On Millennials

[Beth1231]

Another '83 here and I occasionally identify with articles on millennials,but mostly feel more comfortable with the Gen X descriptions.

My nine year old asked me the other day, "I was watching Garfield and he opened this little book and it told him what tv show to watch and what time it was in. Can you explain what that was about?"
I shared this story with a good friend,seven years older than me and she laughed hysterically. I shared this story with my 19 year old co worker this morning and she looked very confused. And I had to explain.
It's so weird to be in this time warp when we grew up with corded phones,VCRs,maybe a huge PC and a Nintendo. And by college,just about everything had changed.

[WanderingJuniper]

I always thought I was a young gen x. Really I'm an old millennial. It's interesting because my hubs is only 3 years older than me but he is solidly a gen x and there are things that he remembers from growing up that had no place at all in my childhood/adolescance.

[JoannaV]

DH is 1981 and I'm 1989, but I grew up without much technology. No TV. Our first computer was a hand-me-down, I think we got it in 1999 but it was Windows 3.1.

How many of you grew up with rotary dial telephones? I did, but apparently push-button phones were the norm by then actually.
I think some technology was adopted quicker by the US than the UK. I remember reading books in which teenagers had phones in their rooms and there was call waiting - that right there was some exotic American technology.

[Mother of Sons]

I'm not that old but I remember the invention of voicemail (and the commercials promoting it) same for caller ID when it was separate from your phone and costs 5.99 a month. I grew up with a rotary phone with the coil cord and thought cordless phones were the best thing.

[WanderingJuniper]

I was born in 1980.
We never had cable TV and if the wind knocked out the antenae we didn't get any channels. We had a rotary phone in the basement for a long time. I never had any gaming systems growing up. But that was all in contrast to us having a CPU at home with Internet before I was out of elementary school and I had a phone line in my room with a cord phone because my mom worried I would lose a cordless "in that pig sty". I got my first cell my freshman year in college. By my softmore year I could text and email from my phone.

[Soliloquy]

Originally Posted by JoannaV

How many of you grew up with rotary dial telephones? I did, but apparently push-button phones were the norm by then actually.
I think some technology was adopted quicker by the US than the UK. I remember reading books in which teenagers had phones in their rooms and there was call waiting - that right there was some exotic American technology.

. We had a rotary phone! I remember getting our first microwave, answering machine (not voicemail), our fussy cassette player, etc. We didn't have a remote control for our tv until I was in high school.

I also remember when it was cheaper to sew your own clothes rather than buy them. And when most clothes were not made in Asia.

[Beth1231]

Ha! Yep,I remember my dad shopping for my shoes and refusing to buy shoes made in China
We had a rotary phone when I was in Kindergarten and a record player until I was eight. The PC came when I was 16 and AOL's IMing is how I learned to type.

[twentysixcats]

I was born in 1982 and I identify more with Millennials than GenX, but the Oregon Trail generation fits me to a T. I had a different upbringing, being a missionary kid and missing out on a lot of stuff due to not being in the States and having somewhat strict parents.