The following blog post is from regular contribute Chloe Koffas. It first appeared on her blog, Light From A Pixel. Republished with permission from the author. Rainbow Connection For a short time, I lived in a small town in New Mexico where pink sunsets splashed across the sky over cattle ranches and tumbleweeds sometimes blew […]
The Lost Generation of High School Athletes
In the late 1980s, the Illinois High School Sports Association created a file about the growing lack of interest in high school sports like basketball, football, and baseball. Struggling to understand the empty stadiums and gymnasiums, they labeled the folder The Lost Generation. Back in 1987, Phil English was a sports reporter for the Northwest Herald. […]
Amulet for Gen Z: Latchkey Memoir
The following post, The Amulet for Generation Z, was originally a commentary about some unfortunate events that occurred during my latchkey childhood. Specifically, childhood sexual assault. After it aired a friend sent me this quote from Maya Angelou: As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.” I appreciated that so much. June 23, […]
5 Forgotten Protests of Generation X
The Children’s March For Survival, 1972 On March 25, 1972, 30,000 people, most of them African-American school children, gathered on the streets of Washington D.C. to protest welfare reforms. The protest was called the Children’s March for Survival. The kids all carried homemade signs, braved cold temperatures and encircled the White House. They represented the 13th generation of […]
Playground Sexual Harassment in the 1970s: A Story About Mary*
June 23, 2009 – Some stories take a long time to tell. This one about playground sexual harassment at school is one of them. I wrote it down in 2008 for my daughters, and for Mary*, wherever she is. In 2005, on her fourth day on the job, Jamie Lee Jones, a young computer tech […]
The Latchkey Generation is Generation X
For the Latchkey Generation When happily ever after fails and we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers dwell on small details Since daddy had to fly— Don Henley’s End of the Innocence, 1989 Generation X: The Latchkey Generation According to Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, Generation X […]
Locked In The Bathroom: A Brief Latchkey Memoir
It’s estimated that more than 40 percent of Generation Xers (those born between 1961 and 1981, according to Neil Howe and William Strauss, the esteemed authors of Generations), were latchkey kids. I came across the blog of a Baby Boomer the other day, Finding Pam. The woman is 58, but her mother worked, and like […]