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• Delaying marriage and starting families. Maybe it's because they've seen so many Boomers end up in divorce court,
so-called challenge of being single in a couples-oriented world no longer squares with
demographics.
As a result, Xers also are:
• More stable when they do marry, Xers are about nesting and making a house a home. Today's newlyweds are typically more mature, well-established and have higher incomes than in
past.
• Better savers than their Boomer parents. In this they are more like their grandparents. The average Gen-X Moms and Dads start putting money away for college when their kids are 2½, while most Boomers waited until theirs were 7.
• Rediscovering traditional family values. Appalled by
moral relativism and situational ethics of their parents' generation--the Clintons were
last straw for many young Americans (Al Gore and John Kerry amusing poseurs) Xers similarly don't buy
notion that
government-as-nanny-state knows best. Their message: It doesn't take a village, stupid, it takes parents!
• Redefining
family-career challenge. Boomer women may have opened
door to
workplace, but their daughters are facing
family-career challenge in their own ways. “I have talked to women of all ages about balancing work and family life. What has surprised me
most is
difference in outlook between women my age, 27, and women just 10 years older,” says Elizabeth McGuire, a graduate student at John Hopkins School of International Studies: “But most women I know who are in their 20’s are dissatisfied with [family-career] alternatives. Concerned about infertility, many of us want to have children while we’re young. And though many of
dual-career couples I know who have nannies are wonderful parents and have successful careers, it seems their relationships with each other have suffered. While others debate whether day care is harmful to children, we are more worried about avoiding
frenetic pace these families seem to keep.”
In a word: Gen-Xers are unique. They don't do things or look at
world
way their parents did, and they have to be approached and worked with accordingly.
What This Means To You
Marketing and selling to Generation X is a work in progress. That means you can take what you do best and creatively wing it based on what you know about this unique mar¬ketplace. Declares motivational speaker and author, Sue A. Hershkowitz, CSP, "Look for ways to twist
familiar and success will beat a path to your door.”
We say: Gen-Xers may not beat a path to your door, but you can show them
way.
Want More? Send questions and comments to w.willard3@knology.net.
