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Back in 1988, pre-Jada and -ID4 Will Smith had his first hitsong, "Parents Just Don't Understand." We laughed andacknowledged our survival of similar situations--getting busted forusing the car without permission, parents dressing us in stylesfrom the previous decade. But a funny thing happened: Even thoughwe're older now and starting our own families, westilldon't understand our parents.
Gen X and Gen Y have led an entirely different existence thanour boomer predecessors. Life without a PC or VCR? May as well havebeen born in the Dark Ages. Watergate? Oh yeah, I saw that movieDick. OK, maybe the differences aren't that extreme, butJ. Walker Smith, president of research firm Yankelovich and authorofRocking the Ages: The Yankelovich Report on GenerationalMarketing(HarperBusiness, $15, 800-331-3761), offers thispolitically correct explanation of generations: "Baby boomersgrew up as the Watergate generation: The more you find out, themore you want to know. Xers grew up as the Iran-Contra generation:The more you find out, the less you know. And echo boomers [Gen Y]are the Monica Lewinsky generation: The more you find out, the lessyouwantto know."
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