We were once the kids in America, but now, we smell like geezer spirit. Gen X is not the first generation to be defined by youth and then have to live down the embarrassing spectacle of not dying before we got old, but we may be the first to fully embrace the irony of the situation. Since bullshit slides right off us— perhaps from all that Teflon we ingested as kids— we can’t help but recognize societal expectations around aging for what they are: another attempt to ground us for life, the hope that we’ll just peace out and pretend everything is fine, like we did when our mom and her boyfriend fought. Golden years, my ass.
If getting older is hard for Gen X writ large, make mine a double. As an elder Gen X woman who came of age in some of the most legendary (read: seediest) rock clubs in the Northeastern U.S., I do nothing gracefully, and I’m sure as hell not approaching aging that way. The older I get, the more purple streaks I put in my hair, even if I immediately sweat them out in this never-ending hell of hot flashes. Still, I went from dancing this mess around to being one poorly-timed step away from the punk rock nursing home, with a shocking number of ailments for a woman of late middle age. “Where is my mind?” is no longer just a Pixies song, but a question I ask myself daily.
Almost as bad as dealing with aging is the fact that my status as a Gen Xer has wavered over time. I was born in December of 1962, and like many folks of early 60s vintage, have considered myself Gen X ever since reading Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. My peers and I were slacking along just fine until demographers decided to redefine the generation, casting us as Baby Boomers. Others have tried to call us Generation Jones, a moniker so dull it feels like we’re being trolled.
Now, thanks to a recent New York Times piece, we are back in the Gen X fold. But for how long? Being kicked out of Gen X and drifting generation-less for years is possibly the most Gen X thing ever, but I’m tired of begging to retain my identity.
Here’s a solution: call us Geriatric Gen X.
Please note that when I say “geriatric,” my fellow nightswimmers, it’s my attempt to reclaim the word. Boomers—the generation that widely changed previous perceptions of youth—are certainly older than we are now, but they’ve figured out a way to navigate their new identity. Hippie women, for example, have morphed into ethereal white-haired witches, like a mesmerizing fleet of Stevie Nickses. But what’s an old punk rock lady to do when she can’t even kneel down to lace her steel-toed boots?
In proposing the creation of a new sub-generation, I guess I should define it, even though the idea of “criteria” seems totally bogus to me. If you remember the Watergate hearings as the thing that knocked all your favorite reruns and game shows off the air for an entire summer; if you’re old enough to have danced in punk/new wave clubs in the 80s and early 90s; and if you’ve recently gasped after catching sight of your jowls in the mirror, you’re probably one of us. But to stave off Boomer condescension or Millennial exasperation, let me offer some more specific characteristics.
• Age: Douglas Coupland started Gen X with those born in 1960, but I’m defining Geriatric Gen X as born between 1959 and 1969. Why start at ’59? Because that’s the year Robert Smith from The Cure was born, as well as the comedian Tracey Ullman. If the man who helped invent Goth and the woman whose sketch comedy show brought us The Simpsons are not Gen X, then no one is.
I’ll admit that ending our cohort in 1969 feels a bit arbitrary to me. Why are Billy Porter and Paul Rudd, both born in 1969, Geriatric Gen X rather than garden-variety X? All I can tell you is that they feel like my people in a way that folks born in the 1970s do not. Also, my partner has given me a celebrity hall pass for Paul Rudd, so it would be weird if we were not the same generation.
• Name: There are several first names that define this cohort. For example, my name is Lisa. According to the Social Security Baby Names Database, this once-obscure name was number one with a bullet for female births in the U.S. from 1962 – 1969. Lisa is a quintessential Geriatric Gen X name, and to prove it, let me introduce you to the four other Lisas who were in my kindergarten class.
Other strongly Geriatric Gen X first names: Michelle, Jennifer (especially in the latter half of the 1960s), Michael and David. If you’re a Heather or a Jessica, a Jason or a Ryan, you are likely Gen X proper rather than a member of my sub-generation.
• Music: I’m aware that not everyone my age shares my passion for what a friend once described as “tortured white people’s music,” so I’ll just put forth one album that I think unites a wide variety of musical preferences: Prince’s Purple Rain. If you bought this album when it came out in 1984, and listened to it in your teens or twenties, you’re Geriatric Gen X.
• Health: Are you on more than three prescription medications with multiple side effects listed in print so small you can’t read it even with your glasses? Struggling with an inability to see at night, yet your optometrist says your cataracts are not yet big enough to be covered by insurance? Have you recently described yourself as having a “trick knee,” a “bad back” or any joint that can tell the weather? Do these questions sound to you like the lead-in to a 1990s infomercial? If you answered “yes” to any or all of the above, you are likely a Geriatric Gen Xer.
The 2020s have been stressful enough without having to fight for our generational identity on top of it. If you can personally relate to any of the characteristics I’ve outlined above, or if you just want to understand your dad’s weird obsession with that eyeroll Susanna Hoffs did in the “Walk Like an Egyptian” video, say it loud and say it proud: Geriatric Gen X. We may never have enough money to retire, and our feet are killing us, but when we hear “Rock Lobster” we will try our best to get “down, down”—even if that means we’ll need some help getting back up, up.
Lisa Borders is the author of three novels: Last Night at the Disco, published in 2025 and a finalist for the Foreword Indie Book of the Year in Humor; The Fifty-First State; and Cloud Cuckoo Land, chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing’s Fred Bonnie Award and a 2003 Massachusetts Book Awards honoree. A frequent humor contributor at McSweeney’s, her essays and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Oldster, The Rumpus, Cognoscenti, Black Warrior Review and other journals.
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I was born in 1964 and never felt like a boomer for one day in my life. I've also rejected the "Gen Jones" title because it feels like a version of "I'm not a regular boomer, I'm a COOL boomer." No, I'm the Gen X oldest sister. I ran feral with my friends, sprayed Sun-In on my hair, and I remain convinced that REM's first five albums were their best work.
You are my people. My name is Judy for fuck sake. 1967 birth. The moment I heard the Clash at age 12, I ditched my Stuffed animals and took up smoking Camel nonfilters. The collapse of the steel industry happened on my back porch.