11 Things Gen X Girls Were Taught That Turned Out To Be Completely Wrong
Reality really does bite.
Nenad Nedomacki / Shutterstock Gen X girls were born between 1965 and 1980, which makes them between 44 and 59 years old today. Growing up in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, Gen X girls watched their moms go to work outside the home, modeling the idea that women can do anything and leading Gen X girls to grow up believing that they can — and should — have it all.
But as Gen X knows, reality bites, and many of the things Gen X girls were taught back then turned out to be completely wrong. Positive psychology coach Kira Sabin points out that as she and other Gen X women enter middle age, they’ve realized they were taught to aim for impossible standards. They were told that being their authentic selves would push potential romantic partners away. So many Gen X girls put themselves into boxes that didn’t let them grow, and now, as grown women, they’re learning that the many lessons they believed weren’t actually healthy for them at all.
Here are 11 things Gen X girls were taught that turned out to be completely wrong
1. Asking for what you need makes you seem needy
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Gen X girls learned that asking for what you need makes you needy, and it turns out, that’s completely wrong. Asking for what you need makes you a human. Everyone on this earth has needs, and asking for your needs to be met is part of being a whole-hearted person who honors themselves.
As coach Kira Sabin pointed out, “I feel like I have been spending years gut-checking my beliefs and realizing a bunch of the ideas I was sold were based in old-school misogyny and were keeping me in a fear [and] scarcity place.”
Gen X girls learned the lesson that speaking up or voicing their needs made them seem needy, and that neediness would make people leave them. That mindset taught Gen X girls to stay quiet and push their emotions aside, which only leads to resentment and feeling unfulfilled. Now, Gen X girls are women who are learning to express what they need, and they’re not compromising any part of themselves for anyone else.
2. Having a bigger body means no one will love you
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Gen X girls were taught that having a bigger body was unacceptable. They were taught that a bigger body meant you were undeserving of love, which cut down their basic humanity and their right to be accepted and embraced for exactly who they were. The lesson that not fitting into impossibly high beauty standards was detrimental to so many Gen X girls, who are only now releasing that mindset.
We are all so much more than the bodies we carry, and learning to love ourselves fully means accepting our perceived flaws and imperfections. As writer and editor Rebecca Jane Stokes shares,”We are born into our bodies, which tends to me that we don't give them a second thought or care. But what if we treated our bodies the way we would the person with whom we chose to enter into a marriage?”
She quotes YourTango CEO Andrea Miller’s book, “Radical Acceptance: The Secret To Happy, Lasting Love,” sharing Miller’s definition of the concept of radical acceptance.
“Radical acceptance means loving someone fully for who he or she really is — flaws, shortcomings, weaknesses, warts, and all. It signifies loving someone without judgment. It is love filled with empathy and compassion,” Miller wrote. “Radical acceptance is the essence of unconditional love. It creates so much safety that the "love" can truly be him or herself. To radically accept someone means: I know of your flaws, failures, weaknesses, and shortcomings. I still love you."
Stokes notes that while Miller’s description of radical acceptance refers to being in a relationship, everyone is in a relationship with themselves and their bodies, as well. “Radically accepting my body doesn't mean that I'm not open to my body changing. That's what bodies, like the people inside of them, do,” Stokes concludes.
It might take time for Gen X girls to unlearn the toxic message they received and radically accept themselves, but the journey is entirely worth embarking on.
3. If you’re too successful, men will be intimidated by you
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Another thing Gen X girls were taught that turned out to be completely wrong is that being too successful made men feel intimidated. They were told that valuing a man’s opinion of them was the most important thing, even more important than how they viewed and valued themselves. As a result, Gen X girls shrunk themselves down as a way to cater to the men in their lives, which meant they weren’t living up to the truest version of themselves or letting themselves bloom fully.
As business and life coach Pat Magerkurth explains, “Often, we make choices based on what we think others want us to do, or what we think we should do.”
“Showing up and being authentic means we must think clearly about what we value, want, and need for our well-being. This doesn’t mean making choices without considering others. It means our needs are a big part of our choices,” she concludes.
And in fact, a 2019 study of 3,600 Tinder profiles found no evidence that men are intimidated by highly educated women.
Gen X girls and women who discarded their own needs and life goals to make themselves acceptable for men lost a major part of who they are. That erosion of their identity meant they weren’t taking up the space that they deserved. Every person is allowed to exist authentically, which Gen X women are figuring out how to do.
4. Sharing your feelings scares people away
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Gen X girls were taught that sharing your feelings scares people away, which turned out to be completely wrong. They learned to push their emotional needs down, so they seemed like that cool, effortless girl. They learned that being easy-going was desirable, and that it meant never sharing how they really felt.
Yet by pretending they didn’t have feelings, they lost touch with a vital part of themselves. Well-being expert Tchiki Davis explains that an “important step to being ourselves is showing our vulnerability,” something that can be very difficult to do.
“Most of us don’t really want to show the parts of us that we don’t like — the parts that scare us or make us feel ashamed, embarrassed, or weak,” Davis shares. “It’s not so easy to share these parts of ourselves. We worry: What if others change their opinion of us, reject us, or abandon us?”
That fear of rejection lies at the root of the hesitation Gen X women feel when they share their true feelings. “It’s scary to be so openly vulnerable,” Davis acknowledges. “It’s like opening up an old wound and telling others right where to poke you. But to fully be ourselves we have to be our full selves.”
