An Abundance of Generations

When I was a teenager, there was a Younger Generation and an Older Generation. The line shifted, but the stark division between two and only two camps was clear in 1970.  It was okay to get along with your parents, but you were supposed to identify with those near you in age on just about every matter or you had somehow betrayed your tribe. Other loyalties were allowed, to schools or states or denominations, but that one rose up to dominate the others. 

There was recognition that our grandparents' attitudes were not quite the same as our parents', but they were close, and this was not mere clumping of children not understanding distinctions of those older than them.  Those generations gradually separated. Though much of that may have been the oldest beginning to die off.

The term baby boomer in its current sense first showed up in the Washington post in 1970, and as those boomers were just starting to have children of their own, they couldn't really call them the same generation anymore, could they?

The number of generations has certainly multiplied, hasn't it? The Greatest Generation is gone, but the Silent Generation of 80+ are recognisable as not quite the same. (I know, I live among them in some ways here at the 55+ community.  "55+" means 70+.) But the children of boomers are not one generation. They are Gen X, Y (Millenials), and Z (Zoomers). I am told that Alphas are the new crowd, born after 2010. 

Assigning attributes to any of them is all just percentages. Similar numbers of people are going to be risk-takers, or pessimists, or lazy, or self-driven, but circumstances will reward one set of behaviors over another and everyone will shade a bit, and some abilities will be called forward. I doubt strongly the difference is anything stronger than that.

But the increase in categories is certainly there. We are splitters rather than clumpers now.