There’s a scene in animated film Ratatouille where the rat-cum-chef infested kitchen is manically trying to get dinners in order while unaware customers are enjoying their posh meal.
The juxtaposition is immortalised in a TikTok trend and at the moment, the two varying situations captured feel akin to the generational attitudes to the coronavirus pandemic.
While the chefs – generation Z, baby boomers and their arch enemies, millennials – try their hardest to self-isolate, the precautionary measure is coming naturally to their counterparts – generation X – or, the diners.
As health officials are encouraging people to practice social distancing – in order to control the coronavirus outbreak, gen X thinks they are uniquely prepared to deal with the situation.
Those belonging to the cohort is anyone born between 1965 and 1980.
Known as the forgotten generation, these people – now aged between 40 and 55 – were often left alone as children while their parents worked.
So the idea of being in solitude isn’t wholly new to them.
Described as latchkey kids – children who return to an empty home after school -gen Xers had to deal with, for the first time, both parents working, as women were also finding their own employment at the time.
This was solidified in a 2004 marketing study which found that this cohort ‘went through its all-important, formative years as one of the least parented, least nurtured generations in U.S. history.’
Similarly in the UK, latchkey children were prevalent in this time due to higher rates of divorce and more mums at work at a time there were few childcare options.
So now the group feels it’s their time to shine, having grown accustomed to isolation in their youth.
And folks on Twitter are making it known.
One news reporter wrote: ‘Hey #GenX. It’s our time to lead. We were the neglected #latchkey kids who understand being alone. Forgot how to do it? Recall: get off bus, walk home, head into an empty house, make a snack & get your homework done? (And no one knew you were home until dinner time.)’
Meanwhile, another writer joked that Xers will be the only generation standing: ‘Shout out to Gen X, the only generation who can keep our asses at home without being told, the motherfucking latchkey kids, the generation used to being neglected by fucking everyone. We’ll be the only ones left’.
Another person chimed: ‘Boomers are going out; Millennials are going out. The only people staying in taking this seriously is the one generation that always gets forgotten about. Gen X will no longer be invisible because they will be the only ones left.’
Thank you Gen X for showing us how it’s done.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/16/generation-x-self-isolating-come-easy-12405072/?ITO=squid
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