Editing Silent Generation (section)

====In adulthood====
[[File:Joe Biden presidential portrait.jpg|thumb| 46th [[United States|U.S.]] president [[Joe Biden]] (2021–2025<!-- 2025 -->) is a member of the Silent Generation.]]
From their childhood experiences during the Depression and the example of frugality set by their parents, Silents tended to be thrifty and even miserly, preferring to maximize a product's lifespan, i.e., "get their money's worth." This led some members of the Silent Generation to develop [[hoarding]] behaviors in the guise of "not being wasteful."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kane |first=Sally |date=April 4, 2022 |title=Common Workplace Characteristics of the Traditionalist Generation |url=https://www.thebalancecareers.com/workplace-characteristics-silent-generation-2164692 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220404210709/https://www.thebalancecareers.com/workplace-characteristics-silent-generation-2164692 |archive-date=April 4, 2022 |access-date=April 4, 2022 |website=The Balance Careers }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Abramson |first=Alexis |author-link=Alexis Abramson |date=July 3, 2018 |title=The Silent Generation Characteristics and Facts You Need to Know |url=https://www.alexisabramson.com/the-silent-generation-characteristics-and-facts-you-need-to-know/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230084213/https://www.alexisabramson.com/the-silent-generation-characteristics-and-facts-you-need-to-know/ |archive-date=December 30, 2019 |access-date=April 4, 2022 |website=Dr.Alexis}}</ref>

As with their own parents, Silents tended to marry and have children young. American Silents are noted as being the youngest of all American generations in the age of marriage and parenthood. As young parents, the older members of this generation primarily produced the [[Generation Jones|later]] [[Baby Boomers]], while younger members of the generation and older members who held off raising a family until later in life gave birth to [[Generation X]]. Whereas divorce in the eyes of the previous generation was considered aberrant behavior, the Silents were the generation that reformed marriage laws to allow for divorce and lessen the stigma. This led to a historically unprecedented wave of divorces among Silent Generation couples in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://rocketswag.com/elderly/generation/silent-generation/Divorce-In-The-Silent-Generation.html|title=Divorce In The Silent Generation|website=rocketswag|access-date=June 29, 2020|archive-date=September 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200926123836/http://rocketswag.com/elderly/generation/silent-generation/Divorce-In-The-Silent-Generation.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Critics of the theory that Silents tend towards conformity and playing it safe note that, at least in the United States, leaders of 1960s-era rebellion/innovation/protest such as [[Muhammad Ali]], [[Bob Dylan]], [[Noam Chomsky]], [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], and [[Jimi Hendrix]] were members of the Silent Generation, and not [[Baby Boomers]], for whom these figures were heroes, although the majority of their followers were Boomers.<ref name="Menand-2021" /> While seven [[List of presidents of the United States by age|Presidents of the United States]] were members of the [[Greatest Generation]] ([[John F. Kennedy]], [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], [[Richard Nixon]], [[Gerald Ford]], [[Jimmy Carter]], [[Ronald Reagan]], and [[George H. W. Bush]]); four presidents have been Baby Boomers ([[Bill Clinton]], [[George W. Bush]], [[Barack Obama]] and [[Donald Trump]]); two presidents were members of the [[Lost Generation]] ([[Harry S. Truman]]; and [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]), only one President, [[Joe Biden]], has been a member of the Silent Generation.

As a birth cohort, Silents never rose in protest as a unified political entity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/silent-generation-it-over/|title=Closing The Book On The Silent Generation|website=[[National Review]]|date=February 15, 2016|access-date=April 15, 2018|archive-date=March 23, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220323231419/https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/silent-generation-it-over/|url-status=live}}</ref> Widely seen as "following the rules" and benefiting from stable wealth creation,  their Boomer and Gen X children would become estranged from them due to their different views regarding social issues of the day and their relatively decreased economic opportunity, creating a different generational [[zeitgeist]]. For example, the Boomer children were instrumental in bringing about the [[counterculture of the 1960s]], and the rise of left wing, liberal views considered [[anti-establishment]], which went directly against the "work within the system" approach that many Silents had practiced. [[Generation X|Gen X]] children grew up in the 1970s and 1980s with the threat of [[nuclear warfare|nuclear annihilation]] hanging over them and a resultant bleak view of the future, contributing to their generational disaffection, in contrast to the optimistic outlook of their Silent Generation parents.<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Generation X, the Cold War and faith |last=Jenkins |first=Paula |magazine=catapult magazine |date=July 7, 2011 |volume=10 |issue=12 |url=http://www.catapultmagazine.com/my-generation/article/generation-x-the-cold-war-and-faith/ |access-date=January 19, 2023 |archive-date=January 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230119150626/http://www.catapultmagazine.com/my-generation/article/generation-x-the-cold-war-and-faith/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The style of parenting from the [[Lost Generation]] or the [[Interbellum Generation]] (older members of the [[Greatest Generation]]), was known to the Silents and the generations before them originated in the late 1800s, when the Lost Gens were Children or Teenagers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Child-Rearing Practices in the 1800s |last=O'Driscoll |first=Nicole |website=How To Adult |date=April 18, 2017 |url=https://howtoadult.com/childrearing-practices-1800s-8084427.html |access-date=January 19, 2023 |archive-date=September 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220930012116/https://howtoadult.com/childrearing-practices-1800s-8084427.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Representative of this was the idea that "children should be seen but not heard". These ideas were ultimately challenged following the 1946 publication of the book ''[[The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care]]'' by [[Benjamin Spock]], which influenced some Boomers' views on parenting and family values when they became parents themselves.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/baby-boomer-parents/|title=This is How the Greatest Generation Ruined the Baby Boomers|date=April 28, 2018|website=Fatherly|access-date=January 19, 2023|archive-date=January 19, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230119150629/https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/baby-boomer-parents|url-status=live}}</ref> The book also influenced how Baby Boomers were parented. These less-restrictive behavioral standards, seen as overly permissive by the Silents, further estranged those Boomers from their parents and, among other things, gave rise in the 1970s to the term [[generation gap]]. This was to describe the initial conflict of cultural values between the Silents and their [[Generation Jones]]er (younger Baby Boomers) and to a lesser extent, their [[Generation X]] children in the 1980s, although it wasn't quite as extreme as it was between the [[Greatest Generation]] and the "Leading Edge Boomers", (older Baby Boomers) in the 1960s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/generation-gap|title=Definition of generation gap &#124; Dictionary.com|website=www.dictionary.com|access-date=January 19, 2023|archive-date=February 5, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205212026/https://www.dictionary.com/browse/generation-gap|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Furlong>{{cite book|last1=Furlong|first1=Andy|title=Youth Studies: An Introduction|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|isbn=978-0-415-56479-3|page=12}}</ref>