Phases and Changes

Caveat: While I enjoy the company of many Boomers individually, I'm an Xer and, accordingly, have very little tolerance for them as a group. You're welcome to send me comments pointing out how little tolerance I have for Boomers, but I'm already aware and okay with it.

I was born right in the middle of Generation X (1968), so I turned 40 last year, right on time. Overall, it was a positive experience. With Boomers as our role models on aging, and their refusal to age, 40 is pretty much everything it's cracked up to be and more.

But things aren't all roses on the other side of 40. Oh no. See, Xers should be moving into the leadership phase of adulthood, having completed the activity phase. We've married (some of us have had the time and energy to do it more than once already), had children, established careers, and we're now ready to steer the ship.

And we should be steering the ship. Because we're done loading the ship. The Millennials are now the "It" generation (in a good "it girl" kind of way; we used to be the "It" generation but in more of a "gotcha, you're it" kind of way). They've splashed on the scene, made a big impact what with the electing of the President and all. Public service is cool again, thanks to them. In my opinion as Someone Who Pays Attention to These Things, the Millennial generation is everything we were promised and more (which chaps the hide of Boomers no end, for some reason; obviously this just makes me love the Millennials even more). So even if we weren't ready to steer the ship, there's no more room on the loading team, so we might as well steer. Right?

No. About that, you would be dead wrong. We *can't* steer the way the previous three generations were allowed to steer. Why? Because the frickin' Boomers aren't done leading. My entire life has been filled with doomsday messages about the fact that Boomers are not going die out in quite the way they would need to not to bankrupt Social Security. Okay, fine. I'm not just dying for them to . . . well, die. But I would like them to *retire*. Otherwise, what are Xers to do? We can't be the leaders because the leaders won't move on to stewardship. We can't be the young whippersnappers anymore because someone else has taken that job. So once again we're just in limbo. Once latch-key kids, we're now latch-key adults. We're authorized to make ourself a sandwich and do our homework, but we're not allowed to use the phone or answer the door. I'm not saying we would steer the ship to greatness. Hell, we may just run the damn thing into the ground. But it's our turn to run it into the ground.

This is all exacerbated when you're an Xer in legal education. Already, people don't retire from legal education until it's 15 years past reasonable. And why would you? As my friend Christine Hurt has said, retirement is about setting your own hours, reading and writing about the things that interest you, and sharing your knowledge with the young people. That's our job description. So I understand that Boomers may not want to retire. But most law professors do at least have the decency to quit wanting to be all involved in things when they hit . . . I don't know . . . 65? And it grates all the more to know that many Boomers can't retire because their cohorts just ran the global economy into the ground right as they were on the verge of bankrupting Social Security.

Perhaps it's all for the best, though. Everyone's been afraid of what a world run by Xers would look like (myself included). It's starting to look like things will pass straight from the Boomers to the Millennials, so everyone may be spared that particular future shock.