Can we say that the "Generation X" is the second "Silent Generation"?

[buritobr]

Both generations are smaller than the baby boomers and the millennials in the USA (see this chart http://demographymatters.blogspot.com.br/2010/04/baby-boom-narrative-flawed.html)
We don't hear too much about the Silent and the X. We hear a lot about the baby boomers and the millennials. Both baby boomers and millennials have lovers and haters. There are no lovers or haters of the Silent and of the X.
Both generations were born during a crisis time in the USA, 1930s and 1970s, when the birth rates were low. Both generations became young adults in a time of prosperity.

[Sumner 1868]

There are no lovers or haters of the Silent and of the X.

Xers got lots of hate in the 80s and 90s. Silents weren't especially well-regarded for much of the 50s.

[Mr. Smith]

The game of generations has always been one between the college graduates vs the newly retired.

Silenters who aren't dead have been out of the game for a while and have little to lose, for they don't depend on other people's work anymore.

And Xers are in steady jobs and thus not dependent on networking or what others think of 'em to rise.

And Z'ers are still children.

But Millennials and Boomers are both dependent on others support and thus need to justify themselves at the expense of the other.

Give it a decade and it'll be X'ers complaining about Z'ers, and vice versa

[Ban my account ffs!]

The Xers were raised largely by Silent Generation parents.  They were demonized as children (think movies like Problem Child, Home Alone, etc).

Strauss and Howe theory would say the silents grew up in a time of societal insularity and crisis and parents were very protective of their children in such an environment.

Gen X on the other hand was raised in a period of awakening where parents were far less concerned about their kids... hence all the babysitters and date night for mom and dad.. or mom and dad going on vacation for a week and leaving the kids at home.. etc etc.

This leads one generation to try and make up for the perceived shortcomings of their parents generation.. which might explain why everything today is "but think of the children!"

Millennials grew up with excessively materialistic, individualistic baby boomers... and want to live in tiny houses and shirk materialism and do everything together.

Of course it is all actually fluid... but in general society has become more protective of children since the 70s and we're probably at the opposite end of that cycle now and things will probably reverse at some point soon.

[Beet]

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

that's another thing Generation X and the silent generation have in common. both of them produced great musicians.

[buritobr]

that's another thing Generation X and the silent generation have in common. both of them produced great musicians.

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morison were born before 1945, but it is hard to consider that they were "silent", since we listen to them a lot.
They are culturally Baby Boomers.
Some people think that it is better to consider the Baby Boomers the ones who were born between 1940 and 1960, and not between 1946 and 1964. The Baby Boom in the developed world took place between 1946 and 1964. But there are more cultural similarities in the ones who were born between 1940 and 1960. Someone who was born in the early 1960s already looks like an X.