The 13th Generation (Nomad, born 1961-1981) survived a “hurried” childhood of divorce, latchkeys, open classrooms, devil-child movies, and a shift from G to R ratings.  They came of age curtailing the earlier rise in youth crime and fall in test scores—yet heard themselves denounced as so wild and stupid as to put The Nation At Risk.  As young adults, maneuvering through a sexual battlescape of AIDS and blighted courtship rituals—they date and marry cautiously.  In jobs, they embrace risk and prefer free agency over loyal corporatism.  From grunge to hip-hop, their splintery culture reveals a hardened edge.  Politically, they lean toward pragmatism and nonaffiliation, and would rather volunteer than vote.  Widely criticized as “Xers” or “slackers,” they inhabit a Reality Bites economy of declining young-adult living standards.  (AMERICAN: Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster, Michael Dell, Deion Sanders, Winona Ryder, Quentin Tarantino; FOREIGN: Princess Di, Alanis Morissette)

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