The problem with generational labels is that they’re tidy fictions. Neat little boxes to slot millions of people into, regardless of how messy reality actually is. And no group illustrates that better than those of us born between 1956 and 1962—Generation Jones. We were technically “Boomers,” but lived in a different world than our older siblings. The historical record, the sociology, and lived experience all show we were actually closer in spirit to what would later be called Generation X.

The Historical Divide
The Baby Boomers proper—those born in the first wave, 1945 to 1955—were raised on postwar prosperity. Suburbs, cheap college, plentiful jobs, and cultural dominance defined their youth. They were old enough to experience the early civil rights battles, Vietnam, Woodstock, and the social upheaval of the 1960s as participants. They were the protagonists of history.

But for those of us born after 1956, the stage was already cluttered with their mistakes. By the time we came of age in the 1970s, the prosperity had dried up. Inflation was rampant, the job market had soured, the “American Dream” looked threadbare, and the social movements of the ’60s had either collapsed into commodification or been violently suppressed. We didn’t march at Selma—we watched reruns of it on TV. We didn’t storm Woodstock—we inherited disco and gas rationing.

A Canadian Scapegoating and the Birth of Austerity
Sociological studies, particularly in Canada, even went so far as to accuse Generation Jones of choosing austerity in the 1970s, as if teenagers controlled fiscal policy. The real story, of course, was that the GI Generation had already burned through the war-bond windfall fattening up the first-wave Boomers. The state and private wealth invested heavily in that cohort—and by the time we arrived, the cupboard was bare. We were raised in scarcity, not abundance. That’s not a Boomer experience; it’s a Gen X prelude.

The X Connection
Generation X, born 1965 to 1980, is often described by sociologists as a “latchkey generation”: raised with less supervision, skeptical of institutions, pragmatic, and distrustful of the political system. And doesn’t that sound familiar? We, too, were raised on the collapse of trust. Watergate taught us politicians were crooks. Vietnam taught us the government lies. The oil crisis taught us the world is fragile. By the time Reagan came along, selling “Morning in America,” most of us knew better.

We weren’t hippies or yuppies—we were precursors to the slackers. Raised on television rather than radio. Raised in a world of scarcity rather than postwar affluence. Forced to improvise, adapt, and live with cynicism rather than the wide-eyed optimism that defined the true Boomers.

The Family Divide
And here’s where it cuts personal: many of us grew up with older brothers and sisters who were first-wave Boomers. They got the car keys, the protest glory, the scholarships, the jobs, and then, later, the blame-deflecting narratives. Some of them became the Trumpets, the flag-waving reactionaries who betrayed everything they once claimed to stand for. Meanwhile, the younger siblings—Generation Jones—were left with no illusions. We already knew the system was broken because we grew up inside its collapse.

Conclusion: Misfiled in History
If the true Baby Boomers were the children of prosperity, then Generation Jones were the children of disillusionment. And that makes us much closer to Generation X, who inherited our skepticism and refined it into their cultural identity. We should never have been grouped with our older siblings. They burned through the inheritance, danced in the streets, and then sold out. We came of age in the ruins and learned how to live with it.

History may have called us Baby Boomers, but sociology proves otherwise. Generation Jones was the awkward middle child of the postwar era—raised as Boomers, but culturally and politically more like the Gen Xers who followed.

And ladies and gentlemen—let’s clear one thing up. We are not the parents of Generation X, unless we started having kids at 14. Which, well…some of us did. But that doesn’t make us Boomers. That makes us proof that history wrote us into the wrong damn chapter.

References

Coupland, D. (1991). Generation X: Tales for an accelerated culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Foot, D. K., & Stoffman, D. (1996). Boom, bust & echo: How to profit from the coming demographic shift. Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross.

Kroker, A. (1984). Technology and the Canadian mind: Innis/McLuhan/Grant. New World Perspectives.

Strauss, W., & Howe, N. (1991). Generations: The history of America’s future, 1584 to 2069. New York: William Morrow.

Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Turcotte, M. (1989). “The Jones Generation and Austerity.” Canadian Review of Sociology, 26(3), 421–439.