By Inês Schinazi
Our writer Ines Schinazi had interviewed the Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter Michael Winerip about his new column “Generation B.”
Ines: How did the idea for Generation B come about?
Michael Winerip: I am of that age, so these are things that interest me. I’ve been a reporter all my life. I’ve been able to pursue what I’ve been interested in.
I was writing a parenting column for the New York Times, from 2006-2008. I enjoyed that very much. I was going through what I would call one of my “high parenting moments.”
I have four kids, three were teenagers at the time, and [I had] lots of issues like teenage drinking…how to deal with curfews, how to deal with college.
Most of what I wrote about wasn’t about my family, only about 10 percent to 15 percent was. Most of the stuff I reported related to the things that interest me, about how other families handle themselves.
Three out of my four kids are now off at college. So I was less interested in writing a parenting column.
I went to talk the style editor of the Times…Trip Gabriel. He said, “I’ve always had this idea [about the baby boomer column] and don’t know quite what to do with it… “
My reaction was on one hand, “oh god!” It made me cringe! The baby boomers! The stereotype of baby boomers is selfish, consuming, rich, self-absorbed, spoiled…all those things.
But as a journalist, one of the things that has always interested me, is to kind of take something that’s not seen as that important or that interesting and put a close up lens on it and surprise people.
In other words to kind of do the obvious so it seems the obvious. And you know when I wrote the first column, I got a tremendous reaction, I never answered all of the e-mails.
There was a substantial number either from a generation younger or people close to my kids’ age, saying “Oh god! A self absorbed baby boomer column, just what the world needs!”
When I write the column 90 percent are about other people and 10 percent are about me.
The Style Section, which I write for skews very young. It’s probably the youngest, hippest, section of the Times. It’s a way of reaching across another group of readers.
So a lot of the columns are sort of counter intuitive and heavily reported. They kind of play against the stereotype.
One of the statistics in the first column, which I get a tremendous reaction to is that something like 20 percent of baby boomers are taking care of both their kids and their parents.
If it is indeed a selfish generation… that again goes against the grain. [The column] is an interesting prism to look at things.
One of the things I like about being a reporter is being surprised and I’m constantly being surprised.
Ines: In the article “Seven Snapshots of a changing era” you speak about how Peter Kennedy’s kids, though all baby boomers, had incredibly different life experiences, even saying that during the time they grew up, a year often felt like a generation.
One could argue, that generation Y has also grown up in a time where “a year feels like a generation” due to the constant evolution of technology…” Do you agree?
MW: I think you are absolutely right. A year is an enormous time in a young person’s life. I mean look at the difference between a kid graduating college in 2007 and a kid graduating in 2009, because of the economy. A year or two can make a big difference. All that said, the Kennedys also shared a lot, by being raised in that era and being raised by the parents they were raised by.
Ines: In your writing you use many of your personal experiences to illustrate just how much your generation didn’t and doesn’t want to repeat their parents’ mistakes.
Yet, precisely because of this fear, generation B has resorted to the other extreme of “over intensive parenting” and “helicopter parenting.” What are your thoughts on generation B’s parenting?
MW: In terms of parenting, every generation has a helicopter parent. I don’t think the helicopter parent is new. I think it’s because this generation of parents has more wealth so they are able to spend more time and money. I think a smart parent today is no different from what a smart parent was before.
Ines: The current economic crisis has made for some atypical situations when it comes to traditional power structures and hierarchies concerning generations.
You actually wrote about the abundance of baby boomers attending job fairs, and job searching alongside generation Y applicants. In a sense, the crisis has allowed different generations to mix together, breaking down the traditional hierarchy a bit.
In your opinion, will this generational “mixing” fortify or weaken the link between different generations in the workplace?
MW: I think it’ll fortify. I learn empathy from my kids. I see the world through their eyes too. That brings us together. I learn from my kids. There’s a lot of bridging across generations.
What fortified the gay revolution is that everyone knew a gay relative. The link between women fortified the women’s movement. The civil rights revolution came slower because whites and blacks didn’t mix enough. But generations mix all the time.
Ines: Like the economic crisis, technology’s speedy evolution has also deeply changed the traditional generational hierarchy.
Being digital natives, younger generations often have power and resources where older generations do not.
How do you think that this will impact our workplaces, our world, and intergenerational relationships in general?
MW: I’m in the Newspaper Business, which is affected by exactly what you are talking about. Younger generations don’t read the newspaper the way my wife and I read the newspaper. This is very much a generational thing.
Technology is wiping out newspapers. Now I have a lot of anger about that. I don’t have a lot of anger at my kids. I do feel resentment that we as a society, haven’t dealt with this problem. Are we going to have an economic model to support independent reporters who will challenge the government on a local, state, and federal level, [and] who will challenge companies?
I’m not mad because my kids don’t understand that the Internet isn’t truly free. The fact that they can go to the New York Times Website and get it all free is insane! I don’t blame my kids for that. I do blame the leaders of our society who are mostly from my generation, for not perceiving this as a problem that transcends the marketplace, and a problem that affects democracy.
I’m angry at a leadership and economy that can’t think out of the box. Can we live in a democracy without The New York Times, The Washington Post, [and] The Wall Street Journal? Can all these blogs replace this? I don’t think so.
What makes the New York times, the New York Times, is that they have about 500 people like me who they pay to write sometimes one story a week, sometimes two stories a year, that are extraordinary.
That costs time and money, and what’s going to happen if every blogger isn’t going to have the time for that? I really worry about our democracy, and I worry that our leaders haven’t given this enough thought. It’s not generational. It’s societal.
Ines: As a writer, do you think that the extreme technological advances have changed the manner in which you write? Has technology overflowed into your writing affecting your style and the art form of writing?
MW: No, but I’m very privileged. I’m still writing for the New York Times, and I’m not writing a blog.
I guess one thing that has changed is that I do write more personal stuff than the previous generation of New York Times writers. There is more personal stuff in the New York Times.
Most of the personal pieces which don’t take me as long to write, because I’ve been thinking about them for 25 years…get e-mailed highly.
What technology has changed is the creation of these blogs, and the blogs are highly personal. There is some reporting going on there, but for the most part the world of blogs is personal.
Anybody can do that. It doesn’t cost a lot of money. I think that this is having an effect on the demand for reporting. I think that our society is affected that way.
Ines: What do you think is the biggest difference between Generation Y and Generation B?
MW: Because my generation was such an incredible demographic… a large part of the population was doing the same thing at the same time.
Yeah, we were self absorbed, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and sex, in our early twenties and late teens… but that’s what people do at the age.
…I think the boomers were judged way early because they were such a numerous population…
They were characterized in this stereotype a lot, of these self absorbed, unattractive things, which were true, but are more about youth than they were about that generation.