“We can’t just pick and choose the parts that we like; we can’t just show the manicured, photoshopped version of ourselves. So we have to be vulnerable from time to time,” she concludes. Being vulnerable is a muscle that can be built up with practice, and the only way to get better is to dive into your feelings, open up, and release them.
5. If a boy is mean to you that means he likes you
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Another thing Gen X girls were taught that turned out to be completely wrong is that if a boy is being mean to you, it means he likes you. Gen X girls across America were told by their teachers, parents, and peers that a mean boy was a boy who actually liked you, he just didn’t know how to show it. So, Gen X girls let the boys sitting behind them in class pull their braids and insult their self-esteem because gaining a boy’s affection was the most important thing they could do.
That mentality was toxic and just plain wrong. If a boy is being mean to you, that means he’s a bully. When someone genuinely likes you, they show you kindness, compassion and respect. They don’t tease you on the playground or make fun of you in the lunch line, in front of your whole class. It’s completely wrong that Gen X girls were taught to equate meanness with affection and care.
6. Men don’t feel their emotions as deeply as women do
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Gen X girls were taught that men don’t feel as deeply as women do, so they should never ask men who they’re feeling or expect them to express any emotion. This mentality basically taught Gen X girls to settle for less than they deserve when it came to romantic relationships.
In that era, it might have been acceptable to see men as a separate kind of creature who magically doesn’t feel anything, but now, we know that was completely wrong. Of course, men feel deeply. Everyone feels deeply: It’s part of being alive and being in relationships with other people. Yet being unable or unwilling to express how you feel will eventually sabotage your partnership, and any relationship you have.
Men and women may process emotions differently, but that doesn't mean one feels them more deeply than the other.
As licensed clinical social worker Terry Gaspard points out, “self-sufficiency and autonomy can help us weather the storms of life, they can also rob us of true intimacy. For a relationship to be balanced, partners must be able to depend on one another and feel that they are needed and appreciated for the support they give.”
“Opening up to our partner can make us feel vulnerable and exposed, but vulnerability in a relationship is the most important ingredient of having a trusting, intimate companion. Vulnerability is often seen as a weakness, but it's a strength,” she concludes.
As Gaspard makes clear, being vulnerable is the foundation of any healthy relationship, which is why the lesson that Gen X girls were taught about boys not having a full range of feelings was completely wrong.
7. You have to meet all your partner’s needs for them to stay
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Another thing Gen X girls were taught that turned out to be completely wrong was that they had to meet every need their partner had in order for them to stay in the relationship.
Gen X girls became women who learned to blame themselves when their partners treated them poorly or acted in ways that damaged the core of their relationship. This inherently incorrect lesson was a double-edged sword. Gen X girls learned that their partners would leave if they didn’t get their needs met, but they were also taught to never ask their partners how they feel, or they would leave. Whatever Gen X girls did, it was either too much or not enough, and both were their fault.
Gen X women are now working to undo years of damage that lesson caused, because it turned out to be completely wrong.
8. It’s your job to smile and put on a happy face
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Gen X girls were taught it was their lot in life to smile and act happy, no matter what. As adults, this meant they masked their true feelings. Even if everything was falling apart around them or they felt like they were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, they shouldn’t let anyone know. Gen X women were taught to handle everything on their own, which means they struggle, even now, to ask for the help they need.
Mindfulness coach Moira Hutchinson touches on the reasons why asking for help is actually such a good thing. She notes that by asking for help, “You enhance your relationships.”
“When you request aid from a friend or relative, they feel emotionally closer to you,” Hutchinson explains, which builds on the idea that we need to show vulnerability to make true connections. “Giving and receiving help can enrich your life,” she concludes. “You'll strengthen your relationships and be a better person for it.”
While asking for help might not be easy for Gen X women because they were taught that asking for help made them weak, the reality is that asking for help shows how strong they really are.
9. If you’re not ‘good enough’ you’ll never find love
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Gen X girls were taught that they would never find love if they weren’t “good enough,” which turned out to be completely wrong. This lesson goes against essential human truths: We are all enough. We are all deserving of love. We need to be good enough, only for ourselves and our sense of self-love and self-compassion, which means learning how to be our authentic selves.
Career and management consultant Ruth Schimel shares that “living a life aligned with your true self asserts your authentic power.”
“See it as a process of becoming, for listening and expressing your true voice. That will keep you motivated, successful, and in professional and personal relationships that bring meaning and pleasure,” she suggests.
10. Speaking up will make you seem like ‘too much’
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Another thing Gen X girls were taught that turned out to be completely wrong is that speaking their minds or sharing their opinions made them “too much,” when really, it just made them whole people with a full range of experiences and rich inner lives.
There’s a lot wrong with that mindset, starting with the idea that girls and women need to base their sense of self-worth and define their value based on what men want from them. By internalizing this negative message, Gen X girls continuously put themselves second and didn’t own their wins or claim their victories.
11. You can have it all
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Gen X girls were taught that they can have it all, which turned out to be completely wrong. In their pursuit of leaning in and aiming to have it all, Gen X women walked a path straight to total emotional burnout. They lost any sense of balance they had and they lost their true purpose and true selves while trying to do an impossible thing.
Yet having it all is less important than living a life that’s aligned with your authentic self. As life coach Lisa Petsinis advises, “Connect to what matters to you.”
“Before you can do that, you have to spend time getting to know yourself, looking into your heart and connecting to what matters. This means delving into your values, needs, talents, passions, and purpose. Recognize when you feel in alignment and honor yourself by consciously creating your life.”
Trying to have it all is a flawed mentality that Gen X girls were taught and only by reclaiming the lives they actually want will they start the path toward healing.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.