I haven't felt solidarity with hardly anyone in my life--especially people my own age. (I always thought I should have been born in an earlier era.) Until reading Strauss and Howe's work on generational theory, I assumed I was radically different from everyone my age group. But it turns out that I'm actually a poster child for my generation.
I'll start with the name of the archetype. I've commented on the archetype names before, and actually assigned them my own names...except for this one. It may be a coincidence, but "Nomad" fits me so well, I kept Strauss & Howe's label.
Both before and after my parents' divorce and remarriage, I was constantly on the move. I rarely spent an entire year at the same school. For the first several moves I remember, nearly everything I owned (toys, books, etc.) was left at the previous residence. After I made friends at each new place, the adults I lived with would move somewhere else and I'd never see those friends again. As I grew older, it became increasingly difficult to make friends before the next move. By the time I was in high school, there was only one year when I actually did make friends.
Throughout my childhood, I told myself that, once on my own, I would settle down somewhere, establish a permanent home and stay there. However, I remained just as nomadic as an adult as I had been as a child. Not because I wanted to, but because of the consequences of choices I made.
My parents were Silent Generation (Custodian), and, typically, married young and began having children immediately. They had three Boomer (Prodigal) children, one child right on the cusp between Boomer and Gen X, waited a few years, then, for whatever reason, had me. My parents split up multiple times up until the divorce, which became final when I was 10 years old.
I noticed being treated differently than the other kids early on. Even the way my parents referred to us, it was obvious they considered me in a separate category from my siblings. As a boy I assumed it was either because of the age gap, or because there was something wrong with me. Most of the time, I was excluded from what my siblings (and parents) did. Once when I was a teenager, my father put together a slideshow of photos he had taken over the years. My stepmother had helped him put it together and, right before my father turned on the slide projector, she gave me a preemptive excuse for why there were so many pictures of each of my siblings but so few of me. Looking back, I don't believe the excuse she offered. I believe my parents' attitude about children changed, in sync with the society writ large. My timing was just bad, as it would be throughout my life.
Across the USA, the attitude about children was changing as I and other Nomads survived the abortion epidemic and began growing up. Children went from being blessings to burdens during the "awakening" cycle. I certainly felt like a burden to whatever adult I was in the care of. The adults in my life were all caught up in their own pursuits, and society catered to them. I wasn't important enough for consideration. To varying degrees, most of the 13th Generation wasn't.
My father had a hierarchy of favorite children. His oldest daughter was always his favorite, until the day he died. His youngest daughter was perhaps tied with his middle son, who he obviously admired and perhaps lived vicariously through. His oldest son and I were at the bottom. Which of us exactly was in dead last place could be argued (at least as the eldest fell out of his favor, and my estrangement possibly convicted his conscience), but that doesn't matter anymore--except inasmuch as my oldest brother and I (born 10 years apart) represent different generations.
A good portion of my childhood was spent sitting alone in a parked car, waiting for whatever adult I was with to finish their business inside a building somewhere. During my parents' breakups and after the divorce, there was time between when school got out and an adult got home (or all day during the summer) when I and my sister closest in age were alone at home. Sometimes she would stay with one parent and I with the other. Then, and when I entered junior high, when she finally went off on her own, I would be alone at home for various lengths of time. I never heard the term until I myself was an adult, but I was a "latchkey kid."
Even though my father took that sister's side in every conflict (and there were many) and I was excluded from what the rest of the family did (when the family all lived under one roof) most of the time, that sister, to this day, still accuses me of being "the favorite." Laughable as it is, maybe she actually believed it at one time. There had to be some reason behind the contempt she always had for me, and I never did anything deserving her treatment. I could provide many examples of my father's favoritism, but that would really make this a long post. Here's just one:
During one period, my father had custody of me and the two of us lived in a nice apartment in a decent part of town. My father was gone nearly all the time, either working or dating my soon-to-be stepmother; and I was alone in the apartment. I was used to being alone by then, and starting to prefer it. I look back on that time as one of my favorite summers. Then school started, and my hybrid Boomer/X sister came into town. My father took the apartment key away from me and gave it to my sister, just in case she needed a place to stay. I always needed a place to stay at 12-going-on-13, and protested that this arrangement was unfair. He reiterated that she might have no other place to sleep on a given night, so that was that. I can't remember what I did every day after school waiting for somebody to arrive and unlock the apartment, but I do remember that on cold days/nights, I could sit under the exhaust vent from the laundry room and enjoy a blast of warm air. I guess it never occurred to my father that he could have had a duplicate key made. Or he didn't want to spend the money.
