‘Don’t call me Boomer.’ On being young, young

I overheard a conversation between two teenagers at my son’s school cafeteria and one of them was talking about a teacher leaving and why he was cool. The second one said, ‘But isn’t he old?’ and the first one replied, ‘He is not old­ old, he is young-old. He is cool!’

It reminded me of Pam Aldon’s monologue in Better Things where she has a fiery retort to being called a Boomer by her daughter, ‘For the last time. I am Generation X. We are the coolest generation.We can give change without using the computer.We are analogue.We use paper.We are the last golden generation. Don ‘ t call me Boomer. I hate that!’

Developmental psychologist Bernice Neugarten made a distinc