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Thursday, February 12, 2015

Writin' 'bout my generation - This is my generation baby !

Janus Manhattan's Children : writin' 'bout my generation baby !


Truth be told, I don't actually know when my generation , the postwar's first (transitional) generation of children, really ended.

But I am certain it all began in 1941.

That is because I define this key transitional generation as those too young to remember WWII as WWII but old enough to remember the rebellious 'turn to postmodernity' of the late sixties first hand - so around 1961 should marks its ending.

( I really should love this definition - it places me, born in 1951, conveniently plunk (Janus-like) in the middle of this generation !)

But, as a writer, my difficulty revolves around this question : is some vague personal memory of 1950s (modernity-oriented) public schooling also required as well ?

Many people think it so.

If so, my generation runs from 1941 to around 1956.

Now in Canada, for example, the Baby Boom began in 1941 and ended in 1966 .

However, I feel we must re-define this transitional generation away from the question of whether its members were baby boom members or not .

We should focus instead on a worldwide set of kids who grew up within my original definition --- even in countries that experienced no visible baby boom.

That is those kids who were old enough to feel the postwar glow of WWII scientism second hand, but also young enough to share the 'rock 'n' roll' rebellion of the mid to late 1960s.

Even if that only meant wildly dancing, as elementary school kids, to a noisy Rolling Stone record because they knew their parents clearly disapproved ....

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