'Recession Babies' Will Be Boring But Sensible

Economic upheavals rear careful, dull generations
By Wesley Oliver,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 8, 2009 1:00 PM CDT
'Recession Babies' Will Be Boring But Sensible
Youth born during the Great Depression are called the Silent Generation, "the outwardly efficient types whose inner agonies the novel 'Revolutionary Road' would dissect," Kate Zernike says.   (AP Photo/Paramount Vantage, Francois Duhamel)

If history tells us anything, it’s that our modern “recession babies” will grow up to be risk-averse bores. “Today’s youngest children are being raised in the same kind of protective bubble as the Depression babies,” Kate Zernike explains in the New York Times. “They stroll in sidewalk versions of sport utility vehicles, learn to swim in UV protective full-body suits.”

But today’s high school and college students will be tomorrow’s innovators who create the infrastructures that will revive the US economy and pioneer the next digital frontier. Still, the stagnating economy will mark a return to humbler lifestyles for both groups. As one expert noted, “No one becomes mature without living through the pains and confusions of maturing experiences.”
(More youth stories.)

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