GenX Women are Sick of This Shit!
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© 2026 GenX Women are Sick of This Shit!
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GenX Women are Sick of This Shit is a nostalgic nod to the humans of GenX in the Midwest. Each episode, co-hosts Megan Bennett and Lesley Meier, have an ADHD driven conversation about GenX history and pop culture using their own lives and experiences growing up in Indianapolis as the backdrop. The podcast is a creative project inspired by the Facebook group 'GenX Women are Sick of This Shit', created by Megan Bennett in 2023. "Five Minutes of Fame" stories and "Dear GenX Women" letters are sent in by listeners and members of the Facebook group and are shared with consent. The original Facebook group is a mosh pit of menopausal women talking about all things GenX culture and life in the 70s, 80s and 90s as well as being a GenXer today. GenX Women are Sick of This Shit is part of Latchkey Kids Media, LLC where we make things we like because we want to. Copyright 2025, Latchkey Kids Media, LLC
42 Episodes
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HOST NOTE! You might notice we are late and you would be right! The pod is moving to monthly-ish! Life is pretty lifey right now and we need to change our pace in order to keep our heads above the waterline. We haven't gone away! So prepare to be as surprised as we are when we get a new episode up! Thanks for hanging around. We hope you like it here! Let's Goooooo! The week felt like DEFCON 3: coffee makers that require Bluetooth, websites freezing, a vacuum that quits before the box hi...
TW: Discussions related to the release of the Epstein files. On our listen back we realized this was a pretty tough conversation. We chose to leave it as it happened live. We can speak only to our own experiences and are not experts outside of that. This is a personal reflection from two Gen X cis white midwestern women's experience. The year has barely started and its a dumpster fire—snowbanks swallowing bumpers, headlines swallowing hope. We take that energy and point it at the news ...
Lesley & Megan here! Thanks so much for lending us your ears twice a month! Thank you to everyone in the Facebook group, our sisters in L.Y.L.A.S & everyone who has sent a comment or a text along the way. We really do have fun creating this pod twice a month. It is a labor of love and we hope that it helps you remember all the nostalgic random shit in your mind-tunnels as well. We will be back in the first quarter of 2026 some time. We are gonna take some time off to rest and re-charg...
We are back! Schedules - what can we say? Glad you're here to enjoy this little walk down memory lane! We are also happy to report we have made 4 of our six donations for the year! The final two are in process. Thanks to those of you who helped make this possible through your monthly membership and merch sales! The holidays bring out our best rituals and our strangest stories, so we leaned all the way in—burned-out schedules, half-dressed trees, and the secret rules of outdoor lights—be...
A dark afternoon, a good cider, and one glittering memory: the roller rink. We follow that spark into a full ride through roller skating’s wild history and why it mattered so much to Gen X. From a violin-playing inventor crashing into a mirror to James Plimpton’s quad revolution, we connect the dots between Victorian spectacle, postwar neon boxes, and the utilitarian warehouses that became our weekend temples. We talk about what those rinks gave us as kids: a semi-supervised freedom loop, a ...
TV static used to mean the world went quiet. We start there—two Gen X hosts trading dog stories and daylight saving brain fog—then pivot hard into Poltergeist, the 1982 suburban haunt that turned a living room ritual into a gateway for the uncanny. If you remember falling asleep to the national anthem and waking to snow on the screen, this breakdown will hit with a very specific chill. We dig into why Poltergeist still works: the time-capsule set design (Star Wars cases, Speak & Spell, A...
This episode was recorded remotely and there are changes in sound quality. We will be back in our usual digs next time! Megan and Lesley unpack the “poisoned candy” panic of the 70s & 80s , track its roots in one tragic crime and the Tylenol tampering case, and explore how fear reshaped Halloween traditions. We trade haunted house confessions, Irvington lore, Disney delight, and a saving-ghost story. • Irvington’s festival and neighborhood Halloween culture • Disney’s Haunted Mansion and...
A caregiver makes a hard call, the internet sharpens its knives, and an entire generation remembers the day a teacher aimed to teach from orbit. We kick off with real talk about Emma Heming Willis, the relentless scrutiny women face around caregiving, and why “do everything alone” is a dangerous myth. From online backlash to real-world limits—Medicaid cuts, underpaid care workers, and families stretched thin—we pull the conversation back to compassion, resources, and the right to choose what ...
Welcome back! On "Who Died This Week?" Megan and Lesley talk about the ever so talented and foxy, Robert Redford (1936-2025) (though we have a terrible time remembering his filmography). In this latest episode Megan asks, "Where were you when Reagan was shot?" For many Gen X kids, the 1981 assassination attempt marks our first collective news trauma—that shocking moment when regular programming was interrupted and the world seemed to pause. What began as a routine presidential appeara...