After the marriage of my father and stepmother, they moved into a trailer they bought, sitting on land they rented. Between them and my step-siblings, there was no room for me. So I slept in a little camp trailer on the same lot. I actually liked the arrangement. But then they bought a plot of land outside the city and moved the trailer(s) there. During one phase of the move, they had to get the camp trailer. I begged them to let me go with them, hoping I could pack up my stuff so that it wouldn't fall and break during transport. I was overruled because they needed me to wait at the empty lot in case one of the utility guys showed up to turn on something. So there I sat (needing to use the toilet, but with no toilet in sight). The utility guy never showed; and when the adults returned, towing the camp trailer, everything I owned that was breakable was on the floor, broken. Looking back, most of it was silly kid's stuff. But at the time, I treasured what belongings I still had and would have preferred to keep them intact. My father felt bad (after stepping on some of the wreckage and crushing it) for all of about five minutes, promising that he would help me repair the damage. He never did. He rarely kept promises--at least those made to me.
This was one incident in a growing list of evidence that I just wasn't all that important to my father. Not as important as his other kids had been when living with him; and certainly not a priority for him at that time. I, and what I wanted, came last. There was always something that took priority over me.
Up until about 11 years old I admired my father, wanted to be like him, and always hoped one day we could spend quality time together. By the time I left "home" at 17 years old, I had little respect for him, didn't care what he approved or disapproved of, and rejected many values he espoused, including Christianity. I realized that the only times he showed an interest in me were during custody squabbles with my mother, or when he felt rejected by my stepmother and his other kids weren't around.
I see now that my experiences were not unique. Most of the 13th Generation grew up alienated, even in our own families. That's probably one of the main reasons we were so violent.
Again, society's focus was on adults. Kids were a burden, or an afterthought. But the bright side was (so I thought) one day I would be an adult, and it would finally be my turn. But I became an adult just in time for society's focus to shift back to kids. While visiting my oldest brother on one occasion, I was astonished to witness him actually leave the living room to watch what he wanted on a different TV, so his kids could watch a show they liked on the main television. I was further astonished when my sister-in-law told me they would like to move out of their current house, but were putting it off for a few years because that would place them in a different school district, and she wanted her youngest child to have a specific teacher in a specific grade. Plus, their kids had friends where they were.
This blew my mind. I couldn't imagine my parents would have ever sacrificed their TV viewing for me; much less delay a move out of consideration for my education or friendships. Public school was "free" babysitting, after all--just a convenient program so they wouldn't need to worry about what I was doing during the day. Schools were interchangeable, just like childhood friends. One was as good as another, the way they saw it.
I still didn't understand that this was a clue of a society-wide trend. Over a decade later I was shacked up with a single mom (hybrid Boomer/13er) who claimed to love me. Everything revolved around that woman's kids. Dense as I was, it took me years to realize that I would never get my turn while with her, either. One of our bones of contention was how her teenage daughter habitually opened up the house to her pothead associates, who helped themselves to everything they found, rifling through my belongings and leaving them scattered all over the house. I had sacrificed hard-earned money to acquire my books, records and other stuff over the course of my life, and had taken care to preserve them as best I could. But the mob of stoners didn't care if the records got scratched when they left them laying on the floor outside the protective sleeves; or the books got torn or wet, or dog-eared. It existed, therefore it was theirs to do with as they pleased. I could not understand that attitude at all. This happened repeatedly, and (politely at first) I asked the single mom to help me stop this. I found it disrespectful, and unfair that they were allowed to damage what didn't belong to them. But every time, the single mom reacted as if I were oppressing her daughter with my draconian tyranny. There were no rules in that house concerning her offspring, except "Don't Inconvenience My Precious Children In Any Way, For Any Reason." Years after I left her, I still didn't appreciate how foolish I was to even get involved with that woman (who claimed to love me). While I don't think my own upbringing was healthy, this sort of child-rearing isn't, either. A happy medium might have have been nice.
