Los Gatos Weekly-Times

We're leaving the world in good hands

By Sue Fagalde Lick

In their teens, they ran around in ragged shorts and backwards baseball caps. They listened to music that sounded like someone screaming obscenities to a beat. They spoke in a language that sounded like "I'm all and then he went and then I went and he's all, hey dude . . ." Beavis and Butthead were their idols.

Judging by the exterior signs, I was pretty worried about the next generation, those teens and 20-somethings who are soon going to be in charge of the world. After all, when I'm old, I'll be depending on them to take care of me. I feared all they cared about was having fun, and their only contribution to the world would be untangling the computer messes their parents got into.

I was wrong. Having marathon-interviewed 13 so-called Generation X Los Gatos business owners in two weeks, I now feel confident the world is in good hands. I should have known that from the young people I've been working side-by-side with at the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, but I thought they were exceptions.

All of the interviewees rejected the Generation X label. "I don't think of myself that way," said Susan Sedgley of Romantiques. "I'm too domesticated," said Ginger Rowe, figuring that since she was married and had a house, she was beyond the X generation.

Generation X seems to indicate a generation that is lost. The common image is a child who never quite grows up, who is stuck in low-paying no-future jobs and will never get anywhere. Certainly there are some of those. We have all seen men and women approaching 30 who still live at home, with career, marriage and parenthood still far in the future. To baby boomers like me, who were married and working full time by age 22, or to our parents, who skipped the college course and joined the workforce--or went to war--in their teens, they may indeed look like slackers.

Generation X emerged from high school into a world where the cost of living is so high that couples can't survive without two high-tech incomes, and even a young person with a good job may not be able to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

They have watched their parents getting laid off from big companies in which they invested 20 years or more and concluded that they can't count on job security so they need to make their own jobs.

Raised to believe college is a necessity, not an option, they find tuition soaring and classes being cut back to the point where it's likely to take well beyond the traditional four years just for a bachelor's degree.

Meanwhile, they hear constantly about pollution, dwindling natural resources and holes in the ozone and see people dying in epidemic numbers from AIDS, cancer and other diseases. They see violence not only in the movies but in true-crime stories on TV and in the newspapers. They eat their breakfast cereal looking at pictures of lost kids on milk cartons and hear about youths their own age getting shot in their cars.

It's not a world to relax in. Nor is it a place where people can spend 70 years reaching their goals because no one knows what will be left by then. "I don't want to be left behind," says Neda Mansoorian of i gatti, who is a restaurant owner at age 24.

These same kids were the first generation to grow up without at least one parent at home. In my day, Mom was always there waiting when I got home from school. If I got sick, she took care of me; if I needed cookies for Girl Scouts, she baked them, and if I needed help studying for a test, she quizzed me.

Looking back with tremendous guilt, I see that our generation's children came home to empty houses, tended their own minor illnesses and microwaved their own snacks. If they hit a snag with a school project, they puzzled it out for themselves or with another kid because their parents were too busy working.

Some of these same children spent their youths shuttling back and forth between their divorced parents. Our youngest was one of many traveling by plane to spend summers with his Dad.

This isn't completely bad. It taught them to be self-sufficient.

But considering the obstacles, one could hardly blame this generation if they decided to sit out the rat race and concentrate on having fun. Instead, many of them are striving harder than their parents did to make the world a better place. They see the mess created by their predecessors and want to clean it up.

The Xers we interviewed were polite, friendly, thoughtful and spoke in proper English despite the stereotypes. They were well-groomed, neatly dressed and kept the rock music down to a tolerable level. Although in some cases, Mom and Dad contributed the money to buy their businesses, the kids are doing all the work.

Most comforting, when asked what is most important in life, they didn't cite having fun or making tons of money. Family was number one. Those who did mention their businesses wanted to make them the best businesses they could.

As a 40-something with grown stepchildren, I find it difficult to believe there's a whole generation of new adults out there who look at me as somebody's mother. But it's good to see that these new adults have actually been listening to what we've been trying to teach them all these years. They strike me as a combination of the best that has gone before. Perhaps X stands for excellent.

I still don't like their music, but now I can grow old in peace.

Sue Lick is a Los Gatos Weekly-Times staff reporter.