Young Xers thus acquired the child-of-divorce syndrome on a grand scale: the feeling that they were the reason why no one thought much of them and why everyone was so unhappy—after all, America was doing great until they came along. Low collective self-esteem became one of their primary peer personality traits. “We’re rotten to the core,” sang the thug-boys in Bugsy Malone. “We’re the very worst—each of us contemptible, criticized, and cursed.” Sixteen years later, from their dingy basement, Wayne and Garth famously chanted, “We’re not worthy!” As novelist David Leavitt observed, “Mine is a
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