The Baby Boomer/Generation X Line, and Graduations

I was born in 1962.

I always thought of myself as part of the Baby Boom generation. Some people draw the line that ends the Baby Boom just before that in, say, 1960, but I identify more with Boomers than Xers. Some of the reasons include a clear memory of the Moon landing and Vietnam. People just a little younger see those more as historical events. Another one is whether one remembers the death of John Lennon versus the death of Kurt Cobain as being a world-changing event. I've seen these distinctions discussed on various message boards.

Then there is a divide where kids just barely younger than mine (the youngest of which will be a high school senior next year) will have graduated five times* before their high school graduation. For those families on the older side of that divide, this seems kind of strange. For those on the younger side it is perfectly normal.

*Five graduations before high school graduation in our area include:
- Nursery School
- Kindergarten
- Elementary school
- Middle School
- Ninth Grade

Yes, after only a single year of high school, they actually graduate, because in our school district they have a separate Ninth Grade campus (mostly to keep the freshman girls away from senior boys to keep the pregnancy rate down). Heaven forbid they change buildings without a graduation ceremony to acknowledge.... changing buildings I guess.

I hear that in Europe, completing high school is not even treated as a graduation. Graduation is completion of a university degree. After that, if you get a more advanced degree, it's post-graduate education. Here in the United States these days, everything after pre-school is post-graduate work. There is a generation of kids where every event of their lives is celebrated and duly documented. If an event is not celebrated, I guess the rationale goes, it never happened.

My kids are Generation Y. A little beyond that is a whole different generation. The Celebrated Generation I guess.

If this sounds like a rant, I guess I'll just get it out in the open and be done with it. I think celebrating the little things in someone's life too much kind of spoils them. Celebrate the big things. Okay, end of rant.

For the stuff that is not so ranty, I guess file it under observations.