1. The information on this page has been adapted with permission from William Strauss and Neil Howe, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991) and Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (New York: Broadway Books [Bantam-Doubleday-Dell], 1997). For their term for this generation--"Thirteenth Generation"--I have substituted the more widely known Generation X, after Douglas Coupland, Generation X (New York: St. Martins Press, 1992). See also Neil Howe and William Strauss, 13th GEN: ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE, FAIL? (New York: Vintage, 1993). For more information on historical generations and how generational theory can help predict the future, visit Strauss and Howe's fourthturning.com and lifecourse.com sites. [Back to your place.]

2. Strauss and Howe (1991), p. 74; Strauss and Howe (1997), p. 137. [Back to your place.]

3. Ibid., p. 194, citing Landon Jones, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (1980), p. 231. [Back to your place.]

4. Ibid., pp. 194-95, citing Cobbett Steinberg, Real Facts: The Movie Book of Records (1981), p. 41. [Back to your place.]

5. Ibid., p. 195, citing Leslie Fiedler, in Jones (1980), p. 241; Jones (1980), p. 242. [Back to your place.]

6. Ibid., citing Marvin Harris, America Now: The Anthropology of a Changing Culture (1981), p. 114; Strauss and Howe (1991), p. 324; Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Ourselves and Our Children: A Book by and for Parents (1978). [Back to your place.]

7. Ibid., pp. 195-96, citing Thomas Gordon, Parental Effectiveness Training (1970); Marie Winn, Children Without Childhood (1983); studies on parental time deficit by Joan Robinson, in Sylvia Ann Hewlett, When the Bough Breaks (1991), p. 73. [Back to your place.]

8. Ibid., p. 196, citing Samuel Preston, "Children and the Elderly: Divergent Paths for America's Dependents," Demography (November 1984). [Back to your place.]

9. Ibid., citing Kyle Pruett, The Nurturing Father: Journey Toward the Complete Man (1987); Strauss and Howe (1991), p. 325; "Children Stepping Out," American Demographics (May 1985); Andrew Cherlin, Marriage Divorce Remarriage (1981), p. 86. [Back to your place.]

10. Ibid., citing Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986), p. 93. [Back to your place.]

11. Ibid., p. 197, citing Al Feldstein, in Winn (1983), p. 64; Judy Blume, Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You (1986), p. 273. [Back to your place.]

12. Ibid., citing John Holt, Escape from Childhood (1974). [Back to your place.]

13. Ibid., citing A. S. Neill, Sumerhill: A Radical Approach to Childrearing (1960), pp. 25, 29. [Back to your place.]

14. Ibid., pp. 197-98, citing "Grade Inflation, A Problem and a Proposal," Education Week (March 8, 1995); Alexander Astin, Kenneth Green, and William Korn, The American Freshman: Twenty Year Trends, 1966-1985 (1987), ch. 3. [Back to your place.]

15. Ibid., p. 198, citing Bureau of the Census, Poverty in the United States, Current Population Reports, Series P-60 (annual and historical); Strauss and Howe (1991), p. 326, 512-13; U.S. House of Representatives, Children in Poverty, Committee on Ways and Means (June 5, 1990), section 7. [Back to your place.]

16. Ibid., p. 233, citing U.S. Department of Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983); Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1987); Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn, Jr., What Do 17-Year-Olds Know? A Report on the First National Assessment of History and Literature (1987). [Back to your place.]

17. Ibid., citing David Leavitt, in Donald Kanter and Philip Mirvis, The Cynical Americans (1989). [Back to your place.]

18. Ibid., citing Doug Coupland, in John Marchese, "The Short Shelf Life of Generation X," The New York Times (June 17, 1995). [Back to your place.]

19. Ibid., p. 234. [Back to your place.]

20. Ibid., p. 235. [Back to your place.]

21. Ibid., p. 236, citing Roper Poll, in James Glassman, "When the Xers Come Marching In," Washington Post (January 23, 1996). [Back to your place.]

22. Ibid., citing Bureau of the Census, Money Income of Households, Families, and Persons in the United States, Current Population Reports, Series P-60 (annual and historical); Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings (monthly); Bureau of the Census, Poverty in the United States, Current Population Reports, Series P-60 (annual and historical). [Back to your place.]

23. Ibid., pp. 236-37, citing Jerald Bachman, "Premature Affluence: Do High School Students Earn Too Much?" Economic Outlook USA (Summer 1983), and "All Work May Spell Trouble for Teens," Wall Street Journal (November 18, 1994). [Back to your place.]

24. Ibid., p. 237, citing "1 in 3 Young Black Men in Justice System," Washington Post (October 10, 1995). [Back to your place.]

25. Ibid., citing "Sports Betting Rings Moving Into Schools," Washington Post (April 12, 1995). [Back to your place.]

26. Ibid., p. 238, citing Richard Morin, "Unconventional Wisdom," Washington Post (September 10, 1995). [Back to your place.]

27. Ibid., pp. 238-39, citing Astin et al. (1991); Howe and Strauss (1993), ch. 19; Glassman (1996); "Who Supports Ross Perot," The American Enterprise (January-February 1996). [Back to your place.]

28. Ibid., p. 239, citing poll by Louis Harris, in Jon Meachum, "The Truth About Twentysomethings," Washington Monthly (January-February 1995); William Strauss and Neil Howe, "Virginia Is for Seniors," Washington Post (December 4, 1994); "Money for Nothing," Details (March 1995). [Back to your place.]

29. Ibid., citing Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, The Age of Indifference (1990); The Wirthlin Group, The Wirthlin Report (April 1992). [Back to your place.]

30. Ibid., p. 240, citing Steven A. Sass, "The U.S. Professional Sector: 1950 to 1988," New England Economic Review (January-February 1990); Bureau of the Census, Workers With Low Earnings: 1964 to 1990, Current Population Reports, P60-178, pp. 1-8. [Back to your place.]

31. Ibid., pp. 240-41, citing "High-Tech Nomads Write New Program For Future of Work," Wall Street Journal (August 19, 1996). [Back to your place.]

32. Ibid., p. 241, citing Saren Sakurai, "Countercommerce," Hyper Age Magazine (Summer 1993). [Back to your place.]

33. Ibid., p. 242. [Back to your place.]

34. Ibid., p. 243, citing Mario Cuomo, nomination speech for Bill Clinton, New York, NY (July 15, 1992). [Back to your place.]

35. Ibid., p. 287, citing F. Scott Fitzgerald (1931), in Frederick J. Hoffman, "Some Perspectives on the 1920s," in Sidney Fine and Gerald S. Brown (eds.), The American Past (1970); Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (1932); Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man in Immoral Society (1932). [Back to your place.]

36. Ibid., p. 288. [Back to your place.]

37. Ibid., p. 289, citing Richard Linklater, "Slackers," Boston Phoenix (October 11, 1991). [Back to your place.]

38. Ibid., p. 290, citing Dorcas R. Hardy and C. Colburn Hardy, Social Insecurity (1991), p. 41. [Back to your place.]

39. Ibid., p. 291. [Back to your place.]

40. Ibid., p. 292. [Back to your place.]

41. Strauss and Howe (1991), pp. 416-17 (the material for this entire page on the Generation X elderhood). [Back to your place.]