Why Gen X Needs to Lead Now, Before Time Runs Out
"Beverly Hills, 90210" nostalgia and why it's time for a generational change in leadership
With Vice President Kamala Harris running for president, young people I know are more excited and wanting to vote with a fresh feeling of generational change. And that’s SO refreshing.
Just thinking about the stories I’ve heard from older family members about what life was like in the “natural living” olden days or my boomer parents’ start in the 1970s. There’s no way I’d want to go back then, especially as a woman. I wouldn’t want to go back to the bad-boy ‘90s either. I’d say the same for my sons too.
And no way, now how to 2025 (take a look—it is that bad).
I watched the June presidential debate with my 18-year-old son. Politics and candidates aside, he saw two men older than any of his living grandparents who would have a hard time working even a regular full-time job in their 70s. That doesn’t make them less valued or mean they can’t share their wisdom and contribute in meaningful ways. But there is a natural life course.
Gen Xers don’t have forever either.
The passing of Shannen Doherty earlier this month felt sudden and generational. Though not completely unexpected—she recently shared that her stage 4 breast cancer had further spread—how can any death, especially at a young age, truly feel “expected.” My initial thoughts were that I’d hope to live with the openness, fullness and brave vulnerability she shared with so many for nearly a decade after her initial cancer diagnosis.
After seeing the stream of photo shares of Doherty with fellow actor Luke Perry, who also passed away in his early 50s, my mind wandered back to my own parasocial connection to the show that made them famous—Beverly Hills, 90210, an elite zip code, fitting for the upwardly mobile and striving ‘90s. I stopped tuning in sometime around the Brenda-Dylan-Kelly love triangle. I felt betrayed too.
Playing into the good-girl vs. bad-girl drama was perhaps more annoying than 90210’s idolizing wealth in its bubbled world.
90210 memories
Like 90210’s main characters, I was also 16 and a high school junior when the show first aired in the fall of 1990. That alone drew me in. Every other show I watched starred boomers or older Brat-Pack Gen Xers.
Brenda (Doherty’s character) was the most relatable one—not as perfectly pure as Donna, popular and rich as Kelly or seriously studious as the stereotyped Andrea. Well, they were all stereotyped, on camera and off.
“Blame it on a desire to typecast female celebrities as heroes and villains, sweethearts and shrews, and the time-honored tradition of setting women against each other,”
recently wrote in a New York Times essay reexamining the sharp criticism Doherty faced throughout much of her acting career.
Setting girls and women against each other made navigating the ‘90s sexual politics so much worse. The ironic part of it was that no matter your status, you knew if you became a threat to someone in power, you’d be thrown under the bus too. Even if you were still on the “good-girl” side, you were walking on a tightrope. And everyone was vulnerable to being sexually harassed or assaulted, including boys and men. There was little recourse.
That might sound exaggerated, but no, not really. And because everyone had it happen to them or someone they knew, everyone feared it. And that was the point. It kept people quiet and protected people who didn’t deserve it.
Playing the part and getting labeled
As a young girl, I got to play every role at home. My growing-up nicknames were Dependable Daphne (hero), Devil Woman (villain), Taffy Apple (sweetheart) and Miss Goody Two Shoes (shrew). But my roles narrowed as I grew older.
However confusing being a girl was, adolescence was full of no-win, suck-no-matter-what “decisions” that’d usually be decided by an in-the-moment stirring drive for something I didn’t even know if I wanted.
Doherty’s Brenda character seemed most like me and my friends, a blend of ambition, insecurity and defiance, often leading to self-sabotage, making it hard to find a good friend—or to be one. Her storyline seemed familiar too.
Like Brenda, I was a naive, trying-too-hard new girl in high school. I also thought I could handle dating guys in their 20s. I eventually got stuck with a “bad-girl” label, as well a “crazy bitch” one—getting arrested, hanging out with hairbands and dropping out of high school (then returning). Like the 90210 characters, I was a high school junior for two seasons too.
Labels allow other people to tell a story about you that’s more about them—or the culture—than you. And maybe you end up believing them. I know I did (even when I thought I didn’t). Even “good” labels can make the messy process of finding your place in the world harder. In my relationships, I’m trying to use more neutral language and start from a place of curiosity. It helps conversations flow more naturally, feel more supportive and lead to better understanding.
Figuring out life would’ve been a lot harder in the spotlight. But today, almost anyone can feel in the spotlight. How much harder is it to move on, from anything?
Only the “he-said” side
I watched 90210’s pilot episode with my hairband boyfriend. Sitting next to his Tommy Lee thinness always made me self-conscious about my relative thigh spread, which broke the Barbie rule ingrained in me since childhood: The girl should always be thinner than the guy.
The Brenda subplot is the only one I remember. In case you don’t, here’s the summary:
Brenda is the new girl in high school after moving to Beverly Hills with her “Minnesota nice” family. Wanting to be popular, she joins the cool 90210 girls who try sneaking into an over-21 club using fake IDs. Brenda’s the only one that gets in. There, she meets a 25-year-old lawyer who she starts dating and then soon plans to have sex with. But before she does, she tells him her age. The guy gets pissed, belittles her, and threatens to sue her parents (whaat?). Then (best part), Brenda tells him off, slams the car door shut and walks away.