Remember when your Dungeons & Dragons dice might summon demons and heavy metal albums contained secret Satanic messages? If you grew up in the 1980s, you lived through one of America's strangest cultural moments – the Satanic Panic. We're taking a deep dive into this bizarre phenomenon that had parents checking under beds for devil worshippers and police departments training officers to spot "occult crime" using horror paperbacks as manuals. From the infamous McMartin preschool trial tha...
Remember when summer vacation actually lasted until Labor Day? When your biggest back-to-school worry wasn't active shooter drills but whether your Trapper Keeper matched your folders? We're diving deep into the nostalgia of Gen X school experiences this week as we honor the passing of Loni Anderson and reflect on the holiday weekend that once marked the true end of summer. Our conversation meanders through the hallowed halls of department stores past – from Lazarus to Montgomery Ward, from ...
Remember that moment when your neighbor invited you over for "just wine and apps with the girls," only to ambush you with a sales pitch for overpriced leggings or miracle vitamins? You're not alone. In this episode, we dive deep into the cultural phenomenon of multi-level marketing schemes that targeted Gen X women throughout the 80s, 90s, and beyond. From Tupperware parties our mothers hosted to the Mary Kay consultants with their pink Cadillacs, these pyramid-shaped businesses promised fin...
What happens when the stars who shaped our childhoods turn out to be deeply flawed, problematic, or even criminal? Megan and Lesley dive deep into the emotional complexity of reconciling nostalgic memories with disturbing revelations about our once-beloved celebrities. Fresh from their summer break, they tackle this thorny subject through the lens of recent celebrity deaths – particularly Hulk Hogan, whose passing stirred up complicated feelings given his history of racist comments. This kic...
Enjoy this episode from last summer while we get our shit together and take some vacations! We take a nostalgic dive into the world of soap operas and their impact on Gen X women's lives, exploring both daytime dramas and primetime sensations that dominated television from the 1970s through the 1990s. • Daytime soaps like General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, and Young and the Restless provided entertainment primarily for stay-at-home mothers • Famous stars including Rick Springfield, J...
Need a summer laugh while we take a quick breather? Lesley's holding down the fort this week as Megan vacations with the mouse at Disney, and she's got some hot recommendations from our back catalog to keep you entertained. The summer heat is no match for perimenopausal hot flashes, and Lesley candidly admits she's feeling a bit exhausted this July. Rather than cobbling together new content, she's pointing listeners to some gems from last summer – specifically Episode 5, "Life, Death and Dis...
Remember when your parents smoked in the car with the windows up? When teachers could paddle students in front of the class? When asbestos was in our schools and lead was in our paint? Megan and Lesley strip away the nostalgia to examine the genuinely problematic aspects of growing up in the 70s and 80s that shaped our generation. Following their catch-up on recent life changes, the hosts pay tribute to recently departed musical icons Sly Stone and Brian Wilson, then celebrate the 50th anniv...
Remember when summer lasted forever? Megan and Lesley take you back to those glorious days when school let out on Memorial Day and didn't resume until after Labor Day—a true three-month break that today's kids can only dream about. The hosts share their wildly different summer experiences, from Megan's structured daycare and camp life to Lesley's rural gardening adventures and theater camps. They reminisce about the sensory touchstones of Gen X summers: the distinctive sound of approaching i...
Remember when a birthday party meant friends, pizza, and a Mylar balloon that floated in your house for months? When financial advice was more reassuring than "we just don't know"? When the sound of race cars echoed through an entire city on Memorial Day weekend? In this episode, Megan and Lesley dive into the unique experience of growing up as latchkey kids in the 1980s—a generation whose parents were busy "doing shit" and sometimes forgot we existed. The conversation takes a timely turn wh...
Megan and Lesley dive into the surprising disconnect between celebrity ages and our mental images of them, sparked by discovering Kurt Loder recently turned 80 years old. • Lesley shares her harrowing experience with a stomach virus that left her with a "puke baby" • Discussion of the new American Pope Leo XIV, his Midwestern roots, and what his selection might signify about America's changing global position • Revelation that Kermit the Frog is 70 years old while Miss Piggy is only 50, crea...
Remember when Friday nights didn't require checking your phone every five minutes? When plans were made in person at school and then you just showed up somewhere? Megan and Lesley take us back to their teenage weekend rituals in the 1980s and early '90s, and the nostalgia hits like a caffeine rush from those bottomless Perkins coffees (or teas) we all drank at 2am. With their new vintage bar setup as the perfect backdrop, the hosts trade stories about the weekend social rituals that defined ...
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