Remember the days when MTV showed music videos, had no commercials, and we used to sit around for hours waiting for the next showing of the Duran Duran video? Bob Geldof organized Live Aid, and We Are the World, a mediocre pop song at best, was a big hit. It seemed that rock ‘n’ roll’s rebelliousness was being harnessed to save the world – or at least give everyone their MTV.
Back then, Steve Van Zandt – know today as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos – organized another group of musicians, this time in protest against apartheid in South Africa. Called Artists United Against Apartheid, Van Zandt gathered such diverse talents as Miles Davis, Ron Wood, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Boblan, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Joey Ramone, Run DMC, Kurtis Blow, and Grandmaster Melle Mel to record the Sun City LP.
If anything, the group showed where my generation came from musically (Davis, Dylan, the Who, and the Stones) where it was at the moment (The Ramones, U2 and Springsteen), and where it was going (rap music).
My generation? At 42, it's still something that I am trying to figure out. I have always had a pet peeve about how marketers label the age groups, probably because I was born at the tail end of 1964. By some definitions, I am a Boomer (those born between 1940 and 1964). Canadian author Douglas Coupland in his book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture called those born at between 1960 and 1964 Generation X because were disenfranchised from the older baby boomers with whom they felt they had nothing in common.
Yet the term Generation X has grown to represent those Americans born between 1965 and 1977. So am I a Young Boomer, a Cusper, or an Old Gen Xer? I like Coupland’s definition the best, but would expand it to about 1969 or so. People born in those years were defined by the music they listened to like ska, punk and new wave. We listened to music that was political and rebellious. Back then we got beat up if we dyed our hair pink or orange and cut it into a mohawk.
Today, I see moms taking their four-year-olds to get their punk do’s at SuperCuts. So much for teenage defiance when there is anarchy in the pre-K.
Continue reading "Label this, baby! The Rise of Gen X and Hipster Parenting" »

Now that I've left comments on a zillion blogs, I have a slight retraction to my post below. After doing a little more research, I did find the abstract of the Journal of Pediatrics article,
I read in the 
If you give a Mom a