While the generations align less and less over time in my definition, it on average stays very accurate since most human life cycles align pretty closely, especially considering female fertility usually starts at puberty (but is very rarely utilized in developed nations before 18) and declines between ages 30 and 50 I still think it's a really weak definition if you give out arbitrary date ranges which inevitably leads to random smaller generational definitions and too many varying opinions on what generation starts or ends where.

Nobody is becoming a grandparent at 30 unless they had kids at an age that depicts failure of a society, for example age 15 and their kids had kids at 15, which is very very far from average or even a sizeable demographic unless you're a family of 16th century nobles.

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I still think it's a really weak definition if you give out arbitrary date ranges which inevitably leads to random smaller generational definitions and too many varying opinions on what generation starts or ends where.

The point of generational cohorts like millennials or the silent generation is that being born at a particular time in history has an affect on people.

The silent generation's earliest memories were depression and war. The great recession impacted millennials in their early career or in high school.

Age ranges captures that and makes it easy to measure things without having to find out when someone's great grandparents were born.

And yeah, 30's on the young side. Lauren Boebert was in the news recently as a teen mother who became a grandmother at age 36.

Your definition slips pretty quickly, though. Some siblings have really long age gaps. Some women first give birth at 18 or 19, others not til they're 40.

[–] doctorcrimson@lemmy.today -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It doesn't really "slip pretty quickly", it slips over the course of many generations. The average is close enough that extreme cases can be sorted into outliers. My definition still very clearly describes people growing up in different historical eras the same as the other does, it simply takes away the self-identification privileges that these other commenters prefer.

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The average really isn't close enough that you only need to consider outliers.

Two generations of 30 year old first time mothers fit into the same time as three generations of 20 year old first time mothers.

Neither of those cases is an outlier, and that's slip in only two/three generations.

[–] doctorcrimson@lemmy.today -1 points 1 year ago

Oh wow only three generations and it now overlaps slightly less than the vast majority of people, sounds like an outlier.