd mantra. All of us have been the young whippersnappers dismissed by authority figures. Those of us who live long enough will eventually be in the position where we can end these toxic cycles…or keep them alive.

Personally, I’d prefer to do the former.

In an article from November of 2021, Medium’s Will Leitch writes about how generational tensions between young and old have always been cyclical.

When they were kids, Traditionalists (“the Silent Generation”) and Baby Boomers were undoubtedly scapegoated and demeaned by their GI-Gen (“the Greatest Generation”) and Hemingrebel (“the Lost Generation”) parents — who, in previous decades, had endured such scorn from their own parents.

And, as The Kasasa Exchange blog reminds us, any given generation’s priorities may change over time. None of us will be immune from this flux.

If you’re Gen X, Gen Y, or Gen Z — my plea to you, today, is to remember how we are stronger when working in tandem…rather than being at each other’s throats.

There are 234 million of us who could form a powerful coalition. Not to mention — a formidable voting bloc, electorally.

Who Are We?

For those of you who can’t tell apart one generation from the next, let’s do a quick review of what distinguishes Generations X, Y, and Z from each other.

GenXers were the original letter-designated generation. They were born in the late-1960s up through the early-1980s. The oldest Xers grew up amidst the economic instability leading to the Reagan years. Younger Xers grew up amidst the waning Cold War era and the short-lived Gulf Wars.

In terms of age, they are currently (as of the date of this June 2023 publication) in their mid-forties through their late-fifties.

Millennials (“Generation Y”) were born in the early-1980s up through the mid-1990s. The oldest Millennials grew up during the Clinton years, approaching legal adulthood as the Columbine shootings shook the…