Generation PP

If you haven’t guessed from my previous posts, I’m a Gen X baby. I’m in my 50’s with two kids, two dogs, and two personalities. One is the “real” me and the other is the one I was programmed to be. I absolutely love the generation I grew up in and I think my kids just made it under the radar of when they were born before the world went to shit. Phew!! But that’s for another post.

I am a proud Gen Xer, not just because it was a fun time to be alive, but because… umm… yeah, that is exactly why. The 70’s was a fun time to be a kid! All the nostalgia you may have heard is all true. We did in fact drink from hoses on the side of our houses when thirsty, we played Kick the Can in the street and Ghosts in the Graveyard at night. We rode our bikes 2, 3 towns over without our parents knowing. We used the streetlights glimmering on at night as our signal to head home after a fun filled day of outside adventures, which included climbing trees to jumping over each other’s bodies with dirt bikes and none of it involved any parental supervision whatsoever. Even if we got hurt, were bleeding, and needed a grown up, pals patched you up with a stick of used chewing gum or something like that to act as a Band-Aid because if we went home to our parents, there would be a lot of questions followed by a lot of yelling.

The 80’s was when I became a teen. It’s been referred to as the decade of consumerism and materialism, as exemplified with Madonna’s huge hit, Material Girl and the fact that I spent all my allowance on Rick Springfield records and Aqua Net hairspray. We were living the good life, but as teens, our parents became a little more interested in what we were up to on the daily, as they probably should have.

Let’s talk about their generation. Dun dun dun! The BOOMERS. Yikes. They definitely got a bad rap from every generation that followed. I sometimes wonder why and then I hear one of them crankily yell at the most inappropriate moment, like at a Christening, “Kids today are too ‘soft,’ they don’t know the value of a hard day’s work!” etc.. Thanks Uncle Frank, I don’t think the choir in the balcony quite heard you. And if it’s an older boomer, a displaced sexist or racist remark could follow. You never know. So, how does one describe a Boomer if that little anecdote didn’t paint a picture? Well, intolerant comes to mind. Close-minded. I mean I don’t know, I was a kid… but what I do know is that their children’s “emotional” needs weren’t always at the top of their parental goals. We as kids were often told to shut up. No really. Not, please desist from talking, but “Shut up! You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” We were actually called stupid when we were, in fact, acting stupid. There was no worry about our mental health or self-esteem. I mean they did use some filters. Like if you were overweight, Aunt Rose called you “big boned” or “husky” if you were a boy and girls… well we got the old, “but you have such a pretty face” comment. They were never subtle about it so you basically grew up with either a really thick skin or an eating disorder.

But the one thing I think all us Gen Xers became was people pleasers. This is a dirty word in psychology today I’m learning. People pleasers are the most messed up people on the planet they say. You have to “work on” that. You have to stop that. Well that’s hard to do when you grew up running up and down from the T.V. and back, changing the channel for your parents before remote controls were invented. If you questioned their reasoning on anything, you got hit with the all too familiar, “Because I said so.” And you took that answer without further probing or it would lead to, “Stop or I’ll give you something to whine about!”

Now I know I’m making Boomer parents sound like ogres. They weren’t. They were very loving, caring… I was going to say attentive, but there was this T.V. commercial that aired at night in the 80’s that actually asked parents, “It’s 10:00 pm. Do you know where your kids are?” For real.

So, this morning on my way to work I was at a stop light. I’m in the right lane, so I could certainly turn on red if able. But I’m stuck there sitting. And sitting. And I have no idea why the car in front of me isn’t turning right. Then I see that the oncoming traffic from the other side of the road is also at a hault. They could be turning left but aren’t. What the hell is going on? Then I finally see this young woman walking across the walk way. Everyone is waiting for her to cross. Two huge lines of traffic coming from both directions at a major intersection are waiting. I suddenly feel hot under my coat. I’m annoyed. I find myself questioning myself…Why, why are you so bothered? Hello? It’s traffic, you’re used to this. But it isn’t the waiting that bothers me, it’s the why I’m waiting.. This young, 20-something year old woman with ear buds in isn’t walking across the street, she’s strolling. She. Is. Taking. Her. Sweet. Time. She is not bothered in the LEAST that there are two lanes of traffic waiting for her. Is she carrying packages that are so heavy that she can’t maneuver her gate properly? No. So I look for a limp. She’s gotta have a limp or some reason for taking her sweet time. Nothing. So, I find myself cursing out this perfectly healthy young lady, who I’m sure is lovely. If this was me, who had to cross a busy intersection with many cars waiting for me, I’d have sprint across the street. I also let the person with only one item go ahead of me in the grocery store line. I have this thing about holding others up, like their time is more important than mine.

