So here’s the deal with Generation Jones. We weren’t supposed to exist. History books had the Baby Boom neatly wrapped up in a bow: born 1946–1964, the chosen children of postwar prosperity, the kids who were going to save America with Woodstock, free love, and just enough acid to hallucinate a better world.

But then the 1970s happened. Inflation, oil shocks, Watergate, disco. Suddenly the “Flower Children” started looking less like prophets of peace and more like hedge fund managers in tie-dye. Enter the scapegoat factory.

A Canadian study even went so far as to blame Generation Jones for the turn to austerity in the 1970s—as if kids born in the early ’60s were the ones holding the checkbook. The narrative was that we looked around and collectively decided there wasn’t enough money to go around. Cute story. The truth? The GI Generation had already squandered the post-WWII prosperity cashing in war bonds to bankroll the first-wave Boomers, those born between 1945 and 1955. They fattened their kids on suburban lawns, college tuitions, and shiny station wagons, and by the time the Jones kids showed up, the cupboard was bare. We weren’t a new chapter—we were just baggage.

And maybe that’s why the women of our cohort started saying out loud that abortion on demand was a necessity. If you were just going to be born into austerity as someone’s economic afterthought, was it better never to be born at all? A harsh thing to think—but when your entire generation is treated as excess baggage, harsh realities start looking like common sense.

So now we, the Joneses, get all the joy of being told we’re Boomers—without the stock options, beach houses, or acid flashbacks. We’re the paper plate under the Boomer buffet: disposable, flimsy, but still technically part of the party. And every time the Original Boomers screw up, they hand us the bill. “Generation Jones, you guys didn’t protest hard enough.” Right. Sorry we didn’t drop out of high school at 14 to follow Hendrix around in a van.

Here’s the kicker: if we’d never existed, the Boomer hate would be so richly deserved. Born between 1956 and 1962, we’re just the patsies—brought in later so our ignorant older brothers and sisters could dodge the blame for their own failures. Without us as a buffer, the spotlight would’ve stayed right where it belonged: on the Boomers themselves. And let’s be real—when your older sisters are marching around as Trumpets, in other words fascist flag-wavers, you know exactly how much of this disaster belongs to them.

We became Boomers after the Boomers realized someone had to carry their baggage. Generation Jones is the Lost Luggage Department of American history. And after all these decades, the bag they keep dropping on us is still full of shit.