Son of boomers

The current culture war between “Millennials” and “Boomers” is fucking weird.

Dave Gutteridge
6 min readJan 16, 2020
Two groups of toys face off as if they are fighting.
They’re all just toys. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

As a product of so called “Generation X”, the stereotype is that I’m sitting on the side lines observing the generations ahead and behind me fighting it out. However, that’s not quite the case. I’m not impartial. The attitudes of Boomers could be said to have had a distinct impact on my life and development.

The main issue was with my father. The most striking generational difference that has shaped a lot of interactions between us is that when he was growing up in the thriving post war economy of North America, finding good paying work was a lot easier for people than it has been before or since. Specifically, in my father’s case, he was ahead of the curve in that he got into computers back when they were all about punch cards, and co-evolved with the technology as it advanced. So as the world needed computing to be done, he was right there to do it. With skills in high demand and companies expanding, he could pretty much walk out the door of one company anytime and go get a better job any time he felt like it.

Which was not the case for me. For most of my adult working life, the job market had ebbed and flowed, but so far as I can tell, it was just never as bountiful as what my father experienced.

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Dave Gutteridge

I don't post often because I think about what I write. Topics include ethics, relationships, and philosophy.