Now that these precious snowflake Millennials are fully grown, you can see the effect this kind of parenting has had on society.
I don't completely understand why I was so attracted to older women for so long, but I have some hypothoses. First, when I hit puberty, all the "sex symbols" in society were Boomers. My alienation might have influenced this predisposition, too. Also, during my pre-pubescent years, a friend's Boomer mother did something to me that possibly has had psychological side effects ever since. For whatever reason, most of my romances have been with Boomer women, or hybrid Boom/13. I've only had a few younger girlfriends, and I should have made more of an effort with one or two of them. One of them I unintentionally defrauded and it still haunts me to this day. God forgive me for the psychological/spiritual damage I may have inflicted.
There is a phrase I would bet money was coined by a fellow 13er: "The beatings will continue until morale improves." That sums up my military experience perfectly.
Looking back, I see that one reason I wanted to be in the military was a subconscious assumption it would become my surrogate family. In actuality, it only amplified my alienation. And I haven't kept in touch with one single person I served with. Not one.
Mid-grade officers and nearly all the NCOs I dealt with were Boomers who made their rank in the lax post-Vietnam atrophy of the Armed Forces, when very little was asked of them. Once placed in authority, however, their latent sadism was unleashed and unchecked, (actually considered a sign of leadership by the time I arrived as a green junior enlisted man). My chain of command ran my unit like a Nazi prison camp. Boomer schadenfreude went well beyond the need to discipline young punks fresh out of training. We were far more disciplined than they probably ever were, yet treated worse than hardened criminals for the sin of wanting to serve our country. It wouldn't have been as bad, had I and some of my 13er peers developed the kind of comradery that the GI Generation enjoyed. But I guess we were all too competitive with each other and I, for one, had almost no social skills and was still stuck at the maturity level of a young adolescent.
My rising adult years were spent in the military, then college. I felt no solidarity with my own generation because conformity abounded in both institutions. When I first heard of "Generation X," I didn't realize I was a part of it. I thought it was the label for my younger peers who came straight out of high school into college. I didn't see myself as similar in any way to the kids who dressed all in black, wore toboggans in the summer, listened to "alternative" music, went to raves, etc. "I want to be different, like everybody else," was how I lampooned such people. But outside college, the Armed Forces, and other such ideosyncratic conformist subcultures, Xers were transforming from alienated loners to incorrigible cynics, just like me.
In basic training, I was puzzled that my fellow recruits already hated military life and wished they were back home. Why did they enlist in the first place, I wondered. Every mail call, they received letters and care packages from family. No wonder they missed home so much. Their families sure seemed to miss them. I couldn't relate to their experience and they couldn't relate to mine, even though most of them were only 1-4 years older than me. But outside that subculture, Xers who probably could relate better to my experience made more intelligent, pragmatic decisions--learning computer programming instead of pursuing a so-called "life of adventure" in uniform.
I kept in touch with my parents through basic and subsequent training, but gradually lost interest in doing so. I think, by discovering what a different experience my peers had, I began to connect the dots, realized how shortchanged I had been in childhood, and resented it. I did spend one leave visiting family. My peers thought I was crazy for being happy to be back from it.
My enthusiasm for soldiering took a while to die, as I kept anticipating that, just around the corner, something would change and I would finally find my niche in life. But when I had had enough, the whole experience just added to my bitterness. When I rejoined civilian life I quit shaving; grew my hair out long; refused to tuck in my shirt or wear a belt; made a habit of putting my hands in my pockets, and expressed contempt for most military types ("LIFERs") and wannabes. My philosophy was: "I'm a civilian now, and I'll do whatever the ______ I want." Unfortunately, my rebellion carried over into my spiritual life, too.
Over time, I communicated less and less with family--especially my father. I only attended one family reunion out of four or so that took place.
As an adult, my father was a lot friendlier to me than when I was a child, but I didn't have much interest in him by then. Spending time with him was awkward. We had almost no common ground. It's kind of like that Boomer song "The Cat's in the Cradle." Thematically, at least.
I did eventually forgive him, and made more of an effort to visit. He died in 2017 and it made me sad for a while; but honestly, I don't miss him.
