Is Gen X the Greatest Generation?

This is a very different take than my own. I do agree with the author on one point. I think trying to pinpoint a specific range of years to define a generation is missing the point. It's more about culture and the experience of your upbringing than it is about a particular date. I was born in '83, and I couldn't identify more with GenX. I listened to all the same music, experienced the free-range childhood, share the ideology, etc.

That being said, I don't view it in a negative light at all. Whatsoever. I don't feel that the adults let us down. I don't consider myself a trauma victim. And I never felt alone. I, too, walked myself home from school and found my own snacks. And then I took off again. On my bike or on foot. I met up with friends or cousins and we lived a life I could only dream about now. We built forts, played in the mud, shot our bee bee guns. Rode bikes, used tools, fixed things. We crashed, we got hurt, we solved our own problems. We lived, we learned, we built confidence, capability, and self sufficiency. We had a freedom that makes me want to weep yearning for it now.

Our parents, mine at least, didn't neglect me. They trusted me. And they didn't trust me not to fuck up. They knew I'd do that. They trusted me to learn from it.