• Pipoca@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I still think it’s a really weak definition if you give out arbitrary date ranges which inevitably leads to random smaller generational definitions and too many varying opinions on what generation starts or ends where.

    The point of generational cohorts like millennials or the silent generation is that being born at a particular time in history has an affect on people.

    The silent generation’s earliest memories were depression and war. The great recession impacted millennials in their early career or in high school.

    Age ranges captures that and makes it easy to measure things without having to find out when someone’s great grandparents were born.

    And yeah, 30’s on the young side. Lauren Boebert was in the news recently as a teen mother who became a grandmother at age 36.

    Your definition slips pretty quickly, though. Some siblings have really long age gaps. Some women first give birth at 18 or 19, others not til they’re 40.

    • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      It doesn’t really “slip pretty quickly”, it slips over the course of many generations. The average is close enough that extreme cases can be sorted into outliers. My definition still very clearly describes people growing up in different historical eras the same as the other does, it simply takes away the self-identification privileges that these other commenters prefer.

      • Pipoca@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        The average really isn’t close enough that you only need to consider outliers.

        Two generations of 30 year old first time mothers fit into the same time as three generations of 20 year old first time mothers.

        Neither of those cases is an outlier, and that’s slip in only two/three generations.

        • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Oh wow only three generations and it now overlaps slightly less than the vast majority of people, sounds like an outlier.