I enjoyed John Lanchester’s article on the generation gap (Did baby boomers eat all the pies? John Lanchester on the truth about the generation gap, 8 March). As a university lecturer, I spend a lot of time in class unpicking statistics and received wisdom, including narratives such as intergenerational rivalry, which is more complex than it first seems. I often feel that we are too shortsighted in our intergenerational discussions.
As a gen Xer, I’ve often discussed my experiences as a young adult, which, as Lanchester points out, share many parallels with today’s gen Z. In heritage management classes, I ask students about their parents and grandparents. We compare experiences with those of the first and second world war generations, then that of our great-grandparents. Mine were born in 1879, were lacemakers in Essex, had a pea field, made turnip dollies and sent their sons to Haberdashers’ School in London to better themselves.