I now think of the Gen Xers more as Gen PPs. Generation People Pleasers. When I think about the obligations imposed upon us as children, not just physically or academically but socially, it’s just so different from what we have passed down to our own kids. We have made sure that our kids don’t live with the same guilt we grew up with. If you grew up in a large family like I did, you were expected to say hello and good-bye to every single relative in attendance at a party. And if you grew up in a big Italian family, like my husband’s, ppph.. forget about it. You had to plan your departure an hour before you were planning to leave because if you didn’t make mindless chit chat with each relative for at least 10 minutes a piece, you were shunned. Lots of kiss hellos and kiss good-byes. Didn’t matter if it made you uncomfortable, you had to allow whoever wanted to plant one on you do it and pretend you liked it.

We don’t inflict as many etiquette rules on kids today. We have taught them to be independent thinkers. This has as many positive attributes as negative. I think the key to good parenting is finding the correct balance between “do what’s important to you” and “be respectful of others.” I think the young generation today may not be getting that balance.

Being a “people pleaser” is more than just being thoughtful and considerate. It becomes a problem when our responsibilities become skewed into indebtedness. It’s easy to lose oneself trying to be selfless. Again, BALANCE. I think with every generation comes more introspection on mental health, which is a good thing. As long as the Golden Rule is still taught by parents and schools everywhere, I think generations to come will be fine.

Gen PP’s parents may have been strict with their rules and harsh with their words, but they had to be. They couldn’t check their Life 360’s to see where their kids were at all times. They couldn’t call or text us wherever we were whenever they wanted. All they had were warnings to give. I still use with my kids one of my dad’s favorite warnings, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” The respect I now have for my parents raising five kids, not knowing if we were “lying dead in a ditch somewhere,” has come full circle. Yes, we got yelled at often and had to hear crazy phrases and warnings all the time, but what other choice did they have? Like the commercial reminded them every night, they did not know “where we were” at 10:00 pm. For that especially, I give them grace.

I had my children in the late 90’s, early Y2K. “Helicopter Moms” became a buzz word in the Gen Z era. Parents were becoming too involved with their kids and not letting them just be kids. But some of us parents didn’t think of it that way. We, or I should say I, thought of it more as being the “emotionally attentive” parent that I didn’t necessarily have as a kid. I did want to know what my kids were doing at all times, who they were with and why. I wanted to know my kids’ friends and their parents. I vowed to ask my kids every night how their day was and if it wasn’t so good, then why and what could they do to make it better. Their mental health was as important to me as their physical health. I wanted them to know that as important as it is to be respectful and disciplined, it is equally important to set boundaries in your relationships. I think one great piece of advice I gave to my kids is “Listen to your gut. If your instincts tell you something’s not right, get the hell outta there or stand up for yourself! It doesn’t matter who you may disappoint.”

For some reason the previous generation considered compliancy as a strength, not a weakness. Disappointment “builds character.” That may be true, but a character that is afraid to excel and experience things out of fear builds nothing. God bless our 80’s heroes for women. I can’t imagine how hard it was for Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel space (RIP), and let’s never discount Oprah. Come on girl, she blew up in the 80’s and is still, well, Oprah. No need to say more. Compliancy is something that all of us “people pleasers” learned as a child. But I truly think that most of us GenX-ers have learned and grown from that. We may stumble back into old ways by trying to please everyone around us, but deep within us, we know better. Like when my mom told me to check my guest towels during a party because they do get wet so it’s important to swap them out mid party. I still do that, btw.

Teaching strength and bravery to the next generation is the complete opposite of “soft”. Sure, kids today may have their Door Dash and water bottles, (they don’t even know what a hose is), but if you take the time to really know them, you’ll realize that they care a hell of a lot more about our planet and equal rights than our Cheeto eating, RC Cola asses did while watching Dallas on a Saturday night. I didn’t raise “people pleasers,” I like to think I raised Whitesnake “Here I Go Again On my Own” kids. They may not need me much anymore, but I’m secure in knowing that they will be okay. I’m pleased.