Watching TV with someone you’re dating is telling. Is their takeaway about what’s happening similar to yours? Do they side with the same character? And what do they think “should” happen?
I don’t know why I would be surprised. Still, somehow, I was when the guy I was dating commented that the lawyer guy should sleep with Brenda, knowing she’s 16 and almost a decade younger. I argued with him that Brenda was in over her head and not ready for that. Disturbingly—at that time—the age difference wasn’t considered morally problematic in my social circles, not to mention illegal, depending on the state you lived in.
What really bothered me then was that he couldn't see anything from Brenda’s perspective, which told me he’d never get mine either. As annoying as that was, I knew a lot of other people’s take would be just to call Brenda a slut. And I knew how it felt to wear a scarlet letter S. I got mine at 15.
Eventually, I came to this conclusion, writing in my diary a few years later:
I don’t really like meeting guys at parties cuz they’re usually drunk. It’s just so superficial and I can’t be even remotely interested in someone unless I have a real conversation with him to know what he’s like inside.
I was done with guys who only saw the “he said” perspective. And I gave up thinking I could “make” someone understand something they didn’t want to see. I was ready to move on. And since then, I’ve grown ready to move on from lots of other things too.
The “90s bad boy” was bad for them too
Bad boys were celebrated in the ‘90s. And “boys will be boys” meant almost anything was okay—as long as it was “all-boy.” But having to be “all-boy” caused a whole other set of harm and problems for guys I knew.
The 90210 guy characters seemed brotherly to me. Aside from Dylan, who didn’t look remotely high school age, the others were like background noise. My home was filled with brothers and their frat-boyish friends. They had sculpted short hair and shirtless GNC-ad-looking bodies wearing Z. Cavaricci’s and loads of Drakkar Noir. I never imagined dating guys like that.
I’m glad I grew up spending time with my brothers though. Beneath their “all-boy” facade, my brothers were even more sentimental and cat-cuddly than I was. But why was it so hard to share that side of them with the outside world?
I wrote about the costs of gender stereotyping here:
The double standards placed on me as a girl and later a woman were bad for my brothers too, but in different ways. It was a no-win for all but a “golden” few.
Learning from the past, not returning to it
Of course there are problems today too. There will always be problems. But looking for new solutions seems better than going back to old ways that caused bigger problems of their own.
For example, it’s true that loneliness is at epidemic levels. Instead of coercing or pressuring people into heterosexual marriage (which is horrible if you’ve ever been there or seen that happen), why not help people find, grow and maintain healthy relationships of all types?
Instead of pushing parenthood or trying to control other people’s bodies, why not help the many people who want to start or grow their families do so—without treating people who are parents as more important than those who aren’t? (Besides, it’s nobody else’s business.)
And why do anything but wholly encourage, help and support people to leave unsafe, abusive relationships? (I’m hearing some going-backwards talk on this topic in my Catholic circles—it’s dangerous and needs to end.)
Including—instead of excluding—respects and appreciates differences without needlessly creating divides.
Separating out people who have biological children from those who don’t is horrendous—for everyone. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my brother Patrick a few months before he unexpectedly died. He felt less valued in society because he wasn’t married and had no kids. And I could imagine feeling others judge me that way if I were him. Marriage and parenthood weirdly have credentialing qualities in many social circles.
The male counterpart stereotype to the “childless cat lady” (now boldly reclaimed!) is the “creepy guy that lives alone.” Judging, isolating and making assumptions of people about something that’s nobody’s business is mean and harmful. Also (potentially) harmful is trusting a “family man” for no other reason than him being married and having kids.
“We are not going back.”
Vice President Kamala Harris made a campaign stop here in Wisconsin last week. She said the most reassuring sentence I’ve heard in a long time (twice): “We are not going back. We are not going back.”
I say, hell yeah, never again. Because I remember “back then,” and a lot of it sucked—for most everyone. With 20th-century memories fading away, Gen Xers should lead now, before it’s too late.
Progress is hard to see, and backlashes are continual. The past is quickly forgotten, especially when memories are uncomfortable or painful. It’s surprising (and scary) how quickly something new can start feeling “normal,” even when it’s clearly wrong.
Gen Xers are a bridge generation. We have stories to tell that need to be remembered. Sharing stories about what life was like before helps. It makes the hard work of forging ahead more appealing than returning to a nostalgia for a better past that never existed “once upon a time”—even in Beverly Hills, 90210.
Next post: Gen X Health: What the Hell is Happening? (or something like that). I’m sure I’m noticing more Gen Xers newly diagnosed or suddenly gone because I am one. But, it seems like more than that.
“Voters will face important choices in the fall: Should we be a country where your reproductive rights depend on the state in which you live? Or should reproductive rights be codified into national law?” — an article I wrote for
, “Does the biological clock still matter? The Egg Whisperer weighs in”Practical and in-touch point-of-view and great interview.
