I find all of the titles or labels ascribed to various generations of Americans to be useless, annoying, and seemingly contrived by the previous generation for the purpose of writing and selling books chronicling the perceived woes of the current generation.

We stuff these cohorts of people in boxes and stamp them “Generation X 1970-1980: MTV watching latchkey cynical slackers” or “Millennials 1980-2000: Self-centered entitled narcissists”. Of course we have “The Greatest Generation 1900-1924: Saved the world from fascism and tyranny”. Hard to compete with that.

They were called the “G.I. Generation” or the “WWII Generation” until Tom Brokaw christened them “The Greatest Generation” and wrote a book about them of the same name. I’m not arguing with Tom’s assessment or seeking to lessen what this generation did for the world. What they did was indeed great, but it seems that Tom has set the stage for a generational battle royale for second best from here on out.

Maybe that’s why it seems that the previous generations don’t have much flattery to bestow upon the current generations. By necessity, if big brother is gunning for second best he had better knock down little brother as much as he can. The problem is that these youngsters have stamina.

We’re bitterly heading down one side of the hill; tired, sweaty, paunchy, soft, knee’s aching, and we can hear them (and their terrible music) effortlessly and jovially bounding up the other side. Well we’ll just sit down and write a dozen books, and publish a couple hundred research papers, breathlessly explaining how your generation will lead us to ruin.

You won’t read the books, or care about the research, because your busy carving out your place in this world, but it will make us feel better, and it will give us something to talk about while we listen to NPR and search the internet for gout remedies.

I recently read a book that traced the first written example of this elder generational brow beating of the younger generation to the Greek poet Hesiod in 700 BC. That means that 2,717 years later we are working on about the 135th volume of the “Kids Nowadays” chronicles. The written version anyway, as I’m sure this topic has been one of interest since the first Neanderthal dad caught his daughter socializing with that smart-alecky Homo Sapient boy two caves down.

I don’t like being put in a “Generation X” box with all the characteristics assigned to us, and I don’t think it is fair to put other generations in boxes along with all the contrived traits that have been assigned them.

I’ve taught “millennials” for about 14 years, I’ve raised two “millennials” and spent a lot of time around their “millennial” friends. Are they self-centered entitled narcissists? No more than any other young adults, of any other generations, at any other time. It seems to me that it’s hard to carve out a “self” in this world without being a bit self-centered.

It’s difficult not to think of yourself when you are being asked, “What do YOU plan on doing with YOUR life”, “What job is of interest to YOU”, “What do YOU want to study in college”? They are constantly asked about themselves, asked to turn their thoughts inward, and then accused of being self-centered narcissists. A dirty trick, but there are no rules in the competition for “Second Best Generation”.

Kids nowadays are going to be us some day. They will look after their aging parents (I hope), they will work to give their families the best that they can, they will keep this country moving forward, and if they are tested (I hope not) they will do “good” (“great” has been taken).

The kids nowadays? If a box is necessary, I’m inclined to label theirs “thoughtful, caring, creative, inspiring, and just fine”.