I get along well with my siblings, and enjoy spending time with them. I'm closest to my two brothers. But we might never see eye-to-eye on some matters. I see now that our conflicts result from a classic contrast in attitude between the 13th and the Boom. For instance: my brothers (and Boomer friends) recognize a need to reform institutions, but are horrified that I think every last one of our corrupt institutions should be torn down. I think the United Nations should be kicked out of the USA (should never have been allowed in to begin with, in fact); the IRS, Federal Reserve, and welfare state should be razed to the ground...for starters. The mainstream media has been deceiving us going back to at least 1898 (probably much earlier), but their deception gets more centrally-controlled, standardized, and blatant all the time. Television programming is a moral cesspool filled with everything God hates. There's no escape from unGodly messaging anywhere in pop culture today. Yet at least one brother (and other Boomers) still faithfully watch local news, and CSI/Law & Order/NCIS/whatever on the Idiot Box. They know, on some level, they are being lied to, but they keep exposing themselves to the lies. "You can't just throw out the baby with the bath water," Boomers will tell you--meaning there's something worth watching amidst all the lies and cultural brainwashing they consume. So if there's just a little bit of poison in your food or water; or just a little bit more than there was last time, no problem. Eat, drink, and be merry.
Discussions/debates/arguments are handled differently by my brothers and I. They are concerned about balance--not wanting the other person to adopt a position they see as extreme, on either side of an issue. I tend to see most issues in black & white. There is right, and there is wrong. If you're wrong, I don't care whether you're a radical or a moderate--you're all under the same umbrella, and part of the problem. If you're right, then why not be extremist (by today's definition) about it? If you compromise with evil, then you're also part of the problem, even if you believe intellectually in what is right.
My Boomer brothers (one to a different degree than the other) believe they can educate others out of their ignorance or twisted logic. This causes them to sometimes spend time trying to reason with individuals who are unreasonable. I regret every single pearl I have cast before swine. Through prolific experience, I have concluded that some people are willfully ignorant and will reject truth mostly because they're heavily invested in lies...and there's no way I can compete with that investment. When I recognize that fanatical ignorance in a person, I normally just disengage. There's no use in contending with somebody who rejects truth out of hand, so why waste time or energy doing so? Sometimes such a fight is inevitable or necessary for one reason or another, but when it's not, I just walk away with the valuable knowledge that the other person can't be trusted. I'm a lot less frustrated since adopting this policy; but I also probably write people off too quickly. Thankfully, God doesn't write people off as easily as I do.
A trend toward cynicism began with the Boomers, and peaked with Generation X. Same with individualism. My brothers would probably be considered antisocial by Barn-Raisers or Custodians, but they're nothing compared to me. Solitude was an affliction as a young boy, but now is a preference. Although I sometimes enjoy the company of others, I have no emotional need for it. Looking back at the times in life when I was most happy, they usually occurred when I was isolated. Sometimes I had friends during those times, but kept them at arm's length. My brothers and Boomer men I know draw strength from being with family or part of a community. I don't. If I get too much of that, it's an irritation.
I don't believe I'm any sort of model for psychological health; I'm just admitting how I am. And I suspect there are a lot of 13ers/Xers who are very similar. Would I like to be part of a warm, loving family or community? Sure. But even if I found that, I don't think I'm cut out to be a part of one anymore. That ship probably sailed long ago.
I kept hope for that, and many other desires, alive for a long time--like approval from my father and the fairy tale love of a good woman. I was naive for clinging to my hopes for so long, in fact. But when I finally let go, I guess it was permanent. Now those erstwhile desires don't interest me, except in an abstract sense. Dreams of great accomplishments have died, too. What do I want out of this life, at this point? I still want success, as I define it now. I want to minimize stress, drama, hassle and suffering. I want the rest of my life to suck less than it has up to now, and that's about as high as my expectations dare go. In short, I suppose I'm drifting into nihilism--another characteristic of my generation.
It does no good to complain about "my lot in life." Boomers and Millennials wouldn't believe or understand the complaints. Other 13ers have their own problems and baggage to worry about. It wouldn't generate sympathy. And what good is sympathy, anyway? Sympathy can't be cashed in for anything of concrete worth, and is short-lived at best, anyway. Trying to please God is the only worthwhile endeavor left. That's perhaps the greatest revelation a human being can be given. My specific life experience was the path I traveled to get to where I could accept it.
Enough of that. I'll start on the historical cycles